Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday March 31 2007 - (813)

Saturday March 31 2007 edition
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Home Foreclosures Hit Record Numbers In Michigan 2007-03-31 02:16:30 Janet Laitis leaned on a chain-link fence in her front yard, dragged on a cigarette and pointed to the homes on her block that lenders have seized in just the past two weeks. "There. There. There," said Laitis, 70, pointing across the street, down the street and then to the modest ranch house next door. "This neighborhood is deteriorating before my eyes." Within a square mile of Laitis' house in this bedroom community outside Detroit, more than half the 96 homes on the market are foreclosed properties. The situation is not uncommon in pockets of the industrial Midwest, where a record number of people are missing their mortgage payments and losing their homes. While lax lending policies have been blamed for the unfolding home-mortgage crisis across the country, the distress in the Midwest has been exacerbated by fundamental problems with the economy. The region has been devastated by a severe drop in manufacturing jobs as the U.S. automobile industry shrinks. Read The Full Story Bush Apologizes To Soldiers At Walter Reed 2007-03-31 02:15:57 President Bush Friday paid his first visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center since the uproar over shoddy conditions at the facility and emerged after a two-hour tour to publicly apologize for the physical and bureaucratic ordeals inflicted upon soldiers recovering from injuries on faraway battlefields. The president inspected new accommodations for patients who had been living in squalid quarters and visited a physical therapy room to talk with soldiers who lost arms or legs in Iraq only to find themselves lost in a broken system back home. The stories they told him about their frustrations at Walter Reed, he said later, left him troubled and reinforced his commitment to resolve their grievances. "I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong," he said in a speech to hospital staff members after the tour. "It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem." Read The Full Story Australian Hicks To Serve 9 Months In Terrorism Case 2007-03-31 02:14:14 David Hicks, the Australian high-school dropout whose detention became an international issue, will serve nine more months in custody, most of it in Australia, under the terms of a plea deal unsealed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Friday. The sentence came at the end of a long day in Guantanamo’s military commission courtroom and followed the deliberations of an eight-member panel of military officers. Having deliberated for two hours, the panel returned at 8 p.m. with a sentence of seven years, the maximum it was permitted to impose under the deal in which Hicks pleaded guilty on Monday. But the deal also provided that he actually serve the lesser of nine months or whatever sentence the panel arrived at. The balance of the seven years that could have been imposed is considered suspended. The agreement for just nine additional months of imprisonment was remarkable for a detainee who, before the plea negotiations, had faced a potential life term and had become an international symbol of many of the 385 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Read The Full Story GAO: Looming Threat To U.S. Oil Supply 2007-03-30 21:21:44 A report released Thursday by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office concludes that worldwide oil production will eventually grind to a halt and the United States has no strategy in place to deal with the possible catastrophic results. The report, titled "CRUDE OIL - Uncertainty About Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production," outlines the threat to oil supply posed by global political instability and the lack of new oil field discovery. According to the report, "More than 60 percent of world oil reserves, on the basis of Oil and Gas Journal estimates, are in countries where relatively unstable political conditions could constrain oil exploration and production." These countries include Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Nigeria. Energy market analysts agree that the significant threat of instability in oil producing nations has inflated the price of oil. As the report demonstrates, it is quite unclear when peak oil production will occur: "The amount of oil remaining in the ground is highly uncertain, in part because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) controls most of the estimated world oil reserves, but its estimates of reserves are not verified by independent auditors." Despite a lack of reliable information, the report states that "most studies estimate that oil production will peak sometime between now and 2040." Some analysts think world oil production has already peaked. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush's Long History Of Skewing Justice 2007-03-30 21:21:03 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Joseph D. Rich and appears in the Los Angeles Times edition for Thursday, March 29, 2007. Mr. Rich spent 35 years in the Justice Department, and was chief of the voting section of the Justice Department's civil rights division from 1999 to 2005. He now works for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Mr. Rich's commentary follows: The scandal unfolding around the firing of eight U.S. attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest. I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws - particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies - from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants. Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections. Read The Full Story Farmers To Plant Largest Amount Of Corn Since 1944 2007-03-30 21:20:12 American farmers are planning to plant more corn this year than anytime since World War II, as farmers rush to cash in on high prices bolstered by the demand for ethanol. The United States Department of Agriculture released a report Friday on prospective plantings that estimated that American farmers would plant 90.5 million acres of corn in 2007, a 15 percent increase over last year and the most since 1944. Considered one of the most highly anticipated agriculture reports in years, if not decades, the prospective plantings report promises to have broad implications throughout the agriculture, food and energy sectors. Read The Full Story French Nun: John Paul II Cured My Parkinson's Disease 2007-03-30 17:52:51 Smiling broadly, the French nun whose claims could be accepted as the miracle that the Vatican needs to beatify Pope John Paul II said Friday that she was inexplicably and suddenly "cured" of Parkinson's disease - thanks to him. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre stopped short of declaring her recovery a miracle, saying that was for the church to decide. But she said her life "totally changed" after her symptoms vanished in one night of prayer and mystery in 2005. "For me, it is a bit like a second birth," the nun, whose identity was long kept secret, said at a news conference. After her sudden recovery, she said she told one of her fellow nuns, "'Look, my hand is no longer shaking. John Paul II has cured me." The 46-year-old, speaking in a clear, poised voice, said she was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2001. Her symptoms worsened with time: Driving became practically impossible, she had difficulty walking, and her left arm hung limply at her side. She also could no longer bear to see John Paul on television, because he, too, was stricken - more seriously - with the disease. Read The Full Story E.U. Adds Pressure On Iran To Release British Hostages 2007-03-30 17:52:24 The European Union Friday called for the unconditional and immediate release of the 15 British sailors by Iran as tensions escalated following the emergence of a third propaganda video from the detainees. Javier Solana, the E.U.'s foreign policy chief, warned Tehran of "appropriate measures" - seen as a threat of trade sanctions - if it did not release the marines and Royal Navy personnel. Solana said British citizens are the concern of the 27-nation bloc. The E.U. foreign ministers, meeting in Bremen, Germany, also called on Iran to "immediately inform" the British government about the whereabouts of the captives. Earlier Friday, Iranian TV screened footage of Royal Marine Nathan Thomas Summers apologizing for "trespassing" in Iranian waters. Read The Full Story FDA Identifies Chemical In Poisoned Pet Food 2007-03-30 13:55:58 The Food and Drug Administration has identified contaminated wheat gluten from China as the likely cause of poisoned pet food that has sickened a number of dogs and cats, and the agency is investigating to determine whether dry pet foods have been affected, officials said Friday. In a news conference, Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said FDA and independent laboratories have found a chemical called melamine in pet food samples, imported wheat gluten and urine and tissue from diseased pets. He said melamine is used in fertilizer in Asia and in plastic products but is not registered as a fertilizer in the United States. "Melamine is an ingredient that should not be in pet food at any level," said Sundlof. Nor does it have any approved use in food for humans. He said the FDA is not aware that any of the contaminated wheat gluten went into human food, but said he could not confirm this "with 100 percent certainty." Read The Full Story Justice Officials Testify On Firings 2007-03-30 13:55:09 Congress pursued more details from another senior Justice Department official Friday in the firing of federal prosecutors and inconsistencies in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' account of it as the White House predicted Gonzales will survive. ''I can tell you that the president has confidence in him,'' said Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino. President Bush ''believes the attorney general can overcome the challenges that are before him,'' she said. Perino said the White House is not interviewing prospective candidates to replace Gonzales and said Bush is satisfied with his and the department's efforts so far to be responsive to Congress. House and Senate investigators spent hours behind closed doors Friday interviewing Michael Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, about inconsistencies in Gonzales' account of his role in the firings of eight federal prosecutors. Read The Full Story Muqtada al-Sadr Blames U.S. For Iraq Woes 2007-03-30 13:54:14 The radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the United States on Friday, following one of the country's bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq's troubles and calling for a mass demonstration April 9 - the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. As al-Sadr's remarks were read in a mosque, Shiites in Baghdad loaded wooden coffins into vans and shoveled broken glass and other debris into wheelbarrows in the aftermath of a double suicide bombing at a marketplace. At least 181 people were killed or found dead Thursday as Sunni insurgents apparently stepped up their campaign of bombings to derail the seven-week-old security sweep in Baghdad. Violence has increasingly erupted outside the capital in recent weeks, as insurgent fighters take their fight to regions where U.S. and Iraqi forces are thinly deployed. Read The Full Story Decline Of Big Sharks Lets Smaller Predators Decimate Shellfish 2007-03-30 13:53:40 A sharp decline in big sharks along the Eastern Seaboard has prompted a boom in other marine species that is devastating valuable commercial fisheries, researchers are reporting today in the journal Science. The study - by a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists - found that intense fishing for sharks in the northwest Atlantic over the past 35 years has produced a cascade of unexpected effects. With fewer large predators in the sea, the number of rays, skates and small shark species has exploded, and these species are decimating such shellfish populations as North Carolina bay scallops and the Chesapeake Bay's American oysters. As many as 73 million sharks are killed each year to supply fins for shark-fin soup, a Chinese delicacy. Read The Full Story Helicopter Downed In Worst Somali Fighting In Years 2007-03-30 13:51:27 Rebels shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu on Friday in a second day of battles as Ethiopian and Somali troops sought to crush an insurgency by Islamists and clan militia. Aid workers said scores of people have died in the capital's worst fighting in years. Shells rained down and deafening tank fire shattered homes as hundreds of guerrillas replied with barrages of mortars, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. Residents hid in their homes and reporters watched from rooftops as two Ethiopian helicopters fired on an insurgent stronghold before one of them was struck by a missile. "Smoke billowed from the cabin and it turned toward the ocean," one witness, Swiss journalist Eugen Sorg, told Reuters. "It crashed at the south end of the airport runway." Read The Full Story Saudis Publicly Get Tough With U.S. 2007-03-30 01:02:15 Of all the foreign leaders President Bush has dealt with over the past six years, few have been as direct or blunt in private as Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, according to U.S. officials. At one point in 2002, Abdullah showed Bush images of Palestinian children killed by Israeli troops and demanded to know whether he was committed to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now, that private toughness has become public, just as Saudi Arabia has begun to play an uncharacteristically assertive diplomatic role in the region in an effort to calm potential flashpoints in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. In a speech Wednesday before a summit of the Arab League, Abdullah decried what he called the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq and called for a lifting of the "unjust embargo imposed on the people of Palestine" that has been led by the Bush administration. U.S. officials said they were puzzled by Abdullah's description of the situation in Iraq and will demand an explanation. For months, U.S. officials have said that they were pleased by Saudi Arabia's willingness to shoulder a greater diplomatic burden, but Abdullah's remarks come after disquieting signs that Riyadh is distancing itself from the Bush administration. The king is reported to have canceled a state dinner that Bush had planned to hold in his honor next month - though officially the White House says no dinner was ever scheduled - and last month Abdullah brokered a unity accord among Palestinian factions, including the militant group Hamas, that upended Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's plans for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Read The Full Story Arabs Call On Israel To Take Peace Offer 2007-03-30 01:01:40 Arab leaders on Thursday reiterated their offer to normalize ties with Israel and showed signs of flexibility in their terms for peace. At a news conference at the end of a summit where the Arab leaders' peace plan was the main issue on the agenda, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Arab countries would establish normal ties with Israel as soon as it had resolved its disputes with its immediate neighbors. "We cannot change the plan because it offers peace, and changing it would mean we're no longer offering peace," said Faisal, echoing Arab League chief Amr Moussa's insistence that there would be no changes in the plan ahead of negotiations. Faisal said: "Once Israel returns occupied land and comes to an agreement with the Palestinians, returns occupied land to Syria and comes to an agreement with them, and it resolves its land issues with Lebanon, Arab states will immediately establish relations." Read The Full Story	Ex-Partner Of Giuliani May Face Charges 2007-03-31 02:16:15 Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping. Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake. Kerik rose from being a warden and police detective to become Giuliani's campaign security adviser, corrections chief, police commissioner and eventual partner in Giuliani-Kerik, a security arm of Giuliani Partners, which Giuliani established after leaving office in 2001. Kerik resigned his positions in Giuliani's firm after he was nominated to the homeland security job. The former mayor is not in any legal jeopardy, according to legal sources directly familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing. He and his consulting firm have cooperated in the FBI's long-running investigation of Kerik. Read The Full Story Detainee Alleges Abuse In CIA Prison 2007-03-31 02:15:43 A high-level al-Qaeda suspect who was in CIA custody for more than four years has alleged that his American captors tortured him into making false confessions about terrorist attacks in the Middle East, according to newly released Pentagon transcripts of a March 14 military tribunal hearing here. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who U.S. officials believe was involved in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and who allegedly organized the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, told a panel of military officers that he was repeatedly tortured during his imprisonment and that he admitted taking part in numerous terrorism plots because of the mistreatment. "The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop." Read The Full Story Conflict-Of-Interest Inquiry at National Institute of Health May Be Reopened 2007-03-31 02:13:56 Federal investigators are reviewing the activities of 103 scientists who may have had improper links to pharmaceutical companies while they were employed at the National Institutes of Health, apparently resurrecting a conflict-of-interest inquiry that many in the agency thought was closed. In a letter sent to several members of Congress on March 23 and made public Friday, Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, said his office is looking into the cases "to determine whether investigation is warranted." Levinson also wrote that his office is reviewing whether NIH is adequately monitoring potential conflicts of interest among its thousands of grant recipients - typically university researchers. Members of Congress and watchdog groups have long called for such a review, noting that conflict-of-interest policies at universities are generally more lenient than those at NIH. The concern, critics say, is that federal grant money not go to scientists who may be predisposed to get results that favor their drug company sponsors. Read The Full Story U.S. To Set Steep Duties On Goods From China 2007-03-30 21:21:26 The Bush administration, in a major escalation of trade pressure on China, said Friday that it would reverse more than 20 years of American policy and impose potentially steep tariffs on Chinese manufactured goods on the ground that China is illegally subsidizing some of its exports. The action, announced by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, signaled a tougher approach to China at a time when the administration’s campaign of quiet diplomacy by Treasury Secretary Harry M. Paulson, Jr., has produced few results. The step also reflected the shift in trade politics since Democrats took control of Congress. The widening American trade deficit with China, which reached a record $232.5 billion last year, or about a third of the entire trade gap, has been seized upon by Democrats as a symbol of past policy failures that have led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Gutierrez’s announcement has the immediate effect of slapping duties on two Chinese makers of high-gloss paper, one at 10.9 percent and the other 20.4 percent, calculated by adding up the supposedly illegal subsidies. The duties are effective immediately. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Rise Of A Very 'Loyal Bushie' 2007-03-30 21:20:43 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Richard L. Fricker and appears on the Consortium News' website for Wednesday, March 28, 2007. Mr. Fricker's commentary follows: If you want to know what the career path of a "loyal Bushie" looks like, let me introduce you to J. Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protege who was slipped into the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas, and now is at the center of the controversy over whether the Bush administration has sought to politicize federal prosecutions. Since college, the 38-year-old Griffin has been following the stations of the cross for a Republican legal/political operative with ambitions to rise to a position of power and influence in a government like the one headed by George W. Bush. Griffin has pretty much touched them all - the Federalist Society, work for a Clinton-era special prosecutor, the Florida recount battle in 2000, opposition research and voter security duties for the Republican National Committee in Campaign 2004, a brief tour as a military lawyer in Iraq, a deputy in Karl Rove's political shop at the White House. But now this carefully groomed Republican operative stands out as Exhibit A for Democrats as they contend that the Bush administration imposed political litmus tests on federal prosecutors who wield enormous power over the lives of those they investigate. A U.S. Attorney not only has wide discretion over normal prosecutions but can tip a political race by either shutting down or starting up a criminal probe. Beyond being the personification of proof that Bush put political loyalty over legal competence, Griffin has become the test case for the use of new emergency powers in the Patriot Act to circumvent Senate confirmation for U.S. Attorneys. Read The Full Story Obama: Bush Not Respecting Constitution 2007-03-30 17:53:01 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday accused President Bush of failing to respect the Constitution amid the uproar over the firing of eight federal prosecutors. The Illinois senator also took a swipe at embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Obama has joined several other Democrats in calling for Gonzales to resign. "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution,"  Obama told an audience at a campaign fundraiser. "I believe in an attorney general who is actually the people's lawyer, not the president's lawyer." Obama's remarks drew one of the most enthusiastic responses in a speech often interrupted by applause. Read The Full Story Iran Crisis Bumps Up Crude Prices 2007-03-30 17:52:36 Oil prices shot up to their highest in over six months Friday on continued tension between Britain and Iran over British naval staff held by Tehran. London Brent crude futures jumped over $1 a barrel, pushing through $69 for the first time since early last September during hectic trading. It later retreated towards $68 but dealers said any further escalation in the spat between the two countries would be immediately reflected in the oil price. U.S. light crude futures pushed through $66 a barrel, up more than 50 cents a barrel. Read The Full Story General Tried To Warn Bush On Tillman Death 2007-03-30 17:52:04 Just seven days after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. It was not until a month afterward that the Pentagon told the public and grieving family members the truth - that Tillman was mistakenly killed in Afghanistan by his comrades. The memo reinforces suspicions that the Pentagon was more concerned with sparing officials from embarrassment than with leveling with Tillman's family. In a memo sent to a four-star general a week after Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that it was "highly possible" the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire. McChrystal made it clear his warning should be conveyed to the president. Read The Full Story Testimony By Giuliani Indicates He Was Briefed On Kerik In 2000 2007-03-30 13:55:32 Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik's relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Kerik’s appointment as New York City’s top law enforcement officer. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary. Read The Full Story Muqtada al-Sadr Blames U.S. For Iraq Woes 2007-03-30 13:54:42 The radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the United States on Friday, following one of the country's bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq's troubles and calling for a mass demonstration April 9 - the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. As al-Sadr's remarks were read in a mosque, Shiites in Baghdad loaded wooden coffins into vans and shoveled broken glass and other debris into wheelbarrows in the aftermath of a double suicide bombing at a marketplace. At least 181 people were killed or found dead Thursday as Sunni insurgents apparently stepped up their campaign of bombings to derail the seven-week-old security sweep in Baghdad. Violence has increasingly erupted outside the capital in recent weeks, as insurgent fighters take their fight to regions where U.S. and Iraqi forces are thinly deployed. Read The Full Story Amid Scrutiny, Dell Reports It Has Found 'Misconduct' 2007-03-30 13:53:58 With its accounting under scrutiny by federal regulators and prosecutors, Dell said Thursday that “evidence of misconduct” had been uncovered in an internal investigation of its financial practices over several years. Dell said its board’s audit committee had “identified a number of accounting errors, evidence of misconduct, and deficiencies in the financial control environment.” The committee has been examining accounting and financial problems that the company previously said involved accruals, reserves and other balance-sheet items. In a statement issued after the close of regular trading, Dell also said it was working with its independent auditors to determine whether it would have to revise financial statements. A spokesman for the company, based in Round Rock, Texas, declined to comment further. Dell shares, which closed at $23.39 in regular trading, up 4 cents, fell by as much as 8 percent immediately after the announcement. They recovered somewhat, but were still off by more than 2 percent. Read The Full Story Guantanamo Tribunal Sentences Australian Hicks To 7 Years In Jail 2007-03-30 13:51:51 A U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo convicted Australian al-Qaeda trainee David Hicks on Friday of providing material support for terrorism, the first conviction of one of the hundreds of suspects held for years at the controversial detention center. The tribunal judge accepted Hicks' guilty plea as part of an agreement that limits his sentence to seven years in prison, in addition to the five years he has been held at Guantanamo in Cuba, but the deal allows for at least part of that sentence to be suspended. The 31-year-old former kangaroo skinner from Adelaide is the first person to be convicted in revised military tribunals created by the U.S. Congress after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier version that President George W. Bush authorized to try foreign captives on terrorism charges. Hicks acknowledged that he trained with al-Qaeda, fought with its forces against U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours, and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee to Pakistan. Read The Full Story Inspector General Faults Interior Appointee On Imperiled Species 2007-03-30 01:02:31 A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has repeatedly altered scientific field reports to minimize protections for imperiled species and disclosed confidential information to private groups seeking to affect policy decisions, the department's inspector general concluded. The investigator's report on Julie A. MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks - which was triggered by an anonymous complaint from a Fish and Wildlife Service employee and expanded in October after a Washington Post article about MacDonald - said she frequently sought to reshape the agency's scientific reports in an effort to ease the impact of agency decisions on private landowners. Inspector General Earl E. Devaney referred the case to Interior's top officials for "potential administrative action," according to the document, which was reported Thursday in the New York Times. The I.G. noted that MacDonald "admitted that her degree is in civil engineering and that she has no formal educational background in natural sciences" but repeatedly instructed Fish and Wildlife scientists to change their recommendations on identifying "critical habitats," despite her lack of expertise. Read The Full Story Bombs Kill More Than 100 In Baghdad, Khalis 2007-03-30 01:02:01 Bombs tore through crowds of after-work shoppers in Baghdad and a town north of the capital on Thursday in an onslaught of violence that killed more than 100 people, according to Iraqi government and hospital officials. Both areas - a bazaar in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab and the farming town of Khalis in Diyala province - are populated predominantly by Shiites, and Iraqi government officials quickly blamed the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.The attacks followed two violent days of bombings and reprisal killings in the northern city of Tall Afar and threatened to increase the likelihood of a resurgence of open sectarian warfare despite the heightened U.S. military presence in Iraq. The bombing in Shaab, which police said killed at least 60 people, took aim at the six-week-old Baghdad security plan, under which U.S. and Iraqi officials have sought to protect public marketplaces from such catastrophic attacks. Read The Full Story Japan Sets Up Missile Defense Shield Near Tokyo 2007-03-30 01:01:22 Japan trucked its first ballistic missile interceptors to an air force base north of Tokyo on Friday in an effort to beef up its defenses against its unpredictable neighbor North Korea. The deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) launchers, capable of shooting down incoming missiles in the final stage of flight as they near their target, was sparked by Pyongyang's firing of a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over Japan. Tokyo rushed the equipment into service a year ahead of schedule after North Korea unnerved the region last year by firing more missiles and testing a nuclear device. "We consider it very meaningful to deploy the air defense missiles close to metropolitan Tokyo, which is the center of business and political activities," Kazumasa Echizen, the Iruma air base public information chief, said in a statement. "We will continue our efforts to be ready for any possible emergencies." Read The Full Story
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