Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday March 11 2007 - (813)

Sunday March 11 2007 edition
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Democratic Senators Say Gonzales Should Resign 2007-03-11 14:59:07 U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign following disclosures of mass firings of federal prosecutors and a report the FBI improperly obtained information on private citizens, top Democratic senators said on Sunday. In addition, a key Republican voiced concerns of his own about Gonzales and his embattled Justice Department, although he stopped short of calling for a resignation. "I think we need a change in the top at the Justice Department," said Sen. Charles Schumer, of New York, a member of the Democratic leadership. Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and a 2008 White House contender, said, "I think we'd be better off if he did (resign), but that's a judgment the president is going to have to make." Read The Full Story Rice Industry Troubled By Contamination From Genetically Modified Rice 2007-03-11 14:57:46 When Fred Zaunbrecher heard in August that the popular variety of long-grain rice he was planning to grow had become contaminated with snippets of experimental, unapproved DNA, the Louisiana rice farmer took it in stride and ordered a different variety of seed for his spring planting. When federal officials announced last week that the rice he and many others switched to was also contaminated - this time with a different unapproved gene - irritation grew to alarm. The two sidelined varieties accounted for about a third of last year's Southern rice crop, and planting was set to begin within days. "Everybody's been scrambling for seed," Zaunbrecher said. "I have no idea whether there will be enough or not." The tremors going through the U.S. long-grain rice industry - amplified by the decision of many biotech-wary nations to restrict imports of U.S. rice until questions of purity are resolved - have revealed how vulnerable a $1 billion agricultural sector can be to the escape of something as small as a molecule of DNA. But rice is not the only crop being affected by genetic pollution. Read The Full Story Highway Speed Limit Plan Irks Germans 2007-03-11 14:57:08 A European Union official called on Germany to give up the famous freedom of its highways and impose speed limits on the autobahn to fight global warming- a demand that drew angry responses on Sunday in a country that cherishes what it calls ''free driving for free citizens.'' The call came as the German government makes action against climate change a priority of its current presidencies of the E.U. and Group of Eight. Still, the German environment minister showed little enthusiasm for E.U. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas' suggestion and a group representing the country's auto industry said it needed ''no coaching on efficient climate protection from Brussels.'' Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda - The Second Coming 2007-03-10 21:31:58 For his 40th birthday, Osama bin Laden's followers gave their leader a white stallion. Bin Laden, a keen horseman despite back problems, rode for hours through the dusty farmland and hills around his base north of Jalalabad, the eastern Afghan city. Saturday the leader of al-Qaeda turned 50. It is unlikely that the gesture was repeated. Almost all the men who gave their chief the stallion are now dead, the base has been dismantled and a similar ride would be to risk detection, identification and a pinpoint missile strike. Yet, though he may lack horses and veteran associates, bin Laden is far from finished. Indeed, nine years after his declaration of war on the West and five-and-a-half years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, their leader is as present as ever on the world stage, linked, rightly or wrongly, to violence across half the globe. This weekend there is talk of an al-Qaeda connection to the recent spate of particularly bloody bombings in Iraq. The trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the terror group's associate who originally planned the 9/11 strikes, is due to start in Guantanamo Bay and will spark massive media interest. In the U.K. a series of trials of alleged Islamic militants, some accused of having links to bin Laden's closest collaborators, continue. In Afghanistan, where British casualties mount every week, Taliban militants boast of the forces they have gathered for a "spring offensive". The continuing evolution of the phenomenon of "al-Qaeda" continues to surprise - and deeply worry - those charged with keeping us safe. An investigation by The Observer, involving hours of face-to-face interviews with current and former government and military officials, experts and intelligence analysts in Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany and Morocco, as well as sources contacted in a dozen other countries including the U.S. and Pakistan, reveals why - and discloses the frightening reality of the changing threat. Read The Full Story Commentary: How Europe Can Save The World 2007-03-10 21:31:17 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Will Hutton for The Observer's editition of Sunday, March 11, 2007. In his commentary, Mr. Hutton writes that the European Union's landmark deal on carbon controls must be the model for a new Kyoto agreement. Mr. Hutton's column follows: Of the many noxious legacies of Mrs. Thatcher, perhaps the most poisonous is the idea that somehow the British are not European. She taught her party, the media and a large part of the country that any European initiative was necessarily hostile to our interests and originated in a mindset of which we are not part. The British may be geographically European; culturally and politically, we are different. It was nonsense. This weekend, the European Union has struck a deal which is arguably the most important since its foundation 50 years ago - which was how some in Brussels, Belgium, described it to me - and should help persuade even the most Euroskeptic curmudgeon that the E.U. has crucially important uses. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, emerging as a European politician in the great tradition of Adenauer, Brandt, Delors, Mitterand and Kohl, has used the current German presidency of the E.U. to mastermind an epic commitment on tackling climate change and energy security. The 27-nation E.U. has committed itself to lower its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 from their 1990 level, the chief mechanism being an increase in the use of so-called renewables - water, air, tidal power and biofuels. Twenty per cent of its energy needs, it says, will come from such sources, while allowing some flexibility for countries such as France, which is dependent on nuclear power, to count that as part of their contribution to reducing the Continent's carbon footprint. Nuclear power, clean coal and renewables are vital responses to weaning the Continent off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Russian gas. Read The Full Story Newt Gingrich Admits To Affair During Clinton Scandal 2007-03-10 21:30:32 Newt Gingrich, the darling of the conservative right and architect of the Republicans' 1990s "contract with America", has spoken in depth about the extra-marital affair he conducted with a congressional assistant and confirmed that the relationship was ongoing at the time he forced the impeachment of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. "There were times I was praying and I felt I was doing things that were wrong but I was still doing them. I look back on periods of weakness that I was not proud of," Gingrich told the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Asked in a telephone interview by the group's leader, James Dobson, whether he had been involved in an affair at the same time as Mr Clinton's "escapade" with Lewinsky, Gingrich replied: "The honest answer is yes." Read The Full Story German Mother, Son Kidnapped In Iraq 2007-03-10 21:29:37 Iraqi militants holding a German woman and her son hostage demanded Saturday that Germany withdraw its troops from Afghanistan to ensure their safety. The little-known Arrows of Righteousness group posted video on the Internet on Saturday threatening to kill the two in 10 days if Berlin won't comply. CNN could not independently confirm the authenticity of the video. In it, a woman identified as Hannelore Marianne Krause urges German Chancellor Angela Merkel to heed the demands. A passport with that name is shown in the video. German officials did not confirm the kidnap victims' names or say why they were in Iraq. Read The Full Story 'Banned Additives In Childrens Medications' 2007-03-10 21:28:39 Additives the British government banned in food and drink aimed at children three and younger are present in some children's medicines, a report says. A "cocktail" of synthetic dyes, preservatives and sweeteners was found in cough syrups, paracetamol tablets and teething gels. One pain and fever relief product contained eight E numbers, Britain's Food Commission found. Only one of the medicines surveyed - Superdrug children's dry cough syrup - was free of colorings and preservatives, according to the campaign group. Read The Full Story Pentagon Struggles To Find Fresh Troops 2007-03-10 03:32:38 Military leaders are struggling to choose Army units to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan longer or go there earlier than planned, but five years of war have made fresh troops harder to find. Faced with a military buildup in Iraq that could drag into next year, Pentagon officials are trying to identify enough units to keep up to 20 brigade combat teams in Iraq. A brigade usually has about 3,500 troops. The likely result will be extending the deployments of brigades scheduled to come home at the end of the summer, and sending others earlier than scheduled. Final decisions - which have not yet been made - would come as Congress is considering ways to force President Bush to wind down the war, despite his vow that he would veto such legislation. Read The Full Story Congress Collides With Utilities On Global Warming 2007-03-10 03:32:05 >From the top of a new coal-fired power plant with its 550-foot exhaust stack poking up from the flat western Iowa landscape, MidAmerican Energy Holdings chief executive David L. Sokol peered down at a train looping around a sizable mound of coal. At this bend in the Missouri River, with Omaha visible in the distance, the new MidAmerican plant is the leading edge of what many people are calling the "coal rush." Due to start up this spring, it will probably be the next coal-fired generating station to come online in the United States. A dozen more are under construction, and about 40 others are likely to start up within five years - the biggest wave of coal plant construction since the 1970s. The coal rush in America's heartland is on a collision course with Congress. While lawmakers are drawing up ways to cap and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the Energy Department says as many as 150 new coal-fired plants could be built by 2030, adding volumes to the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of half a dozen greenhouse gases scientists blame for global warming. Read The Full Story Under Pressure, Palestinian Territories Pull Apart 2007-03-10 03:31:17 Ali Hussein is making money, quite a bit of it, which places the low-key sales manager in a small minority in this economically depleted city. The company he works for is the sole provider of videoconferencing equipment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the separate parts of an elusive Palestinian state whose connections today run mostly through broadband and cellphones. More than 100 clients, including universities, trade associations and government ministries, have turned to him for links to the classrooms, offices and committee rooms in the West Bank that they can no longer visit. "These two places should be one," Hussein said. "In the meantime, there's us." Since withdrawing from Gaza a year and a half ago, the Israeli government has severed this coastal strip from the West Bank. The Palestinians have fractured politically at the same time. Many Gazans have embraced Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that won national elections in January 2006, while the West Bank has remained more loyal to the once-dominant Fatah party. Read The Full Story	Baghdad Bomb Blast Kills At Least 30 Iraqis 2007-03-11 14:58:55 At least 30 people were killed in bomb blasts in Baghdad Sunday, including a car bomb that exploded next to a truck full of pilgrims returning to the capital from the southern holy city of Karbala, said the Interior Ministry. Shiite pilgrims have been the targets of attacks in the past week, presumably by Sunni insurgents, as they observe Arbaeen, a pilgrimage that marks the end of a 40-day mourning period following the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. On Saturday, one of the holiest days in the Shiite calendar, a suicide car bomber tried to circumvent a military checkpoint on a bridge leading to Sadr City, a vast Shiite neighborhood, apparently intending to plow into a crowd of people nearby, said Iraqi and American authorities. At least seven people were killed and scores wounded, many of whom were pilgrims returning from Arbaeen, officials and witnesses said. Read The Full Story Evangelical Body Stays The Course On Global Warming 2007-03-11 14:57:25 Rebuffing Christian radio commentator James C. Dobson, the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals reaffirmed its position that environmental protection, which it calls "creation care," is an important moral issue. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and two dozen other conservative Christian leaders, including Gary L. Bauer, Tony Perkins and Paul M. Weyrich, sent the board a letter this month denouncing the association's vice president, the Rev. Richard Cizik, for urging attention to global warming. The letter argued that evangelicals are divided on whether climate change is a real problem, and it said that "Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time," such as abortion and same-sex marriage. If Cizik "cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals on environmental issues, then we respectfully suggest that he be encouraged to resign his position with the NAE," the letter concluded. Read The Full Story Analysis: U.S. Mortgage Crisis Looms 2007-03-10 21:35:46 On March 1, a Wall Street analyst at Bear Stearns wrote an upbeat report on a company that specializes in making mortgages to cash-poor homebuyers. The company, New Century Financial,had already disclosed that a growing number of borrowers were defaulting, and its stock, at around $15, had lost half its value in three weeks. What happened next seems all too familiar to investors who bought technology stocks in 2000 at the breathless urging of Wall Street analysts. Last week, New Century said it would stop making loans and needed emergency financing to survive. The stock collapsed to $3.21. The analyst’s untimely call, coupled with a failure among other Wall Street institutions to identify problems in the home mortgage market, isn’t the only familiar ring to investors who watched the technology stock bubble burst precisely seven years ago. Now, as then, Wall Street firms and entrepreneurs made fortunes issuing questionable securities, in this case pools of home loans taken out by risky borrowers. Now, as then, bullish stock and credit analysts for some of those same Wall Street firms, which profited in the underwriting and rating of those investments, lulled investors with upbeat pronouncements even as loan defaults ballooned. Now, as then, regulators stood by as the mania churned, fed by lax standards and anything-goes lending. Read The Full Story Bush Seeks $3.2 Billion For Extra Iraq Troops 2007-03-10 21:31:43 President Bush asked Congress on Saturday for $3.2 billion to pay for at least 4,000 extra combat support troops and military police forces that commanders told the president they need in Iraq. The extra troops are in addition to the 21,500-troop buildup Bush announced in January. The budget revisions come as many lawmakers opposed to the buildup are debating funding for the war. Bush is proposing to cancel $3.2 billion in low-priority defense items within his fiscal 2007 supplemental budget request to offset the need for these extra forces. Cutting the programs, he said, would not require increasing the overall $93.4 billion in additional defense money he's already requested to finance this year's war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read The Full Story Iraq Leader Asks For Region's Aid In Curbing Strife 2007-03-10 21:30:57 Addressing representatives of 13 nations and three international groups in Baghdad Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki opened a much-anticipated regional conference with a plea to Iraq's neighbors to back his efforts to control the violence engulfing the country by refusing to finance attacks or allow foreign fighters to cross their borders. “Confrontation of terrorism, dear brothers, requires ceasing any form of financial and media support and religious cover, as well as logistical support and provision of arms and men that would turn out to be explosive tools killing our children, women and elders and bombing our mosques and churches,” said Maliki. Despite enormous security preparations in the area near the heavily fortified Green Zone and a complete shutdown of streets and roads leading to the Foreign Ministry, where the meeting was held, two mortar rounds landed with thunderclaps nearby: one on a low-slung building just behind the main ministry building where the dignitaries were meeting, the other farther off. Read The Full Story U.S. Generals: 'Smart' Rebels Outstrip U.S. 2007-03-10 21:30:10 The U.S. Army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago. The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior U.S. and Iraqi officials sat down Saturday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbors to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the U.S., Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a "lively exchange". In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan as "smart, agile and cunning". Read The Full Story French Resistance Hero Awaits Death Camp Son's DNA 2007-03-10 21:29:07 Two resistance operatives met, for a night, in a hideout near Lyon in 1944. They made love, and parted. Bob survived the war. Paulette died in a German labor camp. Now, more than 60 years after the one-night stand, a court in Nancy, France, has authorized DNA tests to ascertain whether a man whom Bob has never met but who bears his name is his son. The story of the two Robert Nants - one a survivor of birth in a camp, the other a Resistance hero - has so enchanted French lawyers and judges that they admit they are dreading the outcome of the tests. "Whatever happens, I'm going to take care of him," said Bob, 83. "All I can do is hope," said Robert, 61. Robert Nant, who is unmarried and earns €400 (about £275 or $500) a month as a hostel cleaner in Nancy, first learned  of Bob in 1975, in a newspaper article about Vichy regime militia leader Paul Touvier. He was staying in a Strasbourg hotel and wrote to his namesake in Chambery. Bob, who has two daughters and five grandchildren, said: "I drove to Strasbourg and called in on the hotel but Robert Nant had left two days earlier." Bob asked friends in the police to trace Robert. In 2006, he hired a private detective, who traced him to Nancy. Both Roberts decided to take DNA tests which, in France, can only be ordered by a court. "Both men are on legal aid so there is no financial motive," said Bob's lawyer, Olivier Fernex de Mongex. "Helping Bob is my way of paying tribute to a man who did so much for this country." Read The Full Story White House's Iraq Progress Reports Criticized 2007-03-10 03:33:26 President Bush on Tuesday cited "encouraging signs" of military and political progress in Iraq as his new strategy gets underway. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that "things are going reasonably well." And on Thursday, Rice's special coordinator for Iraq, David M. Satterfield, described a "dramatic decrease" in sectarian attacks in Baghdad since Bush's plan was announced in January. But a number of analysts and critics said this week that some of those signs indicate less progress than the administration has suggested. Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital. Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved. "If I were the president, I'd probably seize on every encouraging sign," said Anthony H. Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "As an analyst, that isn't what we do." Read The Full Story European Union Raises The Bar On Global Warming 2007-03-10 03:32:21 European Union leaders agreed Friday to take the 27-country bloc beyond the targets of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, agreeing to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy. During a sometimes contentious two-day meeting in Brussels, the leaders agreed to cut the gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels in the next 13 years. They set binding targets for renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and hydro power, to supply 20 percent of the union's power needs and for biofuels to be used in 10 percent of the bloc's road vehicles by 2020. European governments have been a major promoter of the Kyoto pact, which attempts to counter trends that are warming the Earth's climate. The United States and some developing countries have withheld support from the pact, saying it is likely to harm economic growth and is based on inconclusive science. Read The Full Story Commentary: Cuba - A Shameful Injustice 2007-03-10 03:31:39 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Philip Agee a former CIA agent and author of "Inside The Company: A CIA Diary". Mr. Agee writes that Cuba's 50-year defiance of U.S. attempts to isolate it is an inspiration to Latin America's people. His column follows: There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won't find a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement. George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region's vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously. All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960s. Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba. Read The Full Story Angry Crowds Hunt Bush As Protests Mark Start Of Latin America Tour 2007-03-10 03:30:33 Some arrived clutching banners telling "Mr. Butcher" to go home. Others brought effigies of "The Warlord" dangling miserably from a hangman's noose. A handful dressed up as the grim reaper, while some women paraded through the streets with stickers of George Bush and Adolf Hitler placed tastefully over their nipples. Fabio Silva had other ideas. He stuffed a sock into his mouth and left it there for three hours. "It means that the Brazilian authorities have tried to censor us - to pretend to Bushy that we don't exist," said the 21-year-old student, using the president's nickname in these parts after briefly removing his gag. "It means that we are remembering the silent victims of Iraq. And it means that the censorship will not shut me up." If President Bush needed a reminder of his growing unpopularity in Latin America, it was here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the shape of a 10,000-strong human wave marching noisily through the financial district. There was none of the famed Brazilian hospitality. Even before Bush arrived in Brazil on Thursday to begin a six-day tour of Latin America the protesters were out en masse. "Persona non grata" read one placard. "Get out you Nazi" said another. In case the message still hadn't hit home, there was one other taunt - this time in English: "Bush, kill yourself." Read The Full Story
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