Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday April 30 2007 - (813)

Monday April 30 2007 edition
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Report: U.S. Rebuilding In Iraq Is Missing Key Goals 2007-04-30 02:25:21 The U.S. project to rebuild Iraq remains far short of its targets, leaving the country plagued by power outages, inadequate oil production and shortages of clean water and health care, according to a report to be issued Monday by a U.S. government oversight agency. The 232-page quarterly review by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction presents a sobering picture of the challenges of reconstruction in a war zone. It also says the Army has asked Parsons Corp., one of the largest contractors in Iraq, to explain why it should not be barred from pursuing government contracts for up to three years. In the Army's March letter, it questions "the effectiveness of [Parsons'] standards of conduct and internal control systems." Parsons has been the subject of previous inspector general audits and is best known for building only a small fraction of the health clinics planned to be built in Iraq and for building a police academy so flawed that human waste rained from the ceilings. Read The Full Story Down On The Pharm 2007-04-30 02:24:46 Intellpuke: A new breed of genetically modified crops could provide cheap drugs and vaccines for the developing world. There's only one problem, writes Guardian environment correspondent David Adam, what if they get into the food chain? Mr. Adam's article follows: In a windowless room on the roof of a hospital in south London, the air is being slowly sucked away. It's not enough to notice, but it keeps the sealed laboratory at a slightly lower pressure than the air outside. It's a security measure. The contents of this laboratory are highly controversial, and if anything escaped it would be a public relations disaster for the scientists who work here. The lab holds some of the most controversial plants in the U.K., which nearby residents would be less than happy to find drifting on the breeze through their back gardens. Open the door, and air rushes in, not out. The plants are tobacco, but they are not intended to be smoked. Instead, the scientists who work on them believe they could save lives. Each has been genetically engineered to carry a gene that is usually found in common algae. Inside its cells, the foreign DNA forces the tobacco plant to churn out a protein that is useless to it, but that happens to be a potent drug against HIV. The scientists say the drug, and others like it, could save millions of lives across the developing world. The technique has been dubbed pharmaceutical farming, or pharming, and it is emerging as the latest battleground in the war over genetic modification. Britain has rejected gentically modified (GM) plants once already - a media and consumer backlash persuaded most companies there was little market in the U.K. for crops that have had their genes tweaked to be resistant to pests or herbicides. With pharming the battle lines are less clearly defined, as protesters who trashed experimental GM corn plants in France discovered. The crops were making a protein that could be used to treat cystic fibrosis, and when patient groups angrily denounced the action, mainstream green campaigners were forced to deny involvement. Read The Full Story Inside The Struggle For Iran 2007-04-30 02:23:38 A grand coalition of anti-government forces is planning a second Iranian revolution via the ballot box to deny President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term in office and break the grip of what they call the "militia state" on public life and personal freedom. Encouraged by recent successes in local elections, opposition factions, democracy activists, and pro-reform clerics say they will bring together progressive parties loyal to former president Mohammad Khatami with so-called pragmatic conservatives led by Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. The alliance aims to exploit the president's deepening unpopularity, borne of high unemployment, rising inflation and a looming crisis over petrol prices and possible rationing to win control of the Majlis in general elections which are due within 10 months. Read The Full Story Update: 4 Dead After Shootout In Kansas City 2007-04-30 02:21:08 A man driving a dead woman's car shot a police officer, then opened fire in a parking lot and a mall Sunday, authorities said. By the end of the day, four people, including the gunman, were dead. The chaos ended when police shot the gunman to death outside a Target store inside Ward Parkway Center in south Kansas City, said police spokesman Tony Sanders. The gunfire sent shoppers and employees scurrying for cover. Target employee Cassie Bradshaw, 19, of Kansas City was in a break room with two other people when they first heard shots. Then, her co-workers saw a man in his 50s with a rifle "shooting everywhere," she said. Read The Full Story Truck Explosion Collapses Overpass Between San Francisco, Oakland 2007-04-29 19:13:50 A fiery pre-dawn tanker truck accident caused the collapse of a heavily trafficked freeway overpass near downtown Sunday, sending hundreds of feet of concrete crashing onto a highway below and hobbling a vital Bay Area interchange. The driver of the truck, which was carrying 8,600 gallons of gasoline, was hospitalized with second-degree burns. No other injuries were reported from the accident, which occurred at 3:42 a.m. But even as the fire smoldered, transit officials said the accident could complicate the lives of commuters for months. “It will make for a long trip,” said Will Kempton, the director of Cal Trans, the state transportation agency. Read The Full Story Iraq War Called Riskier Than Vietnam 2007-04-29 13:31:45 President Bush recently said that "there's a lot of differences" between the current war in Iraq and the Vietnam War. As fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year, an increasing number of experts in foreign policy and national strategy are arguing that the biggest difference may be that the Iraq war will inflict greater damage to U.S. interests than Vietnam did. "In terms of the consequences of failure, the stakes are much bigger than Vietnam," said former defense secretary William S. Cohen. "The geopolitical consequences are ... potentially global in scope." About 17 times as many U.S. troops died in the Vietnam War - the longest war in U.S. history - as have been lost in Iraq, the nation's third-longest war. Also, despite widespread public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, the debate over it has not convulsed American society to the extent seen during the Vietnam conflict. However, Vietnam does not have oil and is not in the middle of a region crucial to the global economy and festering with terrorism, experts say, leading many of them to conclude that the long-term effects of the Iraq war will be worse for the United States. Read The Full Story 1 Million Turks Rally Against Government 2007-04-29 13:29:44 As many as one million people rallied in a sea of red Turkish flags in Istanbul on Sunday, accusing the government of planning an Islamist state and demanding it withdraw its presidential candidate. Despite the protests and a threat from the powerful army to intervene in the election, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, architect of Turkey's European Union membership drive, said he would remain the ruling AK Party's candidate for head of state. The protesters flooded the streets of Turkey's largest city, praising the army and denouncing Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party enjoys a huge parliamentary majority, as a threat to a secular order separating state and religion. "Turkey is secular and will remain secular," and "government resign," they chanted. Read The Full Story Iraq Leader Warns Iran On Attacks Abroad 2007-04-29 13:28:55 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told an Iranian envoy Sunday that the persistent attacks in Iraq are also a threat abroad, a pointed warning amid U.S. accusations that the government in Tehran is stoking the violence by supporting Shiite militias. Al-Maliki met with top Iranian envoy Ali Larijani in Baghdad as Iran agreed to attend a major U.S.-backed regional conference on Iraq set for this week in Egypt, raising hopes that bringing Iraq's neighbors together will help stabilize the country. "Terrorist operations targeting Iraq will affect all countries in the world that are supposed to be supporting the Iraqi government in its war against terrorism," al-Maliki said in a statement issued by his office, adding that the prime minister also thanked Iran for agreeing to participate in this week's conference in Sharm el-Sheik. Read The Full Story 82 Inmates Were Cleared But Are Still Held At Guantanamo Bay 2007-04-29 02:29:15 More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers. Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. Yett only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions. The delays illustrate how much harder it will be to empty the prison at Guantanamo than it was to fill it after it opened in January 2002 to detain fighters captured in Afghanistan and terrorism suspects captured overseas. Read The Full Story Pharmaceutical Industry Gifts, Contracts To Doctors Increasing 2007-04-29 02:28:02 Despite efforts to curb drug companies' avid courting of doctors, the industry is working harder than ever to influence what medicines they prescribe, sending out sales representatives with greater frequency and plying physicians with gifts, meals and consulting fees, according to several new papers. One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week found that 94 percent of doctors have some type of relationship with the drug industry - most commonly accepting free food or drug samples, which about 80 percent of physicians did. More than one-third of the 1,662 physicians who responded to a survey conducted from November 2003 to June 2004 reported being reimbursed by the drug industry for costs of going to professional meetings or continuing medical education, and 28 percent said they had been paid for consulting, giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials. Two other papers examined in detail the strategies that pharmaceutical representatives, or "detailers," use and how effective the industry is at influencing doctors. Read The Full Story Buckingham Palace Warned Blair Aide About Investigator In Cash-For-Peerages Scandal 2007-04-29 02:26:42 Buckingham Palace was thrust into the center of the "cash for peerages" scandal Sunday as The Observer disclosed that the most senior courtier in Buckingham Palace expressed deep unease to Downing Street about the Metropolitan Police (also known as Scotland Yard) officer leading the investigation. In a move that highlights the royal household's discomfort with Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the courtier described him to an aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair as a relentless investigator who turned the royal household "inside out". The Observer understands that the warning was passed to Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, by Sir Robin Janvrin, the Queen's private secretary. Yates was appointed last year to investigate allegations that Downing Street offered peerages in exchange for loans to the Labor party. Powell was told in blunt terms of the palace's anger at Yates' handling of an earlier investigation that led to the trial of Paul Burrell, the former butler to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, on charges that he stole some of her artifacts. The palace felt badly bruised by the trial, which collapsed in 2002 after the Queen recalled a conversation with Burrell in which he said he was keeping some of the princess' effects. Read The Full Story	Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers 2007-04-30 02:25:08 A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about "the daily ins and outs of being a mom" was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth. As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms - a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, said experts and bloggers. A 2006 University of Maryland study on chat rooms found that female participants received 25 times as many sexually explicit and malicious messages as males. A 2005 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the proportion of Internet users who took part in chats and discussion groups plunged from 28 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2005, entirely because of the exodus of women. The study attributed the trend to "sensitivity to worrisome behavior in chat rooms". Read The Full Story Maliki's Office Is Seen Behind Purge Of Military, Police Officers 2007-04-30 02:24:26 A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad. Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to the Washington Post. Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals. "Their only crimes or offenses were they were successful" against the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia, said Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commanding general of the Iraq Assistance Group, which works with Iraqi security forces. "I'm tired of seeing good Iraqi officers having to look over their shoulders when they're trying to do the right thing." Read The Full Story Israeli War Inquiry 'Rebukes Olmert Over Military Errors' 2007-04-30 02:21:27 The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and defense minister, Amir Peretz, faced further calls for their resignation Sunday after leaks of a report into their management of last summer's Lebanon war which suggests they made a series of errors. The Winograd report, to be published Monday, directs strong criticism at the government's conduct in the first days of the war, according to leaks in the Israeli media Sunday. In particular, Olmert and Peretz are rebuked for not seeking proper consultation and for accepting the army's recommendations without question. The politicians' lack of experience in military matters, the report says, meant they accepted the belief of Dan Halutz, the former chief of staff, that the war could be won by air power alone. The report also criticizes Olmert for setting out his war aims - which were broadly to free two captured Israeli soldiers and expel Hezbollah from southern Lebanon - without checking to find if they were attainable. Aides of both men said they had no intention of resigning but the lack of confidence in the politicians may leave them no choice. Read The Full Story BREAKING NEWS: 3 Killed In Shooting At Kansas City Mall 2007-04-29 19:14:02 A shooting at a Kansas City, Missouris, shopping center Sunday afternoon left three people dead, including the gunman, said police. Two people were shot about 3:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Ward Parkway Center, according to police. Then, the gunman went inside the mall and fired more shots, wounding at least two people, said police spokesman Tony Sanders. The man was shot to death inside the mall, Sanders said. Police fired shots, but it was not immediately clear if he was killed by police, the Associated Press reports. Read The Full Story At Least 56 Killed As Karbala Suffers 2nd Car Bombing 2007-04-29 13:32:11 At least 56 people were killed Saturday in the second major car bombing in two weeks in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, police said, and the U.S. military reported the deaths of seven soldiers and two Marines in other attacks. Three of the soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing southeast of Baghdad on Saturday, and one was killed in a bombing south of the capital, the military said. Three soldiers were wounded in the attacks. On Friday, three soldiers and two Marines were killed in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military reported. The blast in Karbala shook the nearby Imam Abbas shrine, one of two famed mosques that attract thousands of Shiite Muslim pilgrims each year to the city, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Vehicles burned, enshrouding a nearby marketplace in smoke. Iraqi television showed a man carrying the charred body of an infant above his head as he fled the chaos. At least 158 people were injured, according to police and health department officials. Read The Full Story Saudi King Refuses To See Iraqi Prime Minister 2007-04-29 13:31:24 In a serious rebuff to U.S. diplomacy, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has refused to receive Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the eve of a critical regional summit on the future of the war-ravaged country, Iraqi and other Arab officials said Saturday. The Saudi leader's decision reflects the growing tensions between the oil-rich regional giants, the deepening skepticism among Sunni leaders in the Middle East about Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, and Arab concern about the prospects of U.S. success in Iraq, the sources said. The Saudi snub also indicates that the Maliki government faces a creeping regional isolation unless it takes long-delayed actions, Arab officials warn. For the United States, the Saudi cold shoulder undermines hopes of healing regional tensions between Sunni- and Shiite-dominated governments and producing a new spirit of cooperation on Iraq at the summit, to be held Thursday and Friday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the sources warn. Read The Full Story 7 Chinese, 2 African Kidnapped Oil Workers Freed In Ethiopia 2007-04-29 13:29:23 Seven Chinese oil workers and two Africans kidnapped during a rebel attack on a Chinese-run oil field near the Somali border were released Sunday, said the Red Cross. Patrick Megevand, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ethiopia, confirmed the release but declined to provide details. The Red Cross was taking the men to a safe location to be turned over the Ethiopian and Chinese authorities, he added. The Ogaden National Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the attack on the Chinese-owned oil exploration field in eastern Ethiopia on April 24 that left 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers dead. The group said six Chinese workers "were removed from the battlefield for their own safety." Ethiopian and Chinese officials said seven Chinese workers were missing. Read The Full Story Alleged Madam Abhors 'Injustice' 2007-04-29 13:28:35 "Miz Julia" doled out a steady stream of advice, both practical and philosophical. From her California home, she e-mailed tips to the 132 women who worked across the Washington, D.C., area for the firm Pamela Martin & Associates. Her newsletters, now excerpted in court records, were a virtual how-to manual for avoiding all kinds of trouble in a business said to specialize in erotic fantasies. "One never quite knows where evil, i.e., the vice squad is lurking in this business," read one arch entry from 1995. "The misogynists get a real kick out of surprising (shocking) you girls, when you give them the opportunity!!! . . . Therefore, you are to lock, double lock, triple lock all doors!!! ... Figure it out, before they 'get cha'!!!" Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view. A one-time law student, Palfrey ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Ignored Most Foreign Aid To Help Katrina Victims 2007-04-29 02:28:56 As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide. Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" - a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again - the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving." Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims. Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash, but only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent. Read The Full Story Gonzales Heckled At Harvard Reunion 2007-04-29 02:27:37 A small group of student protesters, including one wearing a black hood and an orange jumpsuit, heckled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as he posed with old classmates Saturday during their 25-year Harvard Law School reunion. "When the photographer was getting everybody set up and having people say 'cheese', the protesters yelled: 'say torture, instead', 'resign' and 'I don't recall'," said Nate Ela, a protester and third-year student. Law school spokesman Mike Armini said the impromptu protest was so small that some of those attending the photo shoot did not notice it. Read The Full Story British Defense Ministry Admits Soldiers' Body Parts Sent Home In Wrong Coffins 2007-04-29 02:26:25 Body parts of British soldiers who died on operations in Afghanistan have been mixed up and placed in the wrong coffins. The government has admitted that the remains of at least one serviceman, who died in Britain's worst military disaster in the war, ended up inside another victim's coffin. The issue came to light only when the personal belongings from one of the dead were given by RAF officials to a family who said they were not his. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday April 29 2007 - (813)

Sunday April 29 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
82 Inmates Were Cleared But Are Still Held At Guantanamo Bay 2007-04-29 02:29:15 More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers. Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. Yett only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions. The delays illustrate how much harder it will be to empty the prison at Guantanamo than it was to fill it after it opened in January 2002 to detain fighters captured in Afghanistan and terrorism suspects captured overseas. Read The Full Story Pharmaceutical Industry Gifts, Contracts To Doctors Increasing 2007-04-29 02:28:02 Despite efforts to curb drug companies' avid courting of doctors, the industry is working harder than ever to influence what medicines they prescribe, sending out sales representatives with greater frequency and plying physicians with gifts, meals and consulting fees, according to several new papers. One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week found that 94 percent of doctors have some type of relationship with the drug industry - most commonly accepting free food or drug samples, which about 80 percent of physicians did. More than one-third of the 1,662 physicians who responded to a survey conducted from November 2003 to June 2004 reported being reimbursed by the drug industry for costs of going to professional meetings or continuing medical education, and 28 percent said they had been paid for consulting, giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials. Two other papers examined in detail the strategies that pharmaceutical representatives, or "detailers," use and how effective the industry is at influencing doctors. Read The Full Story Buckingham Palace Warned Blair Aide About Investigator In Cash-For-Peerages Scandal 2007-04-29 02:26:42 Buckingham Palace was thrust into the center of the "cash for peerages" scandal Sunday as The Observer disclosed that the most senior courtier in Buckingham Palace expressed deep unease to Downing Street about the Metropolitan Police (also known as Scotland Yard) officer leading the investigation. In a move that highlights the royal household's discomfort with Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the courtier described him to an aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair as a relentless investigator who turned the royal household "inside out". The Observer understands that the warning was passed to Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, by Sir Robin Janvrin, the Queen's private secretary. Yates was appointed last year to investigate allegations that Downing Street offered peerages in exchange for loans to the Labor party. Powell was told in blunt terms of the palace's anger at Yates' handling of an earlier investigation that led to the trial of Paul Burrell, the former butler to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, on charges that he stole some of her artifacts. The palace felt badly bruised by the trial, which collapsed in 2002 after the Queen recalled a conversation with Burrell in which he said he was keeping some of the princess' effects. Read The Full Story Armored Vehicles For Iraq May Be Delayed 2007-04-28 19:46:01 The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window. Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one. Yet efforts to buy thousands more carriers - each costing about $1 million - could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill. About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Read The Full Story Lightning Sparks Blast, Fire At Oklahoma Oil Refinery 2007-04-28 19:45:27 Flames and smoke poured into the sky Saturday over an oil refinery where lightning set off a fire and an explosion that was felt miles away, said authorities. No injuries were reported and there were no immediate evacuation orders in the southcentral Oklahoma town, said Mike Hancock, a spokesman for Wynnewood Refinery Co. Flames and smoke boiled hundreds of feet into the air from two 80,000-gallon tanks in the Wynnewood Refinery complex, said officials. Firefighters doused the area surrounding the tanks Saturday, said Hancock. Read The Full Story A Saudi Prince Tied To Bush Sounding Out Of Step With Saudi King 2007-04-28 13:15:11 No foreign diplomat has had a closer relationship or more access to President Bush, his family, and his administration than the magnetic and fabulously wealthy Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.  Prince Bandar has mentored Bush and his father through three wars and the broader campaign against terrorism, reliably delivering - sometimes in the Oval Office - his nation’s support for crucial and sensitive Middle East initiatives requiring the regional legitimacy that Saudi help and approval brings, and keeping the United States apprised of Saudi regional priorities that might appear to be in conflict with United States policies. Now, current and former Bush administration officials are wondering if the administration’s longtime reliance on Prince Bandar has begun to outlive its usefulness. Bush administration officials have been scratching their heads over steps taken by Prince Bandar’s uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that have surprised them by going against the American playbook, after receiving assurances to the contrary from Prince Bandar during secret trips he made to Washington, D.C. Read The Full Story Rice Deputy Quits Over Questions About Escort Service 2007-04-28 13:14:21 Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned Friday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, said U.S. government sources. Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, said the sources. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex. Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages foreign aid, a key part of her "transformational diplomacy" agenda. Just two days ago, President Bush lauded Tobias for his work in the administration leading "America's monumental effort to confront and deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the continent of Africa." Read The Full Story World Bank Officials: Wolfowitz Panel Finds Ethics Breach 2007-04-28 13:13:43 A World Bank committee investigating president Paul D. Wolfowitz has nearly completed a report that it plans to give the institution's governing board, concluding that he breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend, three senior bank officials said Friday. Friday evening, the committee was debating whether to explicitly recommend that Wolfowitz resign, according to the sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, citing an ongoing probe into leaks. Wolfowitz is scheduled to appear before the committee with his attorney on Monday morning and mount his defense, and the bank's 24-member board of directors will convene that afternoon to discuss the report. The sources suggested that a vote by the board could come that day. Read The Full Story 22 Die As Suicide Bomber Attacks Pakistan's Interior Minister 2007-04-28 13:13:10 A suicide bomber blocked from approaching Pakistan's interior minister detonated his explosives at a political gathering in the northwestern town of Charsadda Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 35, said officials. State television showed Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao walking to his car after the blast, with blood on his face and white tunic. Asif Iqbal Daudzai, spokesman for the government of North West Frontier Province, said the attack killed 22 people and wounded more than 35. The dead included two staff members and two of Sherpao's security guards, who blocked the attacker from approaching. Read The Full Story	Bush Administration Ignored Most Foreign Aid To Help Katrina Victims 2007-04-29 02:28:56 As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide. Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" - a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again - the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving." Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims. Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash, but only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent. Read The Full Story Gonzales Heckled At Harvard Reunion 2007-04-29 02:27:37 A small group of student protesters, including one wearing a black hood and an orange jumpsuit, heckled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as he posed with old classmates Saturday during their 25-year Harvard Law School reunion. "When the photographer was getting everybody set up and having people say 'cheese', the protesters yelled: 'say torture, instead', 'resign' and 'I don't recall'," said Nate Ela, a protester and third-year student. Law school spokesman Mike Armini said the impromptu protest was so small that some of those attending the photo shoot did not notice it. Read The Full Story British Defense Ministry Admits Soldiers' Body Parts Sent Home In Wrong Coffins 2007-04-29 02:26:25 Body parts of British soldiers who died on operations in Afghanistan have been mixed up and placed in the wrong coffins. The government has admitted that the remains of at least one serviceman, who died in Britain's worst military disaster in the war, ended up inside another victim's coffin. The issue came to light only when the personal belongings from one of the dead were given by RAF officials to a family who said they were not his. Read The Full Story 'Stagflation' Fears As Dollar Drops To New Low Against Euro 2007-04-28 19:45:42 The dollar fell to its lowest ever level against the European single currency Friday night after weak exports and the slump in America's housing market dragged the U.S. growth rate to its lowest in four years. Analysts warned that the world's biggest economy was on course for mild "stagflation" - slow growth coupled with upward pressures on prices - after Washington said gross domestic product rose just 1.3% at an annual rate in the first quarter of 2007. The pace of expansion was not only below the already modest 1.8% predicted by Wall Street but was accompanied by evidence that the Federal Reserve may be held back from cutting interest rates by inflation running at 4%. On the foreign exchanges the euro traded at close to $1.37, while sterling (i.e. the British pound) pushed back above the $2 barrier after being under pressure on Thursday. Capital Economics analyst Paul Ashworth said rising gasoline prices and a dip in consumer confidence meant that consumption - which makes up 70% of GDP (gross domestic product) in the U.S. - could weaken in the second quarter. "An outright decline in GDP is not out of the question," he said. Read The Full Story Rebel Planes Bomb Sri Lanka Oil Facilities 2007-04-28 19:45:12 Planes of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels dropped bombs on two oil facilities near the capital Colombo on Sunday, slightly damaging one, said Sri Lanka's air force. Residents said they heard explosions and firing as the military responded to the air raid. Hospital officials said two people who worked at a power station were being treated for gunfire wounds. "Tamil Tiger aircraft came and dropped three bombs," said an air force spokesman, adding one fell on the Kolonnawa oil facility 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Colombo. Two others hit the Kerawalapitiya oil storage site, 15 kilometers north of the city. Read The Full Story Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling 2007-04-28 13:14:46 In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle. The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. This is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success - in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections - were no longer working properly. The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport. At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning. Read The Full Story Explosion At Shiite Shrine In Karbala Kills At Least 55, Wounds 70 2007-04-28 13:14:02 A parked car exploded Saturday near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in the city of Karbala as people were headed to the area for evening prayers, killing 55 people and wounding dozens, said officials. The explosion took place in a crowded commercial area near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, officials said. At least 55 people were killed and 70 wounded, said Salim Kazim, the head of the Karbala health department. A car bomb exploded in the same area on April 14, killing 47 and wounding 224. Saturday's explosion occurred a few hundred yards from the Imam Abbas shrine, setting several cars on fire and causing chaos. The explosion took place as the streets were filled with people heading for evening prayers at the Abbas shrine and the adjacent Imam Hussein shrine, two of Iraq's holiest Shiite sites. Read The Full Story Earthquake Shakes Kent, England 2007-04-28 13:13:27 An earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale shook parts of Kent Saturday, leaving at least one woman with head injuries. The tremor struck just after 8:15 a.m. this morning. The emergency services were inundated with calls as the ground shook and buildings were damaged, with cracks and toppling chimneys. Homes were evacuated and power was cut. Kent Fire and Rescue Service took more than 100 emergency calls, ranging from issues concerning structural damage to gas smells. A spokesman said: "We have had calls from people saying their chimneys have fallen down, large cracks in people's houses." The fire brigade investigated reports of someone trapped under a collapsed building but everyone was accounted for. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday April 28 2007 - (813)

Saturday April 28 2007 edition
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U.S. Interior Department Plans To Allow More Offshore Oil, Gas Drilling 2007-04-27 20:52:12 The U.S. Interior Department has put the final touches on a five-year plan to expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore from Alaska and Virginia. Interior officials said Friday the plan will include more environmental buffer zones around lease areas and make other minor changes to a previous draft. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is scheduled to announce the "major oil and gas development program" Monday, a department statement says. The new leasing plan "would significantly increase the nation's domestic energy supplies while protecting the coastal and marine environments, and provide a major economic stimulus to the nation and participating coastal states," said the statement. Read The Full Story Commentary: A Failure In Generalship 2007-04-27 20:51:22 Intellpuke: In the following commentary by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, writing in the Armed Forces Journal for Friday, April 27, 2007, Lt. Col. Yingling, according to Washington Post staff writer Thomas E. Ricks, "levels a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there". Lt. Col. Yingling's commentary from the Armed Forces Journal follows: "You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict." - Frederick the Great For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war. These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress. The Responsibilities of Generalship Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed. Read The Full Story Waxman Asks Tenet To Testify On Pre-Iraq War Intelligence 2007-04-27 20:50:23 House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-California) has invited former CIA Director George Tenet to testify before his committee next month about claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. Waxman sent a letter to Tenet, in the care of his lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, on Friday asking the former CIA director to appear before his committee to discuss the intelligence data that President Bush cited in his 2003 State of the Union speech to justify the invasion of Iraq. "The purpose of the hearing is to learn your views about one of the claims used to justify the war in Iraq - the assertion that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger - and related issues," Waxman wrote in the letter. Read The Full Story Britain's High Court Blows Hole In Blair's Anti-Terror Strategy 2007-04-27 20:49:36 Two dangerous Libyan terror suspects are to be freed next Thursday after Britain's High Court judges dealt a new blow to the Blair government's anti-terror strategy by ruling they could not be sent back to Colonel Gadafy's regime because of the risk they would face torture and a show trial. Friday's decision by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) also affects a further eight of the 23 foreign terror suspects who have been detained in Long Lartin maximum security prison for more than 18 months pending their deportation in the wake of the July 2005 London bombings. The ruling by Justice Ouseley and Justice Mitting blows a hole in Tony Blair's strategy of securing memorandums of understanding and "no torture deals" with Middle East and north African regimes to overcome the human rights objections to sending foreign terror suspects back to their homelands. Read The Full Story Reach Of Power Companies' Tentacles Grows 2007-04-27 13:18:40 The federal government said Thursday that it would give power companies special rights to build their lines in the Washington, D.C., region and some other parts of the country, permitting the companies to bypass state authority if necessary in the interest of bolstering the nation's electrical grid. The change could give Dominion Virginia Power greater authority to build a controversial line through Northern Virginia. The company says it has no plans to bypass the state's authority but won't rule it out. During an afternoon briefing, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman announced that the networks of high-voltage power lines in two regions - the Southwest and the mid-Atlantic - are so inadequate that fixing them is a national priority. Read The Full Story Saudis Arrest 172 Militants In Oil Plot 2007-04-27 13:17:45 Police arrested 172 Islamic militants, some of whom had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the Interior Ministry said Friday. A spokesman said all that remained in the plot "was to set the zero hour." The ministry issued a statement saying the detainees were planning to carry out suicide atttacks against "public figures, oil facilities, refineries ... and military zones" - some of which were outside the kingdom "They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told the Associated Press in a phone call. "They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete except for setting the zero hour for the attacks." Read The Full Story U.S. House Panel: NASA Chief Improperly Destroyed Tapes Of Meeting 2007-04-27 02:29:56 NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin held an unusual meeting with the staff of the inspector general who oversees his agency and then ordered that video recordings of the meeting be destroyed, the U.S. House Science and Technology subcommittee on investigations and oversight said Thursday. In a letter to Griffin, subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina) demanded an explanation from the NASA administrator and accused him of improperly trying to influence the watchdog office's decisions on what it should investigate. In addition, the letter from Rep. Miller said the order to destroy the meeting tapes, which was issued by NASA's chief of staff, "appears on its face to be nothing less than the destruction of evidence." Read The Full Story Ex-CIA Chief Tenet Assails Cheney On Iraq 2007-04-27 02:29:26 George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney  and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war. “There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion. Read The Full Story Democratic Candidates United In Criticizing Bush 2007-04-27 02:28:42 Democratic presidential candidates largely set aside their differences at the South Carolina State University campus in Orangeburg Thursday and presented a united front of opposition to President Bush and his Iraq policy, urging the president not to veto newly passed legislation that sets a timetable for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the conflict. In their first debate of the 2008 campaign, the Democrats showed some disagreement over the issue of cutting off funding for the war and vied with one another to demonstrate their willingness to retaliate swiftly if the United States is attacked by terrorists. They found common ground in accusing Bush of making the country less safe and damaging U.S. relations abroad through foreign policy and argued that the president is ignoring the will of the American people by refusing to shift course dramatically in Iraq. "The American people have spoken," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York). "The Congress has voted, as of today, to end this war. And now we can only hope that the president will listen." Read The Full Story	U.N.: We Have The Money And Knowhow To Stop Global Warming 2007-04-27 20:51:50 Global climate change experts will this week lay out a detailed plan to save the planet from the catastrophic effects of rising temperatures. Climate change could be stopped in its tracks using existing technology, but only if politicians do more to force businesses and individuals to take action. The U.N. study will conclude that mankind has the knowhow to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 26 billion tons by 2030 - more than enough to limit the expected temperature rise across the planet to 2-3 Celsius. Such a move would cost the world economy billions of dollars over the next two decades, but this could be recouped by savings due to the health benefits of lower levels of air pollution. Cheaper solutions could bring down emissions to 1990 levels, but that would still see average temperatures rise by as much as 4 Celsius this century, with devastating consequences for wildlife, agriculture and the availability of water. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush Blames The Troops 2007-04-27 20:50:49 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, journalist and author Robert Scheer writes that George W. Bush, like failed emperors throughout history, is blaming his own leadership failures on the military while trying to look as though he is supporting the troops. Mr. Scheer's commentary, which was first posted on the truthdig website on Tuesday, April 24, 2007, follows: Blame it on the military but make it look like you’re supporting the troops. That’s been the convenient gambit of failed emperors throughout history as they witnessed their empires decline. Not surprisingly then, it has become the standard rhetorical trick employed by President Bush in shirking responsibility for the Iraq debacle of his making. Ignoring the fact that we have a system of civilian control over the military, which is why he, the elected president, is designated the commander in chief, Bush hides behind the fiction that the officers in the field are calling the shots when in fact he has put them in an unwinnable situation and refuses to even consider a timetable for getting them out. He did it again Monday, responding to the prospect that both houses of Congress seem in agreement on setting guidelines for the “progress” that the president continually proclaims is at hand. “I will strongly reject an artificial timetable [for] withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job.” This is disingenuous in the extreme, because Bush is the Washington politician who plotted this unnecessary war from the moment the 9/11 attack provided him with an excuse for regime change in a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. Read The Full Story Mahdi Militia: We Have Special Unit To Target Prince Harry 2007-04-27 20:50:01 Prince Harry will be a prime kidnap target for insurgents in Iraq, a commander in the Mahdi army, the Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told Britain's Guardian newspaper. "One of our aims is to capture Harry, we have people inside the British bases to inform us on when he will arrive," claimed Abu Mujtaba, who commands a unit of around 50 men active in the Mahdi army in Basra. In comments denounced by British defense sources as "blatant propaganda", Abu Mujtaba told the Guardian: "We have a special unit that would work to track him down, with informants inside the bases. "Not only us, the Mahdi army, that will try to capture him, but every person who hates the British and the Americans will try to get him, all the mujahideens in Iraq, the al-Qaeda, the Iranians all will try to get him." Read The Full Story U.S. Economic Growth Slows 2007-04-27 13:19:17 The U.S. economy slowed sharply in the first three months of the year according to preliminary estimates, with declining exports and continuing problems in the housing industry constraining growth to the slowest pace in four years. The new report from the Department of Commerce indicated that gross domestic product (GDP), which measures all goods and services produced in the United States, expanded at an annualized rate of just 1.3 percent from January to March, compared to the 3.4 percent growth recorded for all of 2006. A measure of inflation also accelerated, with prices, excluding volatile food and energy costs, increasing at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent compared to 2.4 percent in the prior three months. Friday's GDP report is preliminary: A similar report on slow growth last year was ultimately revised sharply upward. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush's Non-Argument 2007-04-27 13:18:04 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Washington Post op-ed columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes that Bush and Cheney are taking a serious argument over the future of U.S. policy and turning it into a petty partisan squabble. Mr. Dionne's column, which appears in the Washington Post edition for Friday, April 27, 2007, follows: President Bush and Vice President Cheney cannot make the case that their Iraq policies have succeeded, so they are doing one thing they do very well: taking a serious argument over the future of American foreign policy and turning it into a petty partisan squabble. This is not really an argument over the "surge" of troops into Iraq. It is a fight over whether we want to make an open-ended commitment to keeping combat forces in Iraq for many years or whether we anticipate pulling most of them out within a year or two. Even if the surge succeeds in a narrow sense - by reducing the number of Iraqis killed in sectarian violence in Baghdad - there is no guarantee that the overall situation in Iraq will be any better, no guarantee that Iraqi leaders will take the political steps necessary to end the internecine killing and create a stable government, no guarantee that we will make progress against al-Qaeda. Read The Full Story Pentagon: al-Qaeda Operative Captured 2007-04-27 13:17:17 The Pentagon announced Friday the capture of one of al-Qaeda's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was trying to return to his native country when he was captured. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the captive is Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He was transferred to Defense Department custody this week from the CIA, said Whitman, but the spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom. A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the Iraqi had been captured late last year in an operation that involved many people in more than one country. Read The Full Story FDA Plan Against Tainted Food Imports Allowed To Languish 2007-04-27 02:29:43 After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Food and Drug Administration developed a comprehensive plan to guard the U.S. food supply against tainted imports, which were seen as a serious security threat but, nearly six years later, the plan has languished because of a lack of official will and tight federal budgets, according to former senior officials involved in formulating the strategy. That is a painful realization for lawmakers and others who now are struggling to deal with the discovery of chemicals used to make plastics and to treat swimming pool water in pet food ingredients imported from China. The contamination is believed to have killed or sickened hundreds of animals, forcing the recall of more than 100 brands of pet food. Similar ingredients commonly used in food meant for human consumption are imported with little government supervision. "It was a bitter pill to swallow," said Benjamin L. England, a former FDA regulatory lawyer who worked on the plan for the agency's enforcement branch. "I'm disappointed that they are basically sitting on the solution." Read The Full Story U.S. Officer Accused Of 'Aiding Enemy' In Iraq 2007-04-27 02:29:02 The American military has charged a top commander at its main detention center in Baghdad with nine violations of military law, including “aiding the enemy,” a rare and serious accusation that could carry a death sentence. According to a military statement released Thursday, the officer, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, provided aid to the enemy between Oct. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2006, “by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees” at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Saddam Hussein before he was hanged. Colonel Steele, who oversaw one of several compounds at Camp Cropper as commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, was also charged with several counts of illegally storing and marking classified information; failure to obey an order; possession of pornographic videos; dereliction of duty regarding government funds; and conduct unbecoming of an officer - for fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee since 2005, and for maintaining “an inappropriate relationship” with an interpreter in 2005 and 2006. Read The Full Story Scientists Identify 7 New Diabetes Genes 2007-04-27 02:28:15 Researchers said Thursday that they had identified seven new genes connected to the most common form of diabetes - the latest result of an intensifying race between university researchers and private companies to find genes linked to a range of diseases. The findings, presented in three reports by university scientists and one by a private company, offer novel insights into the biology of a disease that affects 170 million people worldwide. The sudden spate of new results mark an acceleration, and perhaps a turning point, in the ability to find disease genes, the long-promised payoff from the human genome project that began in 1989. Thursday’s reports bring the number of well-attested genes involved in adult-onset, or Type 2 diabetes up to 10, from the 3 known previously. The new genes do not immediately suggest any new therapy, but may point to a new biological basis for the disease, from which effective treatments could emerge in time. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday April 27 2007 - (813)

Friday April 27 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
U.S. House Panel: NASA Chief Improperly Destroyed Tapes Of Meeting 2007-04-27 02:29:56 NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin held an unusual meeting with the staff of the inspector general who oversees his agency and then ordered that video recordings of the meeting be destroyed, the U.S. House Science and Technology subcommittee on investigations and oversight said Thursday. In a letter to Griffin, subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Miller (D-North Carolina) demanded an explanation from the NASA administrator and accused him of improperly trying to influence the watchdog office's decisions on what it should investigate. In addition, the letter from Rep. Miller said the order to destroy the meeting tapes, which was issued by NASA's chief of staff, "appears on its face to be nothing less than the destruction of evidence." Read The Full Story Ex-CIA Chief Tenet Assails Cheney On Iraq 2007-04-27 02:29:26 George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney  and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States. The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war. “There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion. Read The Full Story Democratic Candidates United In Criticizing Bush 2007-04-27 02:28:42 Democratic presidential candidates largely set aside their differences at the South Carolina State University campus in Orangeburg Thursday and presented a united front of opposition to President Bush and his Iraq policy, urging the president not to veto newly passed legislation that sets a timetable for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the conflict. In their first debate of the 2008 campaign, the Democrats showed some disagreement over the issue of cutting off funding for the war and vied with one another to demonstrate their willingness to retaliate swiftly if the United States is attacked by terrorists. They found common ground in accusing Bush of making the country less safe and damaging U.S. relations abroad through foreign policy and argued that the president is ignoring the will of the American people by refusing to shift course dramatically in Iraq. "The American people have spoken," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York). "The Congress has voted, as of today, to end this war. And now we can only hope that the president will listen." Read The Full Story Protect God's Creation: Vatican Issues New Green Message For World's Catholics 2007-04-26 21:35:58 The Vatican Thursday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church must become far greener. At a Vatican conference on climate change, Pope Benedict urged bishops, scientists and politicians - including U.K. environment secretary David Miliband - to "respect creation" while "focusing on the needs of sustainable development". The Pope's message follows a series of increasingly strong statements about climate change and the environment, including a warning earlier this year that "disregard for the environment always harms human coexistence, and vice versa". Observers said Thursday that the Catholic church is no longer split between those who advocate development and those who say the environment is the priority. Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, head of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, said: "For environment ... read Creation. The mastery of man over Creation must not be despotic or senseless. Man must cultivate and safeguard God's Creation." Read The Full Story Prince Harry Will Be Sent To Iraq - Despite Misgivings 2007-04-26 21:35:15 Britain's Prince Harry will be deployed with his regiment, the Blues and Royals of the Household Cavalry, on the frontline in southeastern Iraq next month despite concerns among military commanders that he might attract fire from insurgents and rogue elements within Shia militias. That was the message last night from the British Ministry of Defense (MoD), but officials did not rule out a late decision to leave the prince at home when his regiment begins its tour, whatever the consequences for his army career. Clarence House said it would not seek to influence the military on the matter. Friends of the prince have denied reports that he would leave the army if he was not allowed to accompany his men to Iraq but they told the BBC he would be "very disappointed" if he were kept away from the battlefield. In a statement the MoD said: "Prince Harry's deployment to Iraq is, as we have always said, under constant consideration. It is still our intention that Prince Harry will be deployed as a troop leader." A defense official said: "He would fulfill the normal role of a troop leader going out on patrol but spend a certain amount of time behind a desk". The prince is likely to be assigned a special "minder", probably an experienced non-commissioned officer though not a member of the special forces, said defense sources. Read The Full Story Russia Suspends Compliance With Key European Treaty, Cites U.S. Missile Defense Plan 2007-04-26 20:26:11 Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he was suspending Russia's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, ratcheting up a tense standoff with the NATO alliance over U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The CFE Treaty dates from the last days of the Cold War and limits the deployment of conventional arms, including tanks and other heavy weapons, on either side of the old Iron Curtain. Putin linked his decision, which he said could lead to full withdrawal from the treaty, to the U.S. missile plan. NATO countries are "building up military bases on our borders and, more than that, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," said Putin, delivering his annual state of the nation address to both houses of parliament, the cabinet and regional leaders. "In this connection, I consider it expedient to declare a moratorium on Russia's implementation of this treaty." Read The Full Story USDA: Tainted Hogs Entered Human Food Supply 2007-04-26 20:25:28 Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday. The potential risk to human health is said to be very low. The government told the three states involved it would not allow meat from any of the hogs that ate the feed to enter the food supply. No more than 345 hogs from farms in California, New York and South Carolina are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, said spokeswoman Nicol Andrews. Salvaged pet food from companies known or suspected of using a tainted ingredient was shipped to hog farms in seven states for use as feed. Read The Full Story Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed 2007-04-26 01:56:22 White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said Wednesday. The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, said the officials. The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable. Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources - including office buildings, phones and computers - for partisan purposes. Read The Full Story Baghdad's Fissures And Mistrust Keep Political Goals Out Of Reach 2007-04-26 01:55:40 U.S. military commanders say a key goal of the ongoing security offensive is to buy time for Iraq's leaders to reach political benchmarks that can unite its fractured coalition government and persuade insurgents to stop fighting. Yet, in pressuring the Iraqis to speed up, U.S. officials are encountering a variety of hurdles: The parliament is riven by personality and sect, and some politicians are abandoning Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. There is deep mistrust of U.S. intentions, especially among Shiites who see American efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process as an attempt to weaken the Shiites' grip on power. Many Iraqi politicians view the U.S. pressure as bullying that reminds them they are under occupation. And the security offensive, bolstered by additional U.S. forces, has failed to stop the violence that is widening the sectarian divide. Read The Full Story	FDA Plan Against Tainted Food Imports Allowed To Languish 2007-04-27 02:29:43 After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Food and Drug Administration developed a comprehensive plan to guard the U.S. food supply against tainted imports, which were seen as a serious security threat but, nearly six years later, the plan has languished because of a lack of official will and tight federal budgets, according to former senior officials involved in formulating the strategy. That is a painful realization for lawmakers and others who now are struggling to deal with the discovery of chemicals used to make plastics and to treat swimming pool water in pet food ingredients imported from China. The contamination is believed to have killed or sickened hundreds of animals, forcing the recall of more than 100 brands of pet food. Similar ingredients commonly used in food meant for human consumption are imported with little government supervision. "It was a bitter pill to swallow," said Benjamin L. England, a former FDA regulatory lawyer who worked on the plan for the agency's enforcement branch. "I'm disappointed that they are basically sitting on the solution." Read The Full Story U.S. Officer Accused Of 'Aiding Enemy' In Iraq 2007-04-27 02:29:02 The American military has charged a top commander at its main detention center in Baghdad with nine violations of military law, including “aiding the enemy,” a rare and serious accusation that could carry a death sentence. According to a military statement released Thursday, the officer, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, provided aid to the enemy between Oct. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2006, “by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees” at Camp Cropper, an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Saddam Hussein before he was hanged. Colonel Steele, who oversaw one of several compounds at Camp Cropper as commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, was also charged with several counts of illegally storing and marking classified information; failure to obey an order; possession of pornographic videos; dereliction of duty regarding government funds; and conduct unbecoming of an officer - for fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee since 2005, and for maintaining “an inappropriate relationship” with an interpreter in 2005 and 2006. Read The Full Story Scientists Identify 7 New Diabetes Genes 2007-04-27 02:28:15 Researchers said Thursday that they had identified seven new genes connected to the most common form of diabetes - the latest result of an intensifying race between university researchers and private companies to find genes linked to a range of diseases. The findings, presented in three reports by university scientists and one by a private company, offer novel insights into the biology of a disease that affects 170 million people worldwide. The sudden spate of new results mark an acceleration, and perhaps a turning point, in the ability to find disease genes, the long-promised payoff from the human genome project that began in 1989. Thursday’s reports bring the number of well-attested genes involved in adult-onset, or Type 2 diabetes up to 10, from the 3 known previously. The new genes do not immediately suggest any new therapy, but may point to a new biological basis for the disease, from which effective treatments could emerge in time. Read The Full Story Commentary: The World Bank Has The Pefect Standard-Bearer 2007-04-26 21:35:36 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Naomi Klein writes that the World Bank's credibility was already fatally compromised by hypocrisies far greater than those of Wolfowitz. Ms. Klein's commentary, which appears in the Guardian's edition for Friday, April 27, 2007, follows: It's not the act itself, it's the hypocrisy. That's the line on Paul Wolfowitz coming from editorial pages around the world. It's neither: not the act (the way he disregarded the rules to get his girlfriend a pay rise); and not the hypocrisy (the fact that Wolfowitz's mission as World Bank president is fighting for "good governance"). First, let's dispense with the supposed hypocrisy problem. "Who wants to be lectured on corruption by someone telling them to 'Do as I say, not as I do'?" asked one journalist. No one, of course. But that's a pretty good description of the game of one-way strip poker that is our global trade system, in which the United States and Europe - via the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization - tell the developing world: "You take down your trade barriers and we'll keep ours up." From farm subsidies to the Dubai Ports World scandal, hypocrisy is our economic order's guiding principle. Wolfowitz's only crime was taking his institution's international posture to heart. The fact that he has responded to the scandal by hiring a celebrity lawyer and shopping for a leadership "coach" is just more evidence that he has fully absorbed the World Bank way: when in doubt, blow the budget on overpriced consultants and call it aid. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Approves War Spending Bill Including Withdrawal Timelines 2007-04-26 20:26:25 The Senate Thursday approved an Iraq spending bill that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1, dismissing President Bush's veto threat even as party leaders and the White House launch talks on the next phase of the increasingly high-stakes war debate. The 51-46 vote was a triumph for Democrats, who just weeks ago had questioned the political wisdom of a veto showdown over Iraq with the commander-in-chief; but Democrats are hesitant no more. Now that withdrawal language has passed both houses of Congress, even Republicans concede that Bush won't get the spending bill with no strings attached as he has demanded. Bush is expected to veto the bill early next week, in the meantime, bipartisan negotiations have already started on phase two. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) spoke with Bush Thursday as well as holding an initial meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) Senior Democratic and Republican senators are circulating alternatives that are meeker than the binding withdrawal terms approved by the Senate but that still restrain how Bush conducts the war. Read The Full Story Hurrah! Major Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filed In Virginia 2007-04-26 20:25:51 A company representing Internet users in more than 100 countries Thursday filed a lawsuit in Virginia seeking the identity of individuals responsible for harvesting millions of e-mail addresses on behalf of spammers. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on behalf of Project Honey Pot, a service of Unspam Technologies LLC, a Utah-based anti-spam company that consults with private companies and government agencies. The lead attorney on the case, Jon Praed of the Arlington, Virginia-based Internet Law Group, has represented America Online and Verizon Online in successful cases against junk e-mailers. Praed said the group hopes to follow the trail from the people doing the harvesting of e-mail addresses to the actual spammers. Read The Full Story Congressional Subpeonas Approved For Rice, Other Bush Appointees 2007-04-26 01:56:36 Lawmakers approved new subpoenas yesterday for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials, part of an expanding legal battle between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the administration over issues such as the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and flawed justifications for the war in Iraq. The subpoena issued to Rice seeks to force her testimony about the claim that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program. President Bush offered that as a key rationale for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address. The subpoena was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee along party lines, 21 to 10. The same panel also issued two subpoenas to the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents related to political presentations at the General Services Administration and the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House aides, including presidential adviser Karl Rove. Read The Full Story Unemployment Pays For Top Executives 2007-04-26 01:56:03 For many top executives, losing their jobs could be lucrative. For Sprint Nextel chief executive Gary D. Forsee, it could trigger as much as $73.8 million in pay and benefits, depending on the circumstances. An excise tax would take a bite out of that sum, but it would not be Forsee's problem. Sprint would cover the bill at a cost of $16.1 million. For Danaher chief H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., unemployment could trigger a payday worth as much as $103.5 million, plus $23.3 million of tax reimbursements. For General Dynamics chief Nicholas D. Chabraja, termination could come with $62.7 million of consolation. If he left voluntarily after a takeover, he would be entitled to a windfall, too. The immediate vesting of his stock options would have been worth $11 million at the end of last year. Read The Full Story Ranger Alleges Cover-Up In Tillman Case 2007-04-26 01:55:12 An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened. The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened." "You were ordered not to tell him?" repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "Roger that, sir," replied O'Neal, dressed in his Army uniform. Read The Full Story
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