Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday March 20 2007 - (813)

Tuesday March 20 2007 edition
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Bush Appointees 'Watered Down Greenhouse Science' 2007-03-20 01:15:10 The Bush administration ran a systematic campaign to play down the dangers of climate change, demanding hundreds of politically motivated changes to scientific reports and muzzling a pre-eminent expert on global warming, Congress was told Monday. The testimony to the house committee on oversight and government reform painted the administration as determined to maintain its line on climate change even when it clashed with the findings of scientific experts. James Hansen, who heads the Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York, said in prepared testimony: "The effect of the filtering of climate change science during the current administration has been to make the reality of climate change less certain than the facts indicate, and to reduce concern about the relation of climate change to human-made greenhouse gas emissions." Since the Democratic takeover of Congress last January the committee's chairman, Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, has led efforts to uncover the extent of White House interference with scientific debate. The Bush administration has moved to exercise direct control over environmental agencies by installing political appointees including Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, as chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality, and a 23-year-old college drop-out who was made a public affairs officer at NASA after working on  Bush's re-election campaign. Cooney told the committee Monday: "My sole loyalty was to the president and advancing the policies of his administration." Read The Full Story Libby Prosecutor 'Ranked' During CIA Leak Case 2007-03-20 01:14:32 U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said Monday. The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys ... who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who ... chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents. The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show. Fitzgerald's ranking adds another dimension to the prosecutor firings, which began as a White House proposal to remove all 93 U.S. attorneys after the 2004 elections and evolved into the coordinated dismissal of eight last year, a move that has infuriated lawmakers and led to calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign. Read The Full Story Russia Gives Iran Ultimatum On Enrichment 2007-03-20 01:13:49 Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, say European, American and Iranian officials. The ultimatum was delivered in Moscow last week by Igor S. Ivanov, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council, to Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a confidential diplomatic exchange between two governments was involved. For years, President Bush has been pressing Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to cut off help to Iran on the nuclear power plant that Russia is building at Bushehr, in southern Iran, but Putin has resisted. The project is Tehran’s first serious effort to produce nuclear energy and has been very profitable for Russia. Recently, however, Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, which may explain Russia’s apparent shift, but the ultimatum may also reflect an increasing displeasure and frustration on Moscow’s part with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz. Read The Full Story Far From Iraq, A Demonstration Of A War Zone 2007-03-20 01:13:08 There's a lot of weirdness every day in the capital city, but this one pushed the envelope: 13 Iraq war veterans in full desert camo going on "patrol" from Union Station to Arlington National Cemetery. They carried imaginary assault rifles, barked commands, roughly "detained" suspected hostiles with flex cuffs and hoods - and generally shocked, frightened and delighted tourists and office workers. "How does occupation feel, D.C.?!" shouted Geoff Millard, head of the local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who previously served on a brigadier general's staff in Tikrit. They cut a swath across downtown, taking imaginary sniper fire and casualties on the grounds of the Capitol and the Washington Monument, scouting the White House, performing mock arrests at the foot of the Capitol steps and a vehicle search on the Mall. At the Capitol, the veterans almost got detained themselves by civilian peace officers with real guns. The vets brought their act to a military recruiting station on L Street NW and concluded with a memorial ceremony in the cemetery. The 12 men and one woman included one veteran of Afghanistan, and they represented the Army, Marines and Navy. They were young, intense, disillusioned. Home from the war, on Monday's fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, they wanted to bring the war home to Washington. Read The Full Story Saddam's Vice President Hanged 2007-03-20 01:12:08 Saddam Hussein's former deputy was hanged before dawn Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shia Muslims, said an official with the prime minister's office. Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam's vice president when the regime was ousted four years ago, was the fourth man to be executed for the killings of 148 Shias following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail. The official, who witnessed the hanging but spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made, said precautions were taken to prevent a repeat of what happened to Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, who was decapitated on the gallows. Ramadan was weighed before the hanging and the length of the rope was chosen accordingly, said the official. Read The Full Story U.S. Embassy Convoy Attacked In Afghanistan 2007-03-19 13:11:47 A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying United States embassy officials on a busy road in Kabul Monday, seriously injuring an American security guard who was traveling in one of the vehicles. A 14-year-old Afghan boy was killed; witnesses said there were other civilian injuries as well. Joe Mellott, a spokesman for the embassy, said the guard had been hospitalized. “His condition is stable,” said  Mellott. The bombing, the first suicide attack recorded in Kabul this year, took place on the Jalalabad Road, a busy route out of Kabul that is regularly used by embassy and military vehicles. The site was about two miles from the embassy. The convoy was made up of four sport-utility vehicles, the embassy said; the suicide bomber’s car struck the first vehicle in the convoy, pushing it across the road. Read The Full Story Kidnapped Italian Journalist Freed In Afghanistan 2007-03-19 13:11:02 An Italian journalist kidnapped in Afghanistan two weeks ago was released Monday, and in an audio recording posted on his newspaper's Web site said he drew strength from the knowledge that Italy ''had not abandoned me.'' Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter for the Italian daily La Repubblica, said he slept in 15 different places that were ''as small as sheepfolds.'' His hands and feet were chained, and he was made to walk for miles in the desert. ''I knew that Italy was supporting me and that was the only comfort in the most desperate moments, when I feared I was going to be killed at anytime soon,'' Mastrogiacomo said in the recording posted on Repubblica's Internet site minutes after his release was announced. ''This is the most beautiful moment of my life.'' Read The Full Story U.S. Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts 2007-03-19 01:15:24 Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge. More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand. The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises, whether the internal collapse of Pakistan, a conflict with Iran or an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. Air and naval power can only go so far in compensating for infantry, artillery and other land forces, they said. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said. "We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it," Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Read The Full Story Plague Of Beetles Raises Climate Change Fears For America's Natural Beauty 2007-03-19 01:14:31 Colorado's distinctive lodgepole pine trees are under attack from a beetle infestation described by scientists as a "perfect storm" which could destroy 90% of the western American state's pine forests. The bark beetle outbreak was responsible for the death of 4.8 million lodgepole pines in Colorado last year, up from 1 million in 2005. The infestation has spread across 1,000 square miles of forest - nearly half the total in the state. Forty three per cent of the state's lodgepole pines have died as a result of the infestation. But it is not limited to Colorado: the beetles have munched their way through the western U.S. and Canada, affecting 36,000 square miles of forest. "I knew we would have an infestation," says Jan Burke, a silviculturist for Colorado's White River national forest, "but I never remotely imagined this. Nobody predicted this." She looks up at the mountains behind the ski resort of Vail, sweeping hillsides of pine pockmarked with the orange stain of dead trees and the delicate feathery grey of aspens. "I guess we're the lucky ones because in our lifetime we got to see these forests. Our children won't. For many that's a bitter pill to swallow." Read The Full Story Prosecutor's Firing Was Urged During Probe Of Republican Bribery Scandal 2007-03-19 01:13:44 The U.S. attorney in San Diego, California, notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of "a real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said Sunday. The prosecutor, Carol S. Lam, was dismissed seven months later as part of an effort by the Justice Department and White House to fire eight U.S. attorneys. A Justice spokesman said there was no connection between Lam's firing and her public corruption investigations, and pointed to criticisms of Lam for her record on prosecuting immigration cases. Read The Full Story NewsBlog: It's STILL The Oil - Secret Condi Meeting On Oil Before Invasion 2007-03-19 01:12:30 Intellpuke: The following newsblog was written by Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild". Mr. Palast writes that the invasion of Iraq was not so much about oil, as about getting oil prices to rise so the big oil companies could make a bundle. Mr. Palast's newsblog follows: Four years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, “Operation Iraqi Liberation”  O.I.L. I kid you not. And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, “I want to talk to the Iraqi people.” That Dick Cheney didn’t tell Bush that Iraqis speak Arabic … well, never mind. I expected the President to say something like, “Our troops are coming to liberate you, so don’t shoot them.” Instead, Mr. Bush told, the Iraqis, “Do not destroy oil wells.“ Read The Full Story Mugabe Opponent Beaten Again While Trying To Leave For E.U. Conference 2007-03-19 01:10:25 A Zimbabwean opposition spokesman and national parliament member, Nelson Chamisa, was beaten unconscious Sunday at Harare airport as he was about to fly to Brussels, Belgium, according to his party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The attack followed the arrest of three other opposition leaders at the airport at the weekend and the snatching by government agents of the body of activist Gift Tandare, shot dead by police, to prevent a public funeral. About 50 people including Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, were beaten and arrested while trying to attend a prayer rally eight days ago. Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, threatened more violence over the weekend, while Tsvangirai pledged further resistance. Read The Full Story	Medicare Contractors Owe Over $1 Billion In Back Taxes 2007-03-20 01:14:47 The federal government has failed to collect more than $1 billion in back taxes owed by Medicare doctors and suppliers, nearly half of it payroll taxes deducted by health-care providers who spent the money on luxury cars and other personal expenses rather than sending it to the IRS, a congressional report says. The money has not been collected because the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare, has failed to connect its computers to the Internal Revenue Service and other Treasury Department divisions, the Government Accountability Office report says. Such a connection would allow the agencies to quickly identify who owes taxes and begin deducting that money from checks the federal contractors receive from Medicare. The collection gap persists despite the GAO's recommendation in 2001 that HHS and Treasury coordinate to ensure no federal contractor abuses the federal tax system by failing to pay taxes. Many of those who owe tax continue to work for Medicare, and their tax liability has grown, GAO researchers have told members of Congress. Read The Full Story U.S. House War Bill Contains Funding For Pet Projects 2007-03-20 01:14:08 House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year. So far, the projects - which range from the reconstruction of New Orleans levees to the building of peanut storehouses in Georgia - have had little impact on the tally. For a funding bill that establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home, votes do not come cheap. At least a few Republicans and conservative Democrats who otherwise would vote "no" remain undecided, as they ponder whether they can leave on the table millions of dollars for constituents by opposing the $124 billion war funding bill due for a vote on Thursday. Read The Full Story Kremlin May Force BP To Share Oil Venture 2007-03-20 01:13:26 BP has warned western investors that it could soon be forced to share control of its highly profitable Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, with a Kremlin-controlled energy group such as Gazprom or Rosneft. The change could come after the end of a "lock-in" period in December when its local private partners, the Alfa and Access/Renova groups, can sell their 50% stake in Russia's third largest oil producer. The other half is owned by BP. BP's warning comes after the forced sale of part of Shell's Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development in eastern Russia to Gazprom at the end of last year. Bob Dudley, TNK-BP's chief executive, said sharing power with a large energy group such as Gazprom or the newly expanded Rosneft should not be seen as a huge problem for his group. "Having one's main investors linked to oil and gas is a good thing and might create additional markets for the company," he said. Read The Full Story Brazil's Air Traffic Control System Fails 2007-03-20 01:12:32 Brazil's airlines were trying to make up for lengthy flight delays Monday after its troubled air traffic control system failed over the weekend, stranding travelers just months after a breakdown that enraged thousands of passengers. A control center in Brasilia that monitors flights through the nation's populous southeast region had suffered a communications equipment failure, Brazil's Defense Ministry said in a statement. Then power went out at the airport in Brasilia, making the problem worse, officials confirmed Monday. Unusually heavy rains in Sao Paulo put even more strain on the system. Read The Full Story 63 Die In Fire At Russia Home For Elderly 2007-03-20 01:11:44 A fire swept through a home for elderly and disabled people in southern Russia on Tuesday, killing at least 63 people, said emergency officials. It took firefighters nearly an hour to get from the nearest sizable town to the facility in the Krasnodar region village of Yeisk, where there is no fire station, said Sergei Petrov, a duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry's southern branch. He said 63 people were killed, one was missing and 33 were injured. Read The Full Story U.S., Israel Disagree On Palestinian Contacts 2007-03-19 13:11:31 The first fractures surfaced Sunday in the Israeli and American approaches to the new Palestinian unity government, with Israel'scabinet voting overwhelmingly to boycott it, while the United States Consulate here refused to rule out contacts with some moderate Palestinians who are now serving as ministers. The American position, while not a change in policy, added to the sense that the new unity government, officially announced Saturday after many weeks of negotiations, had created potential openings with the West, raising the possibility of a resumption of direct international aid and damaging Israeli efforts to maintain a solid boycott. Britain has also refused to rule out dealing with some members of the new government, France has invited its foreign minister to visit, and Norway said Saturday that it would recognize the new government. Read The Full Story At Least 61 Killed In Russian Mine Blast 2007-03-19 13:10:45 A methane gas explosion ripped through a Siberian coal mine Monday, killing at least 61 miners among nearly 200 working underground, government and emergency officials said. It was among the deadliest mining accidents in Russia in the past decade. The official with the administration of the Kemerovo region, where the Ulyanovskaya mine is located, confirmed a sharp rise in deaths among the miners who were working underground at the time of the blast. He refused to give his name, since he was not authorized to speak to the press. Around 186 miners were working in the mine in the coal-rich southern Kuzbass region when the blast occurred early Monday. The Kemerovo administration said earlier that 88 had been brought safely to the surface, with evacuation efforts continuing. At least five miners were injured, said emergency officials. Read The Full Story 180 Towns Put Climate On The Agenda In New Hampshire 2007-03-19 01:14:45 As they do every March at the town meeting here in Bartlett, New Hampshire, residents debated and voted Thursday on items most local: whether to outfit the town fire truck with a new hose, buy a police cruiser and put a new drainpipe in the town garage. But here and in schools and town halls throughout New Hampshire, between discussions about school boards and budgets, residents are also considering a state referendum on a global issue: climate change. Of the 234 incorporated cities and towns in New Hampshire, 180 are voting on whether to support a resolution asking the federal government to address climate change and to develop research initiatives to create “innovative energy technologies.” The measure also calls for state residents to approve local solutions for combating climate change and for town selectmen to consider forming energy committees. Read The Full Story Senator Leahy Insists Bush Aides Testify Publicly On Prosecutors' Dismissals 2007-03-19 01:14:16 The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors insisted Sunday that Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush must testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand. Some Republicans have suggested that Rove testify privately, if only to tamp down the political uproar over the inquiry, which centers on whether the White House allowed politics to interfere with law enforcement. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, seemed to rule out such a move on Sunday. He said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Rove as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel. “I do not believe in this ‘We’ll have a private briefing for you where we’ll tell you everything,’ and they don’t,”  Leahy said on “This Week” on ABC, adding: “I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this.” Read The Full Story Egypt Shuts Door On Dissent As U.S. Officials Back Off On Promoting Democracy 2007-03-19 01:12:59 On June 20, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped onto the arabesque campus of the American University in Cairo, Egypt, built around a former pasha's palace, and delivered a call to action that overturned decades of American policy in the Arab world. "For 60 years," she said, "my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people." For five paragraphs of her speech, diplomatic niceties made way for a series of declarative "musts" directed at Egypt's government: It must give its citizens the freedom to choose, Egyptian elections must be free, opposition groups must be free to assemble and participate. The Egyptian government, said Rice, "must put its faith in its own people." The language was black-and-white, but America's relationship with Egypt - with President Hosni Mubarak and with the reform movement - never is. Read The Full Story Oil Prices Nudge Up From Six-Week Low 2007-03-19 01:12:09 Oil prices edged higher amid gains in major Asian financial markets Monday but remained near six-week lows on continued worries over the U.S. and global economy following a global equities sell-off last week. ''There are concerns that the global equities sell-off may not be over and that may impact economic growth and thus oil demand,'' said Victor Shum of Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. ''These concerns and worries about the state of the U.S. economy have taken some momentum out of the oil market.'' Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose 14 cents to $57.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchangemidmorning in Singapore. Read The Full Story 4 Years After Invasion, Man Who Helped Bring Down Saddam's Statue Says Iraq Worse Off 2007-03-19 01:10:13 His hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20-foot bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret. The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest,  al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day." The weightlifter had also been a mechanic and had felt the full weight of Saddam's regime when he was sent to Abu Ghraib prison by the Iraqi leader's son, Uday, after complaining that he had not been paid for fixing his motorcycle. "There were lots of people from my tribe who were also put in prison or hanged," he explained. "It became my dream ever since I saw them building that statue to one day topple it." Read The Full Story
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