Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday April 14 2007 - (813)

Saturday April 14 2007 edition
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Chaplains' Complaints Of Bias Increase At National Institute Of Health 2007-04-14 02:10:16 The spiritual ministry department of the National Institutes of Health, which serves patients being treated in the nation's premier research hospital, is in disarray and battling a lawsuit and discrimination complaints that allege bias against Jewish and Catholic chaplains. In February, a federal panel ordered the hospital to reinstate a Catholic priest who was wrongfully fired in 2004. In January, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found that he was the target of "discriminatory and retaliatory animus". Three other former chaplains have said that they also were wrongfully terminated. They have accused O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and the former head of the spiritual ministry department, of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. They say that NIH retaliated against them when they spoke up and invented reasons for terminating them. Fitzgerald was demoted from the chief chaplain's post two weeks ago after the EEOC, which cited the "animus," and the Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the rehiring of and back pay for the priest, the Rev. Henry Heffernan. NIH officials "endorsed intolerance, and they reinforced intolerance with intolerance," said Rabbi Reeve Brenner, who testified last year in support of the priest and was fired as a hospital chaplain in February. He has filed a complaint with the Merit Board, an agency that hears federal personnel disputes, saying that he was removed by NIH as retribution for his testimony. Read The Full Story Gonzales Floated Insiders Names To Replace Attorneys Months Before They Were Fired 2007-04-14 02:09:34 The attorney general's former top aide identified five Bush administration insiders as potential replacements for sitting U.S. attorneys months before those prosecutors were fired, contrary to repeated suggestions from the Justice Department that no such list had been drawn up, according to documents released Friday. E-mails sent to the White House in January and May of 2006 by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, name potential replacements for U.S. attorneys in San Diego and San Francisco, California, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The disclosures contrast with previous statements from Sampson and other Justice officials. They have said that only Tim Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove who was later appointed the top federal prosecutor in Little Rock, had been identified as a replacement candidate before the dismissals of the sitting U.S. attorneys. "These documents uncover one of the most central and disconcerting contradictions we've seen so far," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York). "We have been told that there were no backups in mind to replace the fired U.S. attorneys, and these documents make it clear that there were." Read The Full Story Afghan Report On Civilian Killings Says Marines Used Excessive Force 2007-04-14 02:08:32 A platoon of elite Marine Special Operations troops reacted with "excessive force" after an ambush in Afghanistan last month, opening fire on pedestrians and civilian vehicles along a 10-mile stretch of road and killing 12 people - including a 4-year-old girl, a 1-year-old boy and three elderly villagers - an investigation by an Afghan human rights commission alleges. The investigation, based on dozens of eyewitness interviews, found that Marines in a convoy of Humvees continued shooting at at least six locations along the road, miles beyond the site where they were ambushed by a suicide bomber in a van. They fired at stationary vehicles, passersby and others who were "exclusively civilian in nature" and had made "no kind of provocative or threatening behavior," according to a draft report of the investigation obtained by the Washington Post. In addition to the 12 Afghans killed, including at least two women, 35 were wounded, and one Marine was injured by shrapnel. Read The Full Story U.S. Embassy Warns Of Possible Algiers Attacks On Saturday 2007-04-14 02:07:37 Attackers may be planning to strike in Algiers on Saturday, three days after twin suicide bombs killed 33 people in the Algerian capital, the U.S. embassy said citing what it called unconfirmed information. In a warden notice issued to U.S. expatriates in the early hours of Saturday, the embassy said: "According to unconfirmed information, there may be attacks planned for April 14, 2007 in areas that may include the Algiers Central Post Office located in Rue Emir El Khettabi, and Algerian State Television Headquarters (ENTV), located on Boulevard des Martyrs, among others." Read The Full Story Rove E-Mails Sought By Congress May Be Missing 2007-04-13 14:39:57 A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members Thursday that the RNC is missing at least four years' worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. GOP officials took issue with Rep. Henry Waxman's account of the briefing and said they still hope to find the e-mails as they conduct forensic work on their computer equipment. But they acknowledged that they took action to prevent Rove - and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House officials with RNC accounts - from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server. Waxman (D-California) said he was told the RNC made that move in 2005. In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Waxman said the RNC lawyer, Rob Kelner, also raised the possibility that Rove had personally deleted the missing e-mails, all dating back to before 2005. GOP officials said Kelner was merely speaking hypothetically about why e-mail might be missing for any staffer and not referring to Rove in particular. Read The Full Story Deadly Spring Storm Hits Midwest, Heads East 2007-04-13 14:38:22 Weather forecasters were keeping a close watch Friday on a storm system developing over the central Plains and central Rockies. More snow fell across the region and some parts of Kansas and Colorado braced for heavy blizzards. Forecaster Brian Korty said the entire eastern half of the country would feel the brunt of it in the coming days, calling it the kind of storm that happens “once every 20 years.” Along with the chances for more spring snow in some areas, Korty says the storm could bring flooding rains to the Northeast. Read The Full Story Tons Of Food FEMA Stored Goes To Waste 2007-04-13 14:36:52 As many as 6 million prepared meals stockpiled near potential victims of the 2006 hurricane season spoiled in the Gulf Coast heat last summer when the Federal Emergency Management Agency ran short of warehouse and refrigeration space, according to agency officials. In all, hundreds of truckloads of food worth more than $40 million are being thrown away or scavenged for unspoiled contents to be offered to domestic hunger-relief groups, said FEMA officials. Most of the meals were commercial versions of the military's Meals Ready to Eat, which were ruined despite being engineered to withstand the demands of desert and jungle climates. Federal disaster management officials decided to position huge amounts of food, water and ice in the southeastern United States last year after they were condemned for failing to quickly deliver critical supplies to victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But they stockpiled the supplies without regard for FEMA's strained storage network, creating a different kind of problem when no major hurricane made landfall. Read The Full Story It's Not Just Pet Food - China's Food Safety Woes Now International Concern 2007-04-13 02:46:36 The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern. In recent weeks, scores of cats and dogs in America have died of kidney failure blamed on eating pet food containing gluten from China that was tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants. While humans aren't believed at risk, the incident has sharpened concerns over China's food exports and the limited ability of U.S. inspectors to catch problem shipments. "This really shows the risks of food purity problems combining with international trade," said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Center for World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. Read The Full Story Drugs Losing Efficacy Against Gonorrhea 2007-04-13 02:45:58 Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is spreading rapidly across the United States, federal health officials reported Thursday, raising alarm about doctors' ability to treat the common sexually transmitted infection. New data from 26 U.S. cities show the number of resistant gonorrhea cases is rising dramatically, jumping from less than 1 percent of all gonorrhea cases to more than 13 percent in less than five years, the Atlanta, Georgia-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. In response, the CDC advised doctors treating gonorrhea to immediately stop using ciprofloxacin, marketed as Cipro, and other antibiotics in its class, which have been the first line of defense against the disease, and resort to an older class of drugs to ensure patients are cured and do not spread the stubborn infection. "We've lost the ability to use what had been the most reliable class of antibiotics," said John M. Douglas, Jr., who heads the CDC's division of sexually transmitted disease prevention. "This is necessary to protect both public and private health." Read The Full Story Senators Assail FDA's Response To Tainted Pet Food 2007-04-13 02:45:12 A Senate panel took the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to task Thursday for its "inexcusable" response to pet food contamination and a month's worth of expanding recalls that have left Americans fearful about what to feed their cats and dogs. The Appropriations subcommittee, with a special appearance by the dean of the Senate, pressed the agency for better and faster reporting about tainted food and better and more-frequent inspections of pet food factories. "This is inexcusable," Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Illinois) said after a two-hour hearing in which an FDA official said he couldn't be sure that all the adulterated pet food has been recalled and is off store shelves. "The FDA's response to this situation has been wholly inadequate." Read The Full Story Beresovsky: 'I'm Plotting A New Russian Revolution' 2007-04-13 02:43:27 The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has told the Guardian he is plotting the violent overthrow of President Putin from his base in Britain after forging close contacts with members of Russia's ruling elite. In comments which appear calculated to enrage the Kremlin, and which will further inflame relations between London and Moscow, the multimillionaire claimed he is already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup. "We need to use force to change this regime," he said. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure." Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct." Read The Full Story New Jersey Governor Corzine Critically Injured In Car Crash 2007-04-13 02:41:29 Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) was critically injured Thursday when his motorcade crashed en route to a meeting between radio personality Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team, said a doctor. Corzine, 60, suffered numerous broken bones, including his sternum and several ribs, but his injuries were not considered life-threatening, said officials. He was recuperating early Friday in critical but stable condition at Cooper University Hospital in Camden after two hours of surgery to repair a seriously damaged leg and other injuries. Dr. Robert Ostrum said the governor would need two more operations on his left leg. Doctors also inserted a breathing tube that will remain "for days to weeks, until (Corzine) is able to breathe on his own again," said Ostrum. State Senate President Richard Codey will serve as acting governor while Corzine is hospitalized. Read The Full Story	Iraq Sunni Factions Split With Al-Qaeda Group 2007-04-14 02:09:54 Key Sunni militant groups are severing their association with al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group that claims allegiance to the organization led by Osama bin Laden. The split could help isolate a primary foe of the United States in Iraq but could also further splinter the Sunni insurgency and make it even harder to control, according to insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials. In the Sunni heartland of Anbar and other provinces, Sunni groups are accusing al-Qaeda in Iraq of killing, kidnapping and torturing dozens of their fighters, clerics and followers. One leading Sunni extremist organization, the Islamic Army, says al-Qaeda has killed more than 30 fighters from different armed factions in recent weeks. Last weekend, the Islamic Army posted on insurgent Web sites a nine-page letter urging bin Laden to stop those killing in his name. "He should rise up for his faith and assume religious and organizational responsibility for al-Qaeda and search for the truth," the letter said. "It is not enough to disown those actions, but it is imperative to correct the path." Read The Full Story Gas Hits $3 A Gallon Before Peak Summer Driving Season 2007-04-14 02:09:08 Autistic children and adults in Montgomery County are getting rides to Olney for crafts, dancing and other forms of occupational therapy only three evenings a week, instead of the usual five. Because of soaring gasoline prices, the organization that runs the programs has had to cut back on their visits. "We're having to make some hard choices," said Christopher Drayton, transportation director for Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children, a nonprofit organization that continues to ferry people to jobs and school programs. Drivers across the region are making tough decisions about spending on gasoline as pump prices have skyrocketed. In two months, the cost of gas has risen 60 cents a gallon. At some stations, it's now above $3. Read The Full Story British, Russian Police Investigate Berezovsky's 'Revolution' Claim 2007-04-14 02:08:07 Police in Britain and Russia launched separate inquiries into the multimillionaire Boris Berezovsky Friday after he disclosed to the Guardian newspaper that he is plotting a "revolution" to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Moscow, where investigators said they were opening a criminal investigation into the tycoon's calls for the use of force to secure regime change, infuriated government ministers demanded that he be stripped of his refugee status and extradited to stand trial. In London, detectives from Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command began studying recordings of the Berezovsky interview after they were posted on the Guardian Unlimited website. They are looking to see whether he has committed any offense and to establish whether there are grounds to revoke his refugee status. In Washington, D.C., U.S. State Department officials were also known to be studying the businessman's repeated assertions that force must be used to get rid of Putin. Read The Full Story Google Buys DoubleClick For $3.1 Billion 2007-04-14 02:07:20 Google agreed to its largest acquisition yesterday, reaching a deal to purchase DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, almost double what it paid for YouTube last year. And perhaps just as important, the deal kept DoubleClick from the hands of Microsoft. For Google, the purchase is another step in its transformation from a search engine into an advertising powerhouse. DoubleClick, which is based in New York City, specializes in software for display advertising and has close relationships with Web publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies. “It’s the two juggernauts in search and display getting together,” said Martin Reidy, president of Modem Media, an ad agency in the Publicis Groupe. Read The Full Story World Bank Board Weighs Response To Wolfowitz's Actions 2007-04-13 14:39:33 The World Bank's executive board was deliberating Friday what action to take regarding its president, Paul D. Wolfowitz, amid new evidence that he had not been entirely candid about his role in giving his girlfriend, a World Bank employee, a raise and transfer. Documents released Friday by the executive board called into question Wolfowitz’s earlier assertions that bank ethics officials had been kept informed about the new post for his companion, Shaha Ali Riza. The papers also indicated that Wolfowitz was more involved in securing the new post for his companion than he has let on. In August 2005, for instance, Wolfowitz wrote a memo to the bank’s vice president for human resources in which he virtually dictated the kind of job Ms. Riza should be given. “I now direct you to agree to a proposal which includes the following terms and conditions,” Wolfowitz wrote. “You should accept immediately her offer to be detailed to an outside institution of her choosing while retaining bank salary and benefits.” Read The Full Story Group Claims Iraqi Parliament Suicide Attack 2007-04-13 14:38:01 The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella insurgent organization that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed Friday it carried out the parliament suicide bombing in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a major security breach that left one Sunni legislator dead. The Islamic State said in Internet postings that it had delayed claiming responsibility to allow its men to flee from investigators who have been rounding up and questioning parliament employees. The U.S. military, which reported on Thursday that eight people were killed in the suicide bomb attack in the parliament dining hall, revised the toll sharply downward on Friday to one killed and 22 wounded. Iraqi officials said seven of the wounded were members of parliament. “A knight from the state of Islam ... reached the heart of the Green Zone ... the temporary headquarters of the mice of the infidel parliament and blew himself up among a gathering of the infidel masters,” the Islamic State said in the statement posted on one Islamist Web site commonly used by insurgents. Read The Full Story Ballistic Missile Forces Passenger Jet To Turn Around, Head Home 2007-04-13 14:36:20 An Indonesian jet carrying hundreds of passengers was forced to turn around over Indian airspace after a nuclear-capable ballistic missile streaked across the sky, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Indonesia has demanded an explanation from New Delhi, which insisted that aviation authorities were informed about Thursday’s test launch well in advance. The Garuda Indonesia Boeing 747 was en route from Jakarta to Saudi Arabia when the Indian control tower told pilots the missile had been launched, said Ari Sapari, the national carrier’s director. “We were not given any advance warning about this missile test,” he said. “This was obviously confusing and worrying. It also caused us to disrupt an international flight schedule - a great financial expense.” Read The Full Story Commentary: We Cannot Look From The Sides As We Are Led Toward Crisis Over Iran 2007-04-13 02:46:18 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, British documentary film maker John Pilger writes that Bush and Blair have spent four years preparing an onslaught that is about oil, rather than non-existent nuclear weapons. Mr. Pilger's commentary is an edited version of an article in the current issue of the New Stateman. Pilger's new film, "The War on Democracy", previews at the National Film Theater in London on May 11. His commentary follows: The Israeli journalist Amira Hass describes the moment her mother, Hannah, was marched from a cattle train to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. "They were sick and some were dying," she said. "Then my mother saw these German women looking at the prisoners. This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking from the side'." It is time we in Britain stopped looking from the side. We are being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history as the Bush/Cheney/Blair "long war" edges closer to Iran for no reason other than that nation's independence from rapacious America. The safe delivery of the 15 British sailors into the hands of Rupert Murdoch and his rivals (until their masters got the wind up) is both farce and distraction. The Bush administration, in secret connivance with Blair, has spent four years preparing for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Forty-five cruise missiles are primed to strike. According to General Leonid Ivashov, Russia's leading strategic thinker: "Nuclear facilities will be secondary targets, and there are 20 such facilities. Combat nuclear weapons may be used, and this will result in the radioactive contamination of all the Iranian territory, and beyond." Read The Full Story Oxfam Calls For End To Palestinian Blockade - Cites 'Devastating' Humanitarian Consequences 2007-04-13 02:45:33 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are suffering "devastating" humanitarian consequences as incomes plummet, debts mount and essential services face meltdown, British humanitarian charity group Oxfam says in a report that calls for an immediate end to the international financial blockade of the Hamas-led government. With poverty up by 30% in 2006 and previously unknown levels of factional violence on the streets, the Palestinian territories - occupied by Israel in the 1967 war - risk becoming "a failed state" if the punitive measures are not lifted, the charity warns. Palestinians were already struggling to make ends meet when key donors, including the U.S., the E.U. and Canada, suspended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in April 2006. The move came in response to the victory of the Islamist movement Hamas in parliamentary elections. Israel halted the transfers of tax and customs revenue it owed to the P.A. shortly afterwards. Read The Full Story FDA Panel Reject Merck's New Pain Killer Because It Can Cause Heart Attacks 2007-04-13 02:44:23 A panel of federal drug advisers voted 20 to 1 Thursday to reject an application by Merck to sell its pain pill Arcoxia because of concerns that the drug could cause as many as 30,000 heart attacks annually if widely used. Food and Drug Administration officials were unusually harsh in their criticism of the medicine. “What you’re talking about is a potential public health disaster” if Arcoxia is approved for sale, Dr. David Graham, an F.D.A. safety officer, told the panel. Arcoxia is a sister to Vioxx, which Merck withdrew in 2004 after a study showed that it also increased the risks of heart attacks and strokes. Merck sells Arcoxia in 63 countries, and the company underwrote an extensive safety testing program that involved 34,000 arthritis patients. Read The Full Story U.S. Admits Baghdad's Green Zone No Longer Safe 2007-04-13 02:43:01 U.S. officials admitted Thursday night that the bombing of the Iraqi parliament shows that not even the heavily fortified Green Zone is safe any more, despite the security crackdown launched earlier this year in the Iraqi capital. American and Iraqi security officials were last night investigating how a suicide bomber evaded a ring of security checks and blew himself up in the assembly's cafe, killing three Parliament members and five other people and wounding more than 20. About 100,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets of the capital as part of the troop "surge" begun two months ago; while security inside the Green Zone has been tightened following the recent discovery there of two suicide bomb belts. Read The Full Story 6.0 Earthquake Shakes Mexico 2007-04-13 02:41:14 An earthquake measuring 6.0 shook portions of Mexico early on Friday, said the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremor was felt in Mexico City, sending people fleeing their homes for the streets, reported a Reuters correspondent there. Mexican emergency services said there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage. Read The Full Story
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