Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday April 16 2007 - (813)

Monday April 16 2007 edition
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Powerful Nor'easter Pummels U.S. East Coast, Causes Floods 2007-04-16 01:58:39 A powerful nor'easter pounded the East with wind and pouring rain Sunday, grounding airlines and threatening to create some of the worst coastal flooding in 14 years. Flooding also forced dozens of people from their homes in the middle of the night in five West Virginia counties. Other inland states faced a threat of heavy snow. One person was killed as dozens of mobile homes were destroyed or damaged by wind in South Carolina. The storm system had already been blamed for five deaths in Kansas and Texas. The Coast Guard had warned mariners to head for port because winds up to 55 mph were expected to generate seas up to 20 feet high, Petty Officer Etta Smith said Sunday in Boston, Massachusetts. Read The Full Story U.S. Bolstering Force In Deadly Diyala 2007-04-16 01:57:54 The first thing Spec. Edward Lyall heard was the thin, high pop of the AK-47. From the gunner hatch of the Stryker combat vehicle, he saw the muzzle flashes from a shed on the roof of a brown brick building across a canal. With bullets hissing over his head, he fired his machine gun back at the house until a bolt popped out of the gun's handle and wedged into a crack in the floor. "I need a weapon!" he screamed, his face red and his hands shaking. The gunners in three other Strykers took up the barrage, until a thunderous bomb sent up a plume of dust and smoke around the convoy. After four minutes and nearly 2,000 rounds, the attack abruptly stopped and the American soldiers drove back to their base unharmed. The back hatch opened and Lyall scooped up used shell casings. Read The Full Story Sadr Aides Say Six Allies In Iraqi Cabinet Will Resign 2007-04-16 01:56:53 In a move that could further weaken Iraq's fledgling government, six cabinet members loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will quit their jobs Monday at his behest, officials close to Sadr said Sunday night. The news came as a fresh spate of bombings killed nearly 50 people in Shiite-dominant areas across Baghdad on Sunday, one of the city's deadliest days since a U.S.-led security push to stem violence in the capital began two months ago. Sadr asked the ministers to resign in protest of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's unwillingness to back a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, said Abdul Razaq al-Nadawi, a Sadr spokesman, and Abdul Mahdi al-Mutairy, a Sadr political adviser. Bahaa al-Aaraji, a Shiite lawmaker in the 30-seat legislative bloc loyal to Sadr, said Sadrists also were fed up with sectarian squabbling and would ask Maliki to appoint "independent technocrats" to the posts. With his Mahdi Army militia under orders to stand down, Sadr appeared to be ratcheting up political pressure on Maliki. Read The Full Story Venezuela's Chavez Challenges U.S. With Energy Summit 2007-04-16 01:55:19 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will seek to use oil wealth to consolidate regional support for his anti-U.S. politics as he hosts an energy summit of South American leaders on Monday. But the meeting on the Caribbean tourist island of Margarita comes as rifts have emerged across the continent over ethanol, with Brazil working with Washington to promote the fuel in an effort Chavez says will increase world hunger. Chavez, who governs atop the hemisphere's largest oil reserves and wins political influence with subsidized exports to neighbors, wants the 12-nation conference to focus on regional integration as a counterweight to the United States. "Gradually the U.S. empire will end up a paper tiger and we, the peoples of Latin America, will become true tigers of steel," Chavez said on the eve of the summit. Read The Full Story Iran Seeking Bids To Build 2 More Nuclear Power Plants 2007-04-15 14:32:50 Iran said Sunday it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program. Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization in charge of power plants, said the plants would be light-water reactors, each with the capacity to generate up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Each plant would cost up to $1.7 billion and take up to 11 years to construct, he told reporters during a news conference at his office. Read The Full Story Financial Reports Show McCain Trailing GOP Rivals In Fundraising 2007-04-15 14:31:56 Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign burned through more than $8 million during the first three months of 2007, leaving the onetime Republican front-runner with only $5.2 million in the bank, less than half the cash remaining for each of his chief rivals for the GOP nomination. The Arizona senator's campaign also listed $1.8 million in debts, including $207,000 on its American Express account, in a report filed Saturday to the Federal Election Commission. By contrast, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani reported cash on hand of $10.8 million and debts of about $89,000. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had almost $12 million in cash and reported no debt. The leading Democratic candidates are expected to announce their remaining cash Sunday, when all candidates must file their first-quarter financial reports by midnight. (Intellpuke: You can read a related article on Sen. Obama's  fundraising elsewhere on today's Free Internet Press mainpage.) Read The Full Story Lenders Sought Edge Against Federal Student Loan Program 2007-04-15 14:29:29 In a fierce contest to control the student loan market, the nation’s banks and lenders have for years waged a successful campaign to limit a federal program that was intended to make borrowing less costly by having the government provide loans directly to students. The companies have offered money to universities to pull out of the federal direct loan program, which was championed by the Clinton administration. They went to court to keep the direct program from becoming more competitive. And they benefited from oversight so lax that the Education Department’s assistant inspector general in 2003 called for tightened regulation of lender dealings with universities. At Indiana University in 2004, for example, Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, offered $3 million that the university could use for “opportunity loans” to some students if it left the direct loan program. Indiana left the direct loan program but said the $3 million was not the reason; Sallie Mae currently administers their loan program. Read The Full Story A Diplomatic Exit For Iran's Javad Zarif 2007-04-15 14:27:09 Javad Zarif, the highest-ranking Iranian diplomat in the United States, made a rare trip to Washington last month. The timing could not have been worse. Five days earlier, Iran's Revolutionary Guard had seized 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf. The U.N. Security Council had just imposed new sanctions on Iran for failing to ensure that its nuclear energy program could not be subverted to make the world's deadliest weapon. Yet Zarif, whose five-year stint as Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations is about to end, was widely welcomed here, getting access that would make envoys from America's closest allies green with undiplomatic envy. He was even invited to Capitol Hill to chat with with presidential hopefuls from both sides of the aisle. Read The Full Story Nor'easter Storm Cancels Flights, Threatens Floods 2007-04-15 12:39:34 Airlines canceled 300 flights Sunday as a hard-blowing nor'easter gathered strength along the East Coast and threatened to deliver some of the worst shore flooding in 14 years. The storm, already blamed for five deaths on the Plains, also flooded people out of their homes in the middle of the night in West Virginia. The cancellations at the New York area's three major airports affected most carriers, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. More cancellations were expected throughout the day. Meteorologists expected sustained wind of 40 mph and a storm surge of 3 to 5 feet, a combination that could cause as much coastal damage to New York's Long Island as a winter storm that wreaked havoc there in late 1992, said Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Seeks To Expand Surveillance Law 2007-04-15 01:25:44 The Bush administration Friday asked Congress to make more non-citizens subject to intelligence surveillance and to authorize the interception of foreign communications routed through the United States. Currently, under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, individuals have to be associated with a foreign terrorism suspect or a foreign power to fall under the auspices of the FISA court, which can grant the authority to institute federal surveillance. The White House proposes expanding potential targets to include non-citizens believed to possess, transmit or receive important foreign intelligence information, as well as those engaged in the United States in activities related to the purchase or development of weapons of mass destruction. The proposed revisions to FISA would also allow the government to keep information obtained "unintentionally," unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance, if it "contains significant foreign intelligence." Currently such information is destroyed unless it indicates threat of death or serious bodily harm. Read The Full Story U.S. Holds 18,000 Detainees In Iraq 2007-04-15 01:24:52 In the past month, as a new security crackdown in Baghdad began, U.S. forces arrested another 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees jailed in two U.S.-run facilities in that country. The average stay in these detention centers is about a year, but about 8,000 of the detainees have been jailed longer, including 1,300 who have been in custody for two years, said a statement provided by Capt. Phillip J. Valenti, spokesman for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations. "The intent is to detain individuals determined to be true threats to coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces and stability in Iraq," said Valenti. "Unlike situations in the past, these detainees are not conventional prisoners of war." Instead, he said, they are "diverse civilian internees from widely divergent political, religious and ethnic backgrounds who are detained on the basis of intelligence available at the time of capture and gathered during subsequent questioning." Valenti said 250 of those in custody are third-country nationals, including some high-value detainees. Read The Full Story	Ex-Justice Department's Statements Contradict Gonzales On Firings 2007-04-16 01:58:17 The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said Sunday. The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had "lost confidence" in the prosecutors because of performance problems. Battle's statements, relayed to reporters Sunday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York), came as Gonzales prepares for a make-or-break appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prepared testimony released Sunday indicates Gonzales will apologize to the fired prosecutors for the way they were treated and will acknowledge that he has been "less than precise" in describing his role in the firings. Read The Full Story Gaza Group Claims BBC Reporter Alan Johnston Murdered 2007-04-16 01:57:23 Concern was mounting Sunday night for the safety of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston after a group in Gaza issued a statement saying he had been killed. It was impossible to verify the claim, which was made in Arabic and sent by email to Palestinian journalists in Gaza from a previously unknown group. The BBC said it too had no independent verification of the claim but said it was "deeply concerned". Mr. Johnston, 44, was kidnapped five weeks ago Monday as he drove home from his office in Gaza City. He was thought to have been seized by a criminal family in Gaza but the BBC has had no direct contact with the kidnappers. Read The Full Story Wolfowitz Defiant As Nations Seek To Push Him Out Over Job Scandal 2007-04-16 01:56:14 A defiant Paul Wolfowitz was clinging to his job as president of the World Bank last night in the face of attempts by European countries to force his resignation over the scandal involving a promotion for his girlfriend. Development ministers delivered a public dressing down to Wolfowitz when they expressed concern and warned that he risked losing the confidence of his staff at a meeting in Washington, D.C. In a strongly-worded statement described as "unprecedented" by one senior G7 source, the bank's development committee piled the pressure on the former number two at the Pentagon to step down from his job running the world's leading development body. Read The Full Story Northwest Airlines Pilot Arrested On Drug And Other Charges 2007-04-16 01:54:53 An off-duty Northwest Airlines pilot was suspected of driving under the influence of cocaine when he headed the wrong way on an interstate to avoid the U.S.-Canada border and led deputies on a chase, authorities said Sunday. Investigators said Walter L. Dinalko, a veteran pilot of 20 years, had flown to Detroit Metropolitan Airport Saturday afternoon and then rented a Hummer that he drove about 70 miles to Port Huron. Dinalko turned around three times on the Blue Water Bridge, apparently changing his mind about heading into Sarnia, Ontario, said St. Clair County sheriff's Lt. A.J. Foster. He then drove on the wrong side of the bridge and Interstate 94, said Foster. Read The Full Story Obama Taps Two Worlds To Fill Campaign Coffers For 2008 2007-04-15 14:32:25 Sen. Barack Obama's elite inner circle of presidential-campaign fundraisers filed into the basement ballroom of a Washington hotel last week to hear the candidate describe "the yearning that America has for change" and his strategy for "tapping into it". A senator for only two years, the Illinois Democrat has been cast in the early stages of the campaign as an upstart who refused money from Washington lobbyists and parlayed Internet savvy, opposition to the Iraq war and grass-roots enthusiasm into a surprising $25 million first quarter of fundraising - money that has made him a legitimate contender for the party's nomination. Behind the closed doors of last week's strategy session, though, was another side to Obama's fundraising success. Filling the room were many veterans of the Democratic financial establishment: a Hyatt hotel heiress, a New York hedge fund manager, a Hollywood movie mogul and a Chicago billionaire. Obama stood at the front of the room fielding questions for nearly an hour from his national finance team, each of whom has pledged to raise at least $250,000. He shared secret plans for a series of soon-to-be-released policy statements and urged them to call him personally to "tell me how to communicate talking points to you to make you more effective". Read The Full Story Surprise - NOT! Lenders Misusing National Student Database 2007-04-15 14:30:07 Some lending companies with access to a national database that contains confidential information on tens of millions of student borrowers have repeatedly searched it in ways that violate federal rules, raising alarms about data mining and abuse of privacy, said government and university officials. The improper searching has grown so pervasive that officials said the Education Department is considering a temporary shutdown of the government-run database to review access policies and tighten security. Some worry that businesses are trolling for marketing data they can use to bombard students with mass mailings or other solicitations. Students' Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and sensitive financial information such as loan balances are in the database, which contains 60 million student records and is covered by federal privacy laws. "We are just in shock that student data could be compromised like this," said Nancy Hoover, director of financial aid at Denison University in Ohio. Read The Full Story At Least 45 Killed In 6 Baghdad Bombings In Shiite Areas 2007-04-15 14:28:55 Six bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite sections of the capital Sunday, killing at least 45 people in a renewal of sectarian carnage that set back the U.S. push to pacify Baghdad. North of Baghdad, two British helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision, killing two service members, said U.K. officials. And in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, health officials raised the toll from a bombing Saturday close to one of the sect's most sacred shrines, saying 47 people were killed and 224 wounded. Twin car bombs exploded minutes apart in the busy market of Baghdad's Shurta Rabia neighborhood, a mostly Shiite area in the city's west. The first blast went off at midmorning in front of a kebab restaurant. Five minutes later, another car exploded nearby as rescuers were evacuating victims. Many women and children were among the casualties, said police. Shortly after noon, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus near a courthouse in the mainly Shiite northwest Baghdad neighborhood of al-Utafiyah, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, said officials. Many of the victims were severely burned, said an official at the Khazimiyah Hospital. Read The Full Story Riot Police Beat Anti-Kremlin Demonstrators In St. Petersburg 2007-04-15 14:26:26 Riot police beat anti-Kremlin demonstrators in St. Petersburg Sunday in a second day of clashes in Russia as the authorities crushed the attempt of hundreds of demonstrators to stage a march to government buildings at the end of an officially-approved rally on the edge of the city center. Dozens of people were arrested before and during the rally, but most were hauled away as demonstrators asserted their right to march in the face of massed police lines that blocked their route as the rally ended. Riot police waded into the crowd and beat demonstrators, and some radicals tossed bottles and stones at police lines. The violence followed the arrest of nearly 200 people in Moscow on Saturday when an anti-government coalition led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was prevented from assembling on Pushkin Square in central Moscow. Kasparov was arrested but released late Saturday night after being fined by a Moscow court. He did not travel to St. Petersburg, according to a spokesman for the activist. Read The Full Story Military Study: Global Warming 'Presents Significant National Security Challenges' To U.S. 2007-04-15 01:26:08 The U.S. military is increasingly focused on a potential national security threat: climate change. Just last month the U.S. Army War College funded a two-day conference at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies titled "The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change." And tomorrow, a group of 11 retired senior generals will release a report saying that global warming "presents significant national security challenges to the United States," which it must address or face serious consequences. The 63-page report - which is being released a day before the U.N. Security Council holds its first-ever briefing on climate change - lays out a detailed case for how global warming could destabilize vulnerable states in Africa and Asia and drive a flood of migrants to richer countries. It focuses on how climate change "can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world," in part by causing water shortages and damaging food production. The study's authors, along with several other national security experts, confirmed last week that the military has begun studying possible future impacts of global warming with new intensity. Read The Full Story Sectarian Rivalries In Iraq Lead To Separate Spy Agencies 2007-04-15 01:25:20 Suspicious of Iraq's CIA-funded national intelligence agency, members of the Iraqi government have erected a "shadow" secret service that critics say is driven by a Shiite Muslim agenda and has left the country with dueling spy agencies. The minister of state for national security, a Shiite named Sherwan Waili, has built a spy service boasting an estimated 1,200 intelligence agents out of a second-tier ministry with a minimal staff and meager budget, say Western officials. "He has representatives in every province," said a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "At the moment, it's a slightly shady parallel organization." Read The Full Story Kasparov Detained As Police In Moscow Overpower Anti-Kremlin Protest 2007-04-15 01:24:30 Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and at least 170 other anti-Kremlin activists were detained Saturday after hundreds of riot police sealed off Moscow's Pushkin Square and clubbed some protesters to prevent a banned opposition rally and march. "They are seizing people everywhere, so that any group of people that looks even the least bit suspicious is immediately arrested - not just blocked, but arrested, harshly," Kasparov said in a cellphone interview with the radio station Echo Moskvy after the arrest, his first. He waved to supporters from a police van before he was driven off. Police later broke up a demonstration outside the police station where he was being held. Protesters shouting "Freedom for political prisoners!" were kicked and clubbed by police. Kasparov was released late Saturday. Read The Full Story
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