Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday March 7 2007 - (813)

Wednesday March 7 2007 edition
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U.S. Mother, Daughter Fall Ill In Moscow From Thallium Poisoning 2007-03-07 03:09:09 An American woman and her daughter, both of whom fell ill mysteriously during a trip to Russia last month, had been poisoned with thallium, hospital officials revealed Tuesday. The deadly metal is the same substance originally blamed for the poisoning in London of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Marina Kovalenskaya, 48, and her daughter Yana, 25, flew to Moscow last month from their home in Los Angeles for a family wedding. They fell ill in the early hours of February 24. The women were taken to the American medical center from their hotel and later transferred by ambulance to the Sklifosovsky clinic, the city's top emergency hospital. Doctors were initially baffled as to the cause of their illness. Read The Full Story 49 Dead In Indonesia Plane Crash 2007-03-07 03:08:42 Forty-nine people have been confirmed dead in a plane crash at the airport of the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, a government official said Wednesday. “We found 48 dead bodies at the spot,” said the provincial secretary, Bambang Susanto. “One person died at Sardjito hospital,” he added, referring to the city’s main medical center. A jet from Indonesia's state carrier, Garuda, crashed and burst into flames on landing with 140 passengers and crew members on board, according to Garuda officials. Scores of passengers escaped the crash through the plane’s emergency exits, said officials. Read The Full Story At Least 70 Killed In Indonesian Earthquake 2007-03-06 16:03:27 A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesian Tuesday, killing at least 70 people and injuring hundreds more as buildings collapsed. The 6.3-magnitude quake, which was followed by several strong aftershocks, forced thousands to flee their homes near the epicenter on Sumatra island. "We're preparing for the worst," Andi Mallarangeng, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told CNN. "We are still monitoring the situation ... We hope the worst is over." Power lines and communication were cut to the affected region. Indonesian television showed widespread damage to buildings on the island, including a hospital that had to be evacuated. Read The Full Story Jury Finds Libby Guilty Of Lying To Grand Jury 2007-03-06 16:03:04 A federal jury today convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, finding the vice president's former chief of staff guilty of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, while acquitting him of a single count of lying to the FBI. The verdict, reached by the 11 jurors on the 10th day of deliberations, culminated the seven-week trial of the highest-ranking White House official to be indicted on criminal charges in modern times. Under federal sentencing guidlines, Libby faces a probable prison term of 1 1/2 to three years when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton June 5. As the jury forewoman read each guilty count in a clear, solemn voice, Libby was impassive, remaining seated at the defense table, gazing straight ahead and displaying no visible emotion. His wife, Harriet Grant, sat in the front row with tears in her eyes and was was embraced by friends. Later she hugged each of Libby's lawyers. Read The Full Story Dole, Shalala To Head Walter Reed Investigation 2007-03-06 16:01:48 President Bush Tuesday appointed former senator Bob Dole and former health and human services secretary Donna E. Shalala to co-chair a new presidential commission that will look into problems at the nation's military and veterans' hospitals. In a speech to a gathering of the American Legion in Washington, Bush said bureaucratic delays and substandard living conditions for some soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were "unacceptable." In addition to creating the new commission, whose other members are to be announced this week, Bush said he has directed his secretary of veterans affairs to lead a seven-member Cabinet task force to "respond to immediate needs" in meeting what he called a "moral obligation to provide the best possible care and treatment" to wounded service members. Bush also used the speech to defend his troop-increase plan for Iraq and to level some sharp criticism at Congress over objections to his Iraq war policy, warning that "there are no shortcuts in Iraq." Read The Full Story Fired U.S. Attorney Testifies On New Mexico Lawmakers 2007-03-06 16:00:50 Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that Rep. Heather Wilson  (R-New Mexico) called him on Oct. 16 - while she was locked in a tight battle for re-election - to say she had heard that his ongoing criminal investigation into local Albuquerque Democrats may have produced indictments that Iglesias was sitting on. "What can you tell me about sealed indictments?" Wilson asked, according to Iglesias' sworn testimony before the committee today. Iglesias said "red flags" immediately went up in his mind about the conversation because it was unethical for him to talk about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly on matters as sensitive as the timing of indictments. "I was evasive and unresponsive," he said of his conversation with Wilson. She became upset, according to Iglesias, and ended the conversation. Read The Full Story Russian Journalist Who Angered Military Falls To Death - Colleagues Scoff At Suicide Theories 2007-03-06 01:03:05 A senior Russian journalist who embarrassed the country's military establishment with a series of exclusive stories has been found dead outside his apartment in mysterious circumstances. The body of Ivan Safronov, 51-year-old defense correspondent for the newspaper Kommersant, was discovered on Friday. He allegedly fell from a fifth-floor window. Although prosecutors say they suspect that Safranov committed suicide, his colleagues Monday insisted that he had no reason to kill himself. They said he was the latest in a long line of Russian journalists to die in unexplained circumstances. "Nobody believes he could have committed suicide. He had no reason to kill himself," his colleague Sergei Dupin told the Guardian last night. Safranov - a married father of two - had a happy family life and a successful career, he said. Several newspapers pointed to Safranov's track record of breaking stories about Russia's nuclear program. Last December he revealed that the experimental Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, hailed by President Vladimir Putin as the basis for Russia's future nuclear might, did not work. It had failed to launch for the third consecutive time, he wrote. His exclusive infuriated military commanders, who continue to deny problems with the missile. They launched an internal investigation and threatened Safranov with legal action. "For some reason, it is those journalists who are disliked by the authorities who die in this country," the mass-selling daily Moskovsky Komsomolets observed Monday. "Ivan Safronov was one of those. He knew a lot about the real situation in the army and the defense industries, and he reported it." Read The Full Story U.S. Airstrike In Kabul Kills 9 Members Of The Same Family 2007-03-06 01:02:25 Afghan confidence in western military forces was further frayed Monday when an American airstrike on a house near Kabul killed nine people spanning four generations of the same family. American warplanes dropped two 2,000-lb. bombs on the house in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul, hours after an attack on a nearby U.S. base. The apparent mistake came a day after American Special Forces opened fire on civilians on a busy road in eastern Afghanistan, killing up to 10 and wounding many more. The mounting death toll is causing an uproar in a country that has suffered many civilian casualties since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001. Last December President Hamid Karzai wept as he pleaded with western troops to avoid unnecessary deaths. Reporters at the scene of the Kapisa bombing said the bombs had pulverized the main house in a compound of five buildings. Gulam Nabi, a relative of the victims, said four children aged between six months and five years had been killed. Read The Full Story Commentary: An Insult To Our War Dead 2007-03-06 01:01:32 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma. In his column, which appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, March 6, 2007, Mr. Kosachev writes that Estonia now permits SS rallies, but plans to pull down memorials to those who died fighting fascism. Mr. Kosachev's column follows: The marks of the second world war can be seen all over Europe, in restored buildings, destroyed neighborhoods, war cemeteries, painful memories and memorials to the millions who died in the war against nazism. In almost all countries the memorials are treated with respect. In Normandy fallen British and German soldiers lie in adjacent cemeteries. Their graves are well kept, so that families may visit their last resting place, and new generations be reminded of the horrors of war. But in Estonia a new law threatens the very principle of the sanctity of the war dead. The War Graves Protection Act will allow the memorial that stands in the centre of the capital, Tallinn, to be dismantled, and the bodies of unknown soldiers beneath it to be disinterred and reburied elsewhere. While Estonia's President Toomas Ilves has for now vetoed on technical grounds the part of the act that obliges the government to demolish Soviet war memorials within 30 days, he has waved through another law permitting the reburial of the remains of Soviet soldiers who died fighting the Nazis. The Russian government is deeply concerned as this plan threatens to upset relations between Estonians and Russians living in the country and hopes of improving our friendship as independent, neighbouring states. The children and grandchildren of men and women who fought fascism will no longer have a place in central Tallinn where they can honour those heroes. Meanwhile in Estonia, as in Latvia, it has become permissible for veterans of the Hitlerite SS not only to form associations, but to hold rallies in city centers. Read The Full Story Ambassador Pleads For Help In Search For Kidnapped Britons 2007-03-06 00:59:22 Britain's ambassador to Ethiopia made an emotional appeal for information about the five Britons snatched from a remote border area last night as efforts to negotiate their safe release were stepped up. Foreign Office officials said that progress was being made in the search for two women and three men who were kidnapped at the end of a adventure tour on Thursday, with senior diplomats engaged in round the clock talks with the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments. All five victims - who cannot be named due to a government reporting restriction - are members of staff from the British embassy in Addis Ababa, relatives of diplomats or officials from the Department for International Development. Speaking Monday as investigators examined the group's shrapnel-damaged vehicles, the ambassador, Bob Dewar, said there were local people who were "willing and able to facilitate their safe return." Read The Full Story	Commentary: The Point Of No Return 2007-03-07 03:08:55 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Bibi van der Zee and appears on the Guardian Unlimited's website edition for Wednesday, March 7, 2007. In the column, van der Zee writes that of course we must make plans for climate change, but the sense of resignation, of giving-in is troubling.  Ms. van der Zee's column follows: A mild morning, as almost all these winter mornings have been. A wonderful burst of canary yellow crocuses are in bloom outside. The icecaps are on the radio again - not doing too well, dripping away. "U.K. plans to cut CO2 doomed to fail," reads the Guardian's front page. What, I wonder, is the back-up plan? Just in case, you know, we don't all switch to low-energy lightbulbs in time. To the phone. The Cabinet Office, who are in charge of Civil Contingencies, direct me firmly to Defra: "All I can say is that Defra is the contact for that, Defra are in the lead in terms of developing policy related to climate change." Me: "But shouldn't the Civil Contingency department be involved, too?" They send me a polite email suggesting that the U.K. Resilience website - the government's information service for emergency planners - might be useful. The Home Office refer me to Defra. The Foreign Office, questioned about plans to deal with high levels of immigration or population movement, are thoughtful, but not particularly helpful. They point out that "basically it's difficult to say without having specific scenarios. In the case of a national disaster overseas, the Cabinet Office would oversee with probably a lot of liaison with the FCO ... it's so difficult to talk about hypothetical situations." Read The Full Story U.S. Army Medic Convicted Of Desertion 2007-03-07 03:08:09 A U.S. Army medic who jumped out a window of his base housing and fled to California to avoid a redeployment to Iraq was convicted of desertion Tuesday at a court-martial. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. Spec. Agustin Aguayo, 35, who testified that he refused to return to Iraq because he believes war is immoral, admitted to a charge of being absent without leave but was unsuccessful in contesting the more serious desertion charge. He and his attorneys turned to each other and smiled as the judge, Col. R. Peter Masterton, read out the sentence. The maximum allowable was seven years. Aguayo, assigned to the 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, served a year as a combat medic in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit in 2004 after the military turned down his request to be considered a conscientious objector. Read The Full Story Bombers Kill At Least 77 Shiite Pilgrims, Wound 125 Others Near Karbala 2007-03-06 16:03:16 Dozens of pilgrims traveling to the revered city of Karbala were killed Tuesday afternoon by two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests, a police official said. The bombers, standing about 300 meters apart, struck shortly after 4 p.m. near downtown Hillah, the provincial capital of Babil province, about 55 miles southwest of Baghdad. At least 77 pilgrims were killed and 125 wounded, said Capt. Muthana Ahmed, the spokesman for the provincial police department. Many of the injured were in critical condition, Ahmed said. "There's growing confusion at the Hillah hospital and we might ask for additional troops from Baghdad," he said in a phone interview. "There are no doctors, no medical staff available at the hospital." Read The Full Story Analysis: Libby Conviction A Blow To Bush Administration 2007-03-06 16:02:49 The conviction of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby today dealt another blow to President Bush's beleaguered administration and marked the latest chapter in a record of mistakes, missteps and setbacks growing out of an Iraq war policy that went badly awry. The Libby verdict comes at an especially difficult time for the administration. Revelations about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic roadblocks for some wounded outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have thrown the administration on the defensive over the sensitive issue of how the government treats its war veterans. At the same time, the administration is coming under fire in Congress over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys for what critics say were political reasons. Several of those former U.S. attorneys were testifying on Capitol Hill as the Libby verdict was announced at the federal courthouse a few blocks away. The conviction of someone who once served at such a high level in the White House carried symbolic power when it was handed down at noon. But in the immediate aftermath of the verdict, analysts on different sides of the political system debated whether history will judge the Libby decision as significant in and of itself. Read The Full Story Government Hears Concerns That Polar Bears Be Added To Threatened Species List 2007-03-06 16:01:12 Environmental activists, hunters and oil industry representatives spoke at a public hearing Monday night on whether the U.S. government should list polar bears as a threatened species. Some speakers said scientific evidence supports the listing and urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to adopt protections so polar bears would be present for future generations. "We need to ultimately recognize the threat that global warming poses not just to polar bears but countless other species, from Caribbean corals to the California butterflies to us as well," said Melissa Waage of the Center for Biological Diversity. Others said listing the polar bear as threatened could hurt the hunting industry, whose revenues help local economies. "They are not endangered," said Patterk N Read The Full Story FTSE Dips Below 6000 As Turmoil From Asian Markets Spreads West 2007-03-06 01:03:21 The world's financial markets suffered more turmoil Monday as traders closed some of the riskier trades that have been driving markets in recent months. Wall Street bounced back late in the day, following the biggest fall in the Tokyo stock market for nine months. The pound suffered as dealers pushed up the yen sharply and unwound so-called "carry trades" while oil prices took fright at talk of a recession in the U.S. and shed two dollars a barrel. Asian markets kicked off the week with a torrid session - the Nikkei tumbled 575.68 points, taking it back below the 17,000 level to 16,642.2, a drop of 3.3%. Other Asian markets suffered losses of between 2% and 4%. That was sufficient to set off another morning of frantic selling in London. At its lowest point, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares moved below the 6000 level to 5989. The second week of turbulent trading in London follows last week's fall of 319 points, sparked by a 9% collapse in the Chinese market and compounded by worries over the U.S. economy as the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the U.S. economy could dip into recession later in the year. Read The Full Story Commanders Apologize For Walter Reed At Congressional Hearing 2007-03-06 01:02:52 Senior commanders of the Army offered profuse apologies Monday for the poor treatment accorded many soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but lawmakers expressed skepticism that the generals had been unaware of the problems until they were spotlighted by the media two weeks ago. Congress opened a round of investigative hearings into the Walter Reed scandal only days after a major shakeup at the Army that followed Washington Post reports about squalid living conditions and bureaucratic tangles for soldiers receiving outpatient care. Walter Reed's commander, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey lost their jobs, and the Bush administration has established several panels to investigate the care being provided to wounded soldiers. Senior commanders sounded more contrite Monday than they did when the scandal first broke. At one point during several hours of hearings in the auditorium at Walter Reed, Weightman turned to the soldiers and families behind him and apologized "for not meeting their expectations, not only in the care provided, but also in having so many bureaucratic processes." "I promise we will do better," said Weightman. Read The Full Story Michigan Man Confesses In Wife's Death 2007-03-06 01:01:57 A man captured after a night on the run in the snowy wilderness confessed to killing his wife in the couple's home while their children were there and later dismembering her, authorities said Monday. Stephen Grant, 37, was arrested over the weekend and treated for hypothermia after he spent 10 hours hiding in a park at the tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. He was discharged from a hospital Monday and brought back to Macomb County outside Detroit, where he was being held in jail. Sheriff Mark Hackel said Grant "gave a very lengthy confession, laying out exactly what took place" in the slaying of his wife, Tara. Prosecutor Eric Smith said investigators do not believe that the couple's two children - a 6-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy - witnessed the slaying. He said, "There's been no evidence about anything they were doing other than sleeping." Read The Full Story Britain's Cash-For-Honors Scandal: Document Names Lord Levy 2007-03-06 01:01:16 Detectives are investigating whether Lord Levy, the Labor Party's chief fundraiser, urged one of Tony Blair's most senior aides to shape the evidence she gave to Scotland Yard, the Guardian has learned. Police have been investigating whether Ruth Turner, the prime minister's director of external relations, was being asked by Lord Levy to modify information that might have been of interest to the inquiry. Officers have been trying to piece together details of a meeting they had last year. Turner gave an account of it to her lawyers and this has been passed to police. It is this legal document and the exchange between Turner and Lord Levy that has been at the heart of the inquiry in recent months, and which prompted the focus to shift from whether there was an effort to sell peerages to whether there has been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. A spokesman for Lord Levy said he was unable to comment. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Read The Full Story Cheney Treated For Blood Clot In Leg 2007-03-06 00:59:02 Vice President Cheney is being treated for a blood clot that his doctor discovered in his left leg, his office announced Monday. Cheney's doctor at George Washington University discovered the clot during an examination Monday after the vice president experienced mild discomfort in his calf, spokeswoman Megan McGinn said. The doctor prescribed blood-thinning medication, which Cheney is to take for several months, she said. Cheney, who may have developed the clot during a recent trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Australia and elsewhere that involved extensive air travel, saw his doctor after delivering a speech Monday morning to the national legislative conference of the Veterans of Foreign War. He then returned to the White House and continued to work. "He's right here now working," said McGinn. "He's fine." Read The Full Story
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