Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday March 5 2007 - (813)

Monday March 5 2007 edition
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Veterans: 'It's Not Just Walter Reed' 2007-03-05 03:20:36 Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Health Care Across U.S. Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, California, to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own V.A. hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken. "It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again." Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories - their own versions, not verified - of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets. Read The Full Story Shell Safety Record In North Sea Takes Hammering 2007-03-05 03:19:57 Shell has been repeatedly warned by Britain's Health and Safety Executive about the poor state of its North Sea platforms, according to information obtained by the Guardian newspaper. The company's dismal record undermines Shell's public commitment to improve its performance after a fatal explosion on the Brent field in the North Sea in 2003 and raises further concerns about Britain's ageing oil and gas equipment. As recently as November 13, Shell - one of Britain's largest companies - was served with a rebuke and a legal notice that it was failing to operate safely. "Shell have failed to implement a suitably resourced maintenance regime to achieve compliance with their maintenance strategy. This has led to an excessive backlog of maintenance activities for safety critical equipment," says the HSE's improvement notice number 300463514, covering the Clipper 48 platform in the southern North Sea. Read The Full Story Official Report Says U.S. CO2 To Rise By 20% 2007-03-05 03:18:33 A draft report prepared by the Bush administration admits that emissions of greenhouse gases by the United States will rise by 2020 to 20% above 2000 levels, flying in the face of warnings from scientists that drastic action to cut emissions is needed if environmental catastrophe is to be averted. The internal administration report, which has been obtained by the Associated Press, should have been handed to the United Nations more than a year ago as part of the world body's monitoring of climate change, but its publication has been delayed. The draft estimates that U.S. emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, largely from the burning of oil, coil and natural gas, will rise from 7.7 billion tons in 2000 to 9.2 billion tons in 2020 - an increase of 19.5%. The growth is in line with expectations, but underlines how out of kilter the U.S. government is with world opinion and efforts to tackle climate change. The Kyoto protocol, which the Bush administration has refused to ratify partly on the grounds that it would damage the U.S. economy, demands of most developed countries that they reduce their 1990 emissions levels by 5% by 2012. The U.S. produces about a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide and other gases believed responsible for warming the world's atmosphere. Environmentalists and green groups say that if irreversible global warming is to be avoided far more stringent targets should be set than even those proposed under the Kyoto protocol, which came into force two years ago. On April 14 campaigners will be demonstrating in cities across the U.S. to call for 80% cuts by 2050. Read The Full Story Nuclear Expert: Attack On Iran Would Backfire 2007-03-05 03:17:27 Any military action against Iran's atomic program is likely to backfire and accelerate Tehran's development of a nuclear bomb, a report Monday by a British former nuclear weapons scientist warns. In his report, Frank Barnaby argues that air strikes, reportedly being contemplated as an option by the White House, would strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners, unite the Iranian population behind a bomb, and would almost certainly trigger an underground crash program to build a small number of warheads as quickly as possible. "As soon as you start bombing you unite the population behind the government," Dr. Barnaby told the Guardian. "Right now in Iran, there are different opinions about all this, but after an attack you would have a united people and a united scientific community." Read The Full Story 'Space Weather' Forecasting Gets A Cosmic Boost 2007-03-05 03:16:45 Weather forecasting just isn't what it used to be. With thousands of satellites orbiting Earth, with astronauts living in the international space station and perhaps venturing later to the moon and Mars, and with nations utterly dependent on space-based assets for their communications, navigation and spying, those responsible for the safety of all these moving parts need to know about a whole new world of weather conditions. How are the solar winds blowing? Are very-high-energy particles from eruptions or flares on the sun heading toward Earth? Will related geomagnetic storms disrupt Earth's magnetic field? Might X-rays from the sun cause radio blackouts? These questions and more must constantly be answered to keep astronauts safe, to keep essential satellites from having their computer memories and power systems fried and to prevent damaging surges in Earth's elaborate electric grids. Read The Full Story FDA May OK Cow Antibiotic Despite Fears Of Human Risk 2007-03-04 16:09:21 The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people. The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals. The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people. Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Delaware, to market the drug for cattle. Read The Full Story Inmates To Replace Migrants In Colorado Fields 2007-03-04 16:07:54 As migrant laborers flee Colorado because of tough new immigration restrictions, worried farmers are looking to prisoners to fill their places in the fields. In a pilot program run by the state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state. Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, said corrections officials. Concerned about the possible shortage of field labor, Dorothy B. Butcher, a state representative from Pueblo and a supporter of the program, said, “The workers on these farms do the weeding, the harvesting, the storing, everything that comes with growing crops for the market.” “If we can’t sustain our work force, we’re going to be in trouble,” said Butcher, a Democrat. Read The Full Story	Correction: This Could Become A Crash After All 2007-03-05 03:20:15 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott, writing from London, England. In his column, Mr. Elliott writes that, as traders brace for fresh economic turmoil, soothing words may simply be hiding reality. Mr. Elliott's column follows: With his low opinion poll ratings, George Bush needs a crash on Wall Street like a hole in the head. The days are ticking away towards the end of his presidency and the Pentagon is warning that unless the "surge" in Iraq works the United States could be heading for another Vietnam. Little wonder, then, that Washington did its best to rubbish any suggestion that last week's turbulence on the financial markets amounted to anything more than a little temporary difficulty. In this, the Bush administration was ably supported by the great and good of New York - or at least that part of the financial elite that wasn't banged up for alleged insider trading last week by the securities and exchange commission. As ever, the same reassuring story was spun. Like a hypnotist faced with a sceptical member of the audience, the words were repeated over and over again. Listen, this is a correction not a crash. Relax, the fundamentals of the global economy are strong. Are you listening to me? There will be no recession in the U.S. Did you hear what I said? There will be no recession in the U.S. Read The Full Story Basra Raid On Intelligence Ministry Finds Prisoners With Signs Of Torture 2007-03-05 03:19:21 Iraqi special operation forces and British troops swept into an Iraqi intelligence ministry building Sunday morning in the southern city of Basra and found prisoners with signs of torture, said British officials. All 30 prisoners escaped during the surprise raid, which was triggered by information gleaned from suspects arrested hours earlier in another sweep, a British military spokesman said Monday morning. "It is unclear how it occurred, but what is clear is that the Iraqi forces did not let them escape," said Maj. David Gell, who called the escape "regrettable". In a statement, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the raid an "unlawful and irresponsible act". He ordered an investigation of the raid, but did not comment on the allegations of torture at the facility that was the Basra headquarters of the National Iraqi Intelligence Agency. The spokesman for the Shiite-led Interior Ministry, which controls the agency, could not be reached. Read The Full Story Scientists: U.K. Plans To Cut CO2 Emissions Is Doomed To Fail 2007-03-05 03:18:15 An independent scientific audit of the U.K.'s climate change policies predicts that the government will fall well below its target of a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 - which means that the country will not reach its 2020 milestone until 2050. The report condemns government forecasts on greenhouse gas emissions as "very optimistic" and projects that the true reduction will be between 12 and 17%, making little difference to current CO2 emission levels. The report is based on an analysis of the government's attempts to meet climate change targets. The authors argue that because much policy is based on voluntary measures, the predicted outcomes cannot be relied upon. It is released on the day the environment minister, David Miliband, delivers a speech on the U.K.'s transition to a "post-oil economy". Read The Full Story Asian Arms Races Feared As China Raises Military Spending 2007-03-05 03:17:05 International concerns about China's growing military power and a spiralling global arms race intensified Sunday when Beijing announced its biggest defense budget increase for more than 10 years. Weeks after China stunned the world by test-firing its first anti-satellite missile, the government said it will increase spending by 17.8% this year. The sharp rise - almost double the pace of economic growth - will be used to modernize the People's Liberation Army. With 2.3 million troops, the PLA has long been the world's biggest military force, but it is only in recent years that it has started to acquire sophisticated weaponry. Extra spending on missile systems, electronic warfare and other hi-tech items will push up the declared budget to 350.9 billion yuan (£23 billion or $46 billion), an increase of 53 billion yuan on 2006. Western defense analysts say the true figure could be two to three times that because so much defense spending is concealed. Read The Full Story 16 Civilians Die As U.S. Troops Open Fire In Afghanistan 2007-03-04 16:09:38 American troops opened fire on a highway filled with civilian cars and bystanders today, American and Afghan officials said, in an incident that the Americans said left 16 civilians dead and 24 wounded as they fled the scene of a suicide car bombing in eastern Afghanistan. One American was also wounded. The shooting set off demonstrations, with local people blocking the highway, the main road east from the town of Jalalabad to the border with Pakistan. There were differences in some of the accounts of the incident, with the Americans saying that the civilians were caught in crossfire between the troops and militants, and Afghan witnesses and some authorities blaming the Americans for indiscriminately shooting at civilian vehicles in anger after the explosion. The United States military said the unit came under fire after a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car near their convoy “as part of a complex ambush involving enemy small-arms fire from several directions.” Read The Full Story A New Mystery To Federal Prosecutors: Their Lost Jobs 2007-03-04 16:08:24 After Daniel G. Bogden got the call in December telling him that he was being dismissed as the United States attorney in Nevada, he pressed for an explanation. Bogden, who was named the top federal prosecutor in Nevada in 2001 after 11 years of working his way up at the Justice Department, asked an official at the agency’s headquarters if the firing was related to his performance or to that of his office. “That didn’t enter into the equation,” he said he was told. After several more calls, Bogden reached a senior official who offered an answer. “There is a window of opportunity to put candidates into an office like mine,” said Bogden, recalling the conversation. “They were attempting to open a slot and bring someone else in.” The ouster of Bogden and seven other United States attorneys has set off a furor in Washington that took the Bush administration by surprise. Read The Full Story
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