Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday March 29 2007 - (813)

Thursday March 29 2007 edition
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Prosecutors Assail Gonzales During Meeting 2007-03-29 02:05:24 Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales endured blunt criticism Tuesday from federal prosecutors who questioned the firings of eight United States attorneys,complained that the dismissals had undermined morale and expressed broader grievances about his leadership, according to people briefed on the discussion. About a half-dozen United States attorneys voiced their concerns at a private meeting with Gonzales in Chicago, Illinois. Several of the prosecutors said the dismissals caused them to wonder about their own standing and distracted their employees, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Others asked Gonzales about the removal of Daniel C. Bogden, the former United States attorney in Nevada, a respected career prosecutor whose ouster has never been fully explained by the Justice Department. Read The Full Story Ex-Gonzales Aide To Say Others Knew Of Firings 2007-03-29 02:04:46 The attorney general's former chief of staff plans to testify Thursday that other Justice Department officials knew about the "origins and timing" of the effort to fire eight U.S. attorneys, which began two years earlier in the White House, according to prepared testimony for a Congressional hearing. But D. Kyle Sampson - who resigned earlier this month ahead of revelations that White House political officials helped direct the dismissals - also will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that he "never sought to conceal or withhold material fact about this matter" while helping prepare witnesses for Congress. Lawmakers are seeking to determine whether top Justice Department officials misled them while testifying on the matter in recent months. "Others in the department knew what I knew about the origins and timing of this enterprise," reads Sampson's statement, obtained Wednesday. "None of us spoke up on those subjects ... not because there was some effort to hide this history, but because the focus of our preparation sessions was on other subjects." Read The Full Story Ex-Senator Fred Thompson May Run For President In 2008 2007-03-29 02:03:14 "Law & Order" star and former U.S. senator Fred Dalton Thompson is considering a bid for the White House that would test whether Hollywood can once again launch a Republican to the world's premier political stage. His interest, confirmed in a brief interview this week, is generating buzz in Washington. He was third among Republican-leaning voters in a recent Gallup-USA Today survey, behind Sen. John McCain (Arizona) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The onetime senator from Tennessee is known to many Americans for playing New York District Attorney Arthur Branch on "Law & Order" and an admiral in the film "The Hunt for Red October." But his real-life record as a no-nonsense lawmaker who also served as the minority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee is appealing to party activists dissatisfied with the current crop of Republican hopefuls. Read The Full Story Captured Britons Shown On Iranian T.V., Female Captive May Be Released 2007-03-28 18:08:52 Iranian television tonight broadcast footage of the 15 British sailors and marines seized while on patrol off Iraqi shores last week. The film included an interview with Faye Turney, the only woman among the group, who apologized for "trespassing" into Iranian waters. Dressed in a headscarf and smoking a cigarette, Ms. Turney said she had been well treated by "friendly and hospitable" people. "My name is leading seaman Faye Turney. I come from England. I have served in Foxtrot 99. I've been in the navy for nine years," she said in the broadcast on al-Alam, an Arabic-language, Iranian state-run television station carried across the Middle East by satellite. Read The Full Story Abramoff Emails Raise New Questions In Attorney Firings 2007-03-28 18:08:23 A Congressional probe into the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys last year has raised new questions about the role that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff played in the 2003 demotion of Frederick Black, the former U.S. attorney in Guam. At issue is whether a report compiled by the Department of Justice's inspector general took into account the fact that White House officials had been using email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee before concluding that Black was not demoted for political reasons. Black had served as interim U.S. attorney in Guam for twelve years and was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush before being abruptly replaced in May 2003. His dismissal stirred controversy at the time because Black was a political enemy of Abramoff, who had been retained as a lobbyist by numerous individuals that were being investigated by Black for public corruption. Read The Full Story 15 U.S. And Iraqi Troops Injured As 2 Chlorine Attacks Repulsed In Falluja 2007-03-28 18:07:21 Iraqi security forces shot two suicide truck bombers carrying highly toxic chorine before they could reach a government complex in Fallujah on Wednesday, but the explosives detonated, wounding 15 U.S. and Iraqi forces, said the American military. The chlorine gas attack was the eighth since Jan. 28, when a suicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a quick-reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people. The attack on the government compound began with mortar fire, the military said. Iraqi police fired on the first suicide bomber, and Iraq soldiers shot at the second. Both trucks exploded before they could get inside the compound that houses the mayor's office, U.S. military offices, the city jail and police station. Read The Full Story U.S. Association Of Holocaust Survivors Urges Germany To Open Nazi Archive Soon 2007-03-28 18:06:26 A Jewish leader who survived the Holocaust as a boy by hiding in basements and attics urged countries on Wednesday to speed the opening of millions of files on Nazi concentration camps and their victims. Leo Rechter, president of the U.S.-based National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, told Congress that Nazi war records stored in Bad Arolsen, Germany, should be opened urgently for a dying generation of survivors. "Of all the public archives in the world, what possible justification can there be to prevent us from learning the truth about what happened to our families during the Holocaust?" he asked, according to testimony prepared for delivery to the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Europe subcommittee. Rechter, an Austrian Jew whose family fled to Belgium and survived the Nazi occupation after his father was deported and murdered in Auschwitz, spoke at a hearing aimed at stepping up pressure on an 11-nation body that oversees the secret Nazi archive. Wednesday's hearing follows the approval by a House panel Tuesday of a resolution urging the countries to speed up ratification of plans to open the archive to researchers. Read The Full Story Flaming Objects Miss Jetliner In New Zealand Air Space 2007-03-28 18:05:20 Pilots of a Chilean commercial jetliner spotted flaming objects falling past their plane as it headed for a landing in New Zealand, airline officials said Wednesday. U.S. experts suggested the objects were likely meteors burning up in the earth's atmosphere and questioned Australian media reports they were probably pieces of a falling Russian spacecraft. LAN Chile airline said in a brief statement that the pilot, who was not identified, "made visual contact with incandescent fragments" several miles away on Monday. The Airbus 340 had just entered New Zealand airspace when the space debris was spotted. The airline said it reported the incident to authorities in Chile and New Zealand. Read The Full Story Oil Prices Jump Near $65 A Barrel On Iraq/British Tensions 2007-03-28 13:11:52 Oil climbed near to $65 a barrel on Wednesday, after a $5 spike to six month highs overnight on a rumor, quickly dismissed by the United States, that a U.S. naval vessel had clashed with Iran. Britain denied another market rumor that it had sent troops to release 15 British military personnel being held in Iran. "Although it didn't happen this time, people think it could happen," said Christopher Bellew of oil brokers Bache Financial. Oil's surge to $68.09, its highest since September 6, highlighted anxiety over supplies from the Gulf and in particular Iran, the world's fourth-biggest exporter, which is at odds with the United Nations over its nuclear program. Read The Full Story McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture Of Iraq 2007-03-28 12:54:58 An influential retired Army general released a dire assessment of the situation in Iraq, based on a recent round of meetings there with Gen. David H. Petraeus and 16 other senior U.S. commanders. "The population is in despair," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote in an eight-page document compiled in his capacity as a professor at West Point. "Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate." McCaffrey is widely respected in the military, having fought in the Vietnam War, commanded a division in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and later served as the commander for U.S. military operations in Central America and South America. After retiring, he became President Bill Clinton's director of drug policy. McCaffrey, who has met twice with President Bush to discuss the war, most recently in December, was scheduled to brief White House officials on his conclusions late Tuesday. Read The Full Story Children Held Hostage On Bus In Manila Are Freed 2007-03-28 12:54:30 The owner of a daycare center gave himself up after taking a busload of his students hostage in Manila Wednesday. He had driven them to Manila City Hall, where he railed against corruption in Philippine politics through a loudspeaker and criticized the government for failing to provide education for the poor. Police said Armando Ducat, Jr., and at least two other men were armed with hand grenades and other weapons when they took over the bus with 32 children and two teachers who were on their way to a field trip. Later, after nearly 10 hours since the stand-off began, the hostage-takers released the schoolchildren and the teachers unharmed. One by one, the children - some of them holding up toys that Ducat had given to them earlier in the day - stepped out of the tourist bus. Read The Full Story Saudi King Condemns U.S. Occupation Of Iraq 2007-03-28 12:53:35 Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah told a summit of Arab leaders that Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq threatened the stability of the oil-producing Gulf region and he called for an end to the international blockade on the Palestinian people. "In beloved Iraq, blood flows between brothers in the shadow of illegitimate foreign occupation and hateful sectarianism, threatening a civil war," he added. But his focus was on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which Sunni Arab leaders see as a major cause of violent radicalism in their own countries and threat to regional stability. In his speech to Arab monarchs and presidents at a two-day meeting in his capital, the king called on Arabs to overcome their disputes and unify to face dangers threatening them in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. Read The Full Story 70 Killed, 20 Injured In Gasoline Truck Fire In Nigeria 2007-03-28 12:52:34 A fire ignited as people were scavenging spilled fuel from an overturned tanker truck in northern Nigeria, killing 70 and wounding 20, an official said Wednesday. The truck was carrying about 8,700 gallons of fuel when it overturned on a curve in the road late Monday in northern Kaduna state, said Saad Yahaya, a police spokesman for the region. The driver told passers-by not to collect fuel gushing from the disabled vehicle, but they ignored him, said Yahaya. It wasn't known what caused the fuel to ignite, he said. Read The Full Story 32 Children Taken Hostage In Philippines 2007-03-28 01:50:15 A day-care center owner hijacked a busload of his students and teachers and drove them to Manila's city hall Wednesday to demand better housing and education for the children. Jun Ducat and at least one other hostage-taker scribbled in large letters on a sheet of paper, taped to the bus' windshield, that they were holding 32 children and two teachers and were armed with two grenades, an assault rifle and a pistol, said officer Mark Andal. One child with a fever was released after four hours, and then was driven away in an ambulance. They said they were demanding improved housing and education for 145 children in a day-care center in Manila's poor Tondo district where the incident, televised live around the world, appeared to have begun. The driver was released soon afterward. Read The Full Story	Troop Surge May Mean Longer Army Tours In Iraq, Afghanistan 2007-03-29 02:05:11 Sustaining the U.S. troop increase in Iraq beyond this summer will not be possible without keeping some Army combat brigades in the war zone for up to 16 months - much longer than the standard year-long tour, a top U.S. general in charge of the military's rotation plans said Wednesday. Air Force Gen. Lance Smith, head of U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, also said that if the increase of more than 28,000 combat and support troops continues until February, there is a "high probability" that some Army units would have less than a year at home between combat rotations, further compressing the limited time to train and reconnect with families. "It will be very difficult" to sustain the increase past the summer, Smith told defense reporters. "The challenges are really in trying to allow a unit to have enough time at home to train, reset and reinvigorate themselves, and to not have to extend them too long in Iraq beyond the one year boots on the ground." Read The Full Story Attacks On Baghdad's Green Zone Are Increasing 2007-03-29 02:03:59 Iraqi insurgents are increasingly hitting Baghdad's fortresslike Green Zone with rockets and mortar shells, officials said Wednesday. Insurgents have struck inside the Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy, on six of the past seven days, once with deadly consequences. A U.S. soldier and a U.S. government contractor were killed Tuesday night by a rocket attack that also seriously wounded a civilian, said military and embassy officials. One soldier and at least three other civilians received minor injuries, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor. The attack stunned a workforce normally blase about Baghdad's habitual wartime booms and blasts. A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said, "There are increasing attacks on the embassy." Read The Full Story Ousted Pakistan Chief Justice Speaks Out 2007-03-29 02:02:48 Pakistan's suspended chief justice received a hero's welcome from some 2,000 lawyers Wednesday as he gave his first address since President Pervez Musharraf removed him from the bench nearly three weeks ago. The Supreme Court judge, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, was showered with rose petals and greeted with boisterous chants of "Go, Musharraf, go!" by supporters who have rallied to Chaudhry's side and want Pakistan's president to resign. The clash between Musharraf and Chaudhry has riveted the nation since the judge was suspended on March 9, and many feel it represents the most serious domestic challenge to Musharraf since he came to power in a military coup eight years ago. Critics say the decision to suspend Chaudhry was an attempt by Musharraf to crush the judiciary ahead of elections planned for later this year. The government has said Chaudhry misused his office, and Musharraf has accused opponents of exploiting the controversy for political gain. Read The Full Story FBI Agent Told To Keep Quiet Over U.S. Attorney Firings 2007-03-28 18:08:39 An FBI agent was warned to keep quiet about the dismissal of a U.S. attorney after he told a newspaper her firing would hurt the agency's ongoing investigations and speculated politics was involved, a U.S. Senate panel heard on Tuesday. FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the handling of the incident, saying: "I do not believe it's appropriate for our special agents in charge to comment to the media on personnel decisions that are made by the Department of Justice." "I profoundly disagree," replied Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, who told the panel of the warning to the agent. "He (the agent) was simply saying that it would affect cases that were ongoing. And I think he's entitled to his opinion." The exchange came as Mueller's testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is ramping up its investigation into the firing last year of eight of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys. Read The Full Story Sen. Schumer's Office: Subpoenas Ready For Rove, Miers 2007-03-28 18:07:50 Senator Charles Schumer finds it "hard to believe" that embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can continue in office for much longer. At the same time, Schumer believes that the practical consequences for the Republican Party resulting from Gonzales' actions - the culling of eight U.S. Attorneys - will be lasting. "Clearly, it will affect 2008, because the credibility of the President and the people close to him is lower now today than it was a month ago, and that's going to hurt," he said. Read The Full Story Berezovsky To Be Interviewed By Russian Detectives - After They've Been Frisked For Poisons 2007-03-28 18:06:52 The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovksy has agreed to meet Russian detectives as part of their investigation into the murder of the former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko - but only on the condition that they are frisked for poisons. The team of Russian prosecutors arrived in London on Monday. Berezovsky will meet them on Friday after they agreed to a series of conditions including being searched for "weapons and poisons" first. The Russian investigators' visit comes two months after they first submitted a request to Scotland Yard to be allowed to carry out their own separate inquiry into the ex-agent's death. It follows a visit by British detectives to Moscow in December. Speaking before flying to Britain, Alexander Zvyagintsev, the Russian deputy prosecutor, said his team planned to interview at least 100 people, including Berezovsky, in Britain. "We have already reached an agreement with the U.K.," he added. Read The Full Story Fears Rise Over Killings In Ukraine 2007-03-28 18:05:53 A sniper's brazen, daylight assassination of a Russian businessman outside a courthouse fueled fears Wednesday that contract killings are again on the rise in this former Soviet republic. Premier Viktor Yanukovych demanded answers from Ukraine's top police chief about the slaying of Maxim Kurochkin, as opponents seized on the killing and a series of other slayings to criticize Yanukovych's government. Kurochkin, known as "Mad Max", was shot in the heart Tuesday evening as he stepped out of a Kiev courthouse where he was on trial for extortion. The shot apparently came from an attic window of a nearby building and seriously injured one of the officers escorting him. Witnesses said two men wearing black masks fled the scene. The killing was not only shocking for its bold character - Kurochkin had repeatedly pleaded with the court to free him on bail, saying his life was in danger - it was also the latest in a string of assassinations and attacks against business leaders in the country. Read The Full Story 3 Dead, Girl, 14, Missing As Ferry Collides With Private Boat In Sydney Harbor 2007-03-28 18:04:57 Three people were killed, several were injured and a 14-year-old girl is missing after a collision between a ferry and a private boat on Sydney harbor, police said on Thursday. An empty harbor ferry collided with a 10-meter (33-feet) wooden motor cruiser carrying about 12 people at about 11 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Wednesday underneath the Sydney harbor Bridge. The cruiser rolled over after the impact, police said in a statement. A passing ferry and another vessel pulled people out of the water. Eight people were in hospital and two were seriously hurt. One woman lost part of a leg and a six-year-old boy suffered minor injuries, said the statement. Television pictures showed helicopters shining searchlights onto the waters of the harbor. Police divers and a navy vessel were also searching for the missing girl. Read The Full Story French Trains Nazi Ruling Quashed 2007-03-28 13:11:30 A court on Tuesday struck down a ruling that French railways must compensate the family of a Jewish man transported to an internment camp in Nazi-occupied France, dealing a blow to hundreds more claims. Judges in an administrative appeals court in southwestern Bordeaux said administrative courts were not competent to rule on the legal liability of state rail operator SNCF. The ruling means plaintiffs will have to bring their cases before civil or criminal courts where lawyers say they have far less chance of success. Read The Full Story At Least 50 Killed In Reprisal Attacks In Tal Afar, Iraq 2007-03-28 12:54:43 As many as 50 people were killed in what appeared to be reprisal attacks in Tal Afar after a double suicide-vehicle bombing there on Tuesday killed 85 people and wounded 150, Iraqi officials and a witness said today. Armed attacks broke out against Sunnis in the Sunni neighborhood of Al Wahda, with Shiite Iraqi security forces suspected of taking part, they said. “Some of the families of the victims were enraged, and with cooperation of some policemen they attacked the Sunni areas,” said a resident in the city, Muhie Muhammad Ebrahim. “I can say that a public slaughtering took place, but there was no reaction from the authorities.” Twelve police officers suspected of taking part in the reprisal killings were arrested, said an official in the Iraqi army, who declined to be identified. And the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, ordered a committee be formed to investigate allegations the gunmen included some Iraqi police. Read The Full Story Fed Chairman Bernanke: 'Uncertainties' Have Grown 2007-03-28 12:54:10 Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, acknowledged Wednesday that “uncertainties” about the economic outlook have “increased somewhat in recent weeks” and that “turmoil” in the market for subprime home mortgages has created “severe financial problems for many individuals and families.” Bernanke reiterated in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress his broadly sanguine view that the United States economy was likely to expand at a moderate pace this year and that inflation was likely to slightly decline. “The uncertainties around the outlook have increased somewhat in recent weeks,” said Bernanke but, in his prepared testimony, Bernanke offered little indication that he wanted to clamp down more tightly on subprime mortgage lenders, which lend money to people with poor credit, or on what a growing number of Democrats view as predatory mortgage lending practices. Read The Full Story Standoff Over British Marines, Sailors Held In Iran Escalates 2007-03-28 12:53:16 Escalating its dispute with Iran, Britain Wednesday froze all “bilateral business” with Tehran to retaliate for the seizure of 15 British naval personnel six days ago in what the Royal Navy insists were Iraqi territorial waters. “It is now time to ratchet up international and diplomatic pressure” on Iran to demonstrate its “total isolation,” Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament after the Royal Navy released details of what it said was the sailors’ position when they were apprehended. Meanwhile, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a Turkish television station Wednesday that Iran would release “today or tomorrow” the only woman among the 15 British captives, Faye Turney, 26, the mother of a 3-year-old girl. In London, the Royal Navy took the highly unusual step of making public charts, photographs and previously secret navigational coordinates purportedly proving that the sailors were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters, and not in Iranian waters, when they were seized. Read The Full Story White House Withdraws Ambassador Nominee Fox 2007-03-28 12:52:21 President Bush on Wednesday withdrew the ambassadorial nomination of businessman Sam Fox after Democrats denounced Fox for giving money to a controversial conservative group that undermined Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry, D-Massachusetts, had criticized Fox because of a $50,000 contribution that Fox made in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Many Democrats blame the group for sinking Kerry's presidential hopes that year after it aired a series of controversial ads that impugned Kerry's military record in the Vietnam War. "Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth," Kerry said Wednesday. "He chose not to. The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination. I hope this signals a new day in political discourse." Read The Full Story Arizona Veterans Director Resigns After Violations 2007-03-28 01:50:04 The director of the Arizona Department of Veterans Services resigned Tuesday, days after the public disclosure of health and safety violations at a nursing home for veterans. The violations included patients left in soiled undergarments and covered in bodily fluids leaking from medical devices. The list of violations was in a report dated March 16 and released last week by state health investigators who, acting on an anonymous complaint, examined the Arizona State Veteran Home in central Phoenix over an eight-day period last month. The report was obtained last week by the Arizona Republic newspaper and has been widely publicized around the state. The home, which has 200 beds serving primarily veterans of World War II and the Korean War, was fined $10,000 by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a result of the report. Read The Full Story
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