Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday April 22 2007 - (813)

Sunday April 22 2007 edition
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Millions Face Famine As Crop Disease Rages 2007-04-22 00:03:11 Scientists say millions of people face starvation following an outbreak of a deadly new strain of crop disease which is spreading across the wheat fields of Africa and Asia. The disease, known as black stem rust, has already destroyed harvests in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. Now researchers report that stem rust spores have blown across the Red Sea into the Arabian peninsula and infected wheat fields in Yemen. Spores have also blown northwards into Sudan. Experts believe the disease - Puccinia graminis - will spread to Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East and finally India and Pakistan, which would lead to the destruction of the principal source of food for more than a billion people. Some observers warn that the disease could reach Egypt, which is heavily dependent on wheat, before the end of this year. "This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction," the international agriculture expert and Nobel prize-winner Norman Borlaug warned this month. Read The Full Story Congress Skeptical Of Bush's Nuclear Warhead Plan 2007-04-22 00:02:29 Congressional hearings over the past several weeks have shown that the Bush administration's plan to move ahead with a new generation of nuclear warheads faces strong opposition from House and Senate members concerned that the effort lacks any strategic underpinning and could lead to a new nuclear arms race. Experts inside and outside the government questioned moving forward with a new warhead as old ones are being refurbished and before developing bipartisan agreement on how many warheads would be needed at the end of what could be a 30-year process. Several, including former senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), suggested linking production of a new warhead with U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a move the Bush administration has opposed. Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), who originated what has become the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, wants the number of warheads in the current U.S. stockpile declassified as "the first step for an honest dialogue on nuclear weapons." Including warheads that are deployed, inactive and in reserve, the total is assumed to be above 6,000. Read The Full Story Iran: U.N. Has No Right To Stop Enrichment Plans 2007-04-22 00:01:40 Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday the U.N. Security Council, which has passed two sanctions resolutions on Iran since December, had no right to stop it enriching uranium. Iran has been upping the ante in a standoff with the Security Council, which has demanded a halt to enrichment over fears Tehran is seeking to build nuclear bombs. "We don't accept Iran's case being passed from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the U.N. Security Council," Manouchehr Mottaki said through an interpreter at a news conference while visiting Managua,  Nicaragua. "The Security Council has no right to take this right away from the people," he said, referring to Iran's enrichment of uranium. Read The Full Story Russia Tells Radio Network It Must Broadcast 50 Percent 'Positive' News 2007-04-21 18:05:09 At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia's largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be “positive.” In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin. How would they know what constituted positive news? “When we talk of death, violence or poverty, for example, this is not positive,” said one editor at the station who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. “If the stock market is up, that is positive. The weather can also be positive.” Read The Full Story Reports: Blue Angel Plane Crashes At Air Show 2007-04-21 18:04:13 A Navy F-18 Blue Angel plane crashed during an air show Saturday, according to televised reports. The county coroner's office said one person was killed. Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at a Marine air base near Beaufort, South Carolina, and then one dropped down below the trees and apparently crashed. "The next thing I seen was just a big black cloud of smoke," Gerald Popp, who lives nearby, told CNN. At the Blue Angels command headquarters at Pensacola Naval Air Station the petty officer duty said he "had no comment at this time." Read The Full Story Editorial: The Medicare Privatization Scam 2007-04-21 11:48:57 Intellpuke: The following editorial is by the New York Times and appears in the Times' edition for Saturday, April 21, 2007. The editorial follows: If private health plans are supposedly so great at delivering high-quality care while holding down costs, why does the government have to keep subsidizing them so lavishly to participate in the Medicare program? About a fifth of elderly Americans now belong to private Medicare Advantage plans, which - thanks to government subsidies - often charge less or offer more than traditional Medicare. As Congress struggles to find savings that could offset the costs of other important health programs, it should take a long and hard look at those subsidies. The authoritative Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimates that the government pays private plans 12 percent more, on average, than the same services would cost in the traditional Medicare fee-for-service program. The private plans use some of this money to make themselves more attractive to beneficiaries - by reducing premiums or adding benefits not covered by basic Medicare - and siphon off the rest to add to profits and help cover the plans’ high administrative costs. Read The Full Story Fish-Killing Virus Spreads In Great Lakes 2007-04-21 11:48:10 A virus that has already killed tens of thousands of fish in the eastern Great Lakes is spreading, scientists said, and now threatens almost two dozen aquatic species over a wide swath of the lakes and nearby waterways. The virus, a mutated pathogen not native to North America that causes hemorrhaging and organ failure, is not harmful to humans, even if they eat contaminated fish. But it is devastating to the ecosystem and so unfamiliar, experts said, that its full biological impact might not be clear for years. It is also having a significant impact on the lakes’ $4 billion fishing industry. There is no known treatment for the virus. As a result, scientists are focusing on managing its spread to uncontaminated water - quite a challenge since the Great Lakes are linked and fall under the jurisdiction of several U.S. states and provinces in Canada. “Updates over the winter suggest it has spread further than we thought, even last year,” said John Dettmers, a senior fisheries biologist for the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Read The Full Story Natural HIV Blocker Found In Human Blood 2007-04-21 11:46:54 A compound found naturally in blood could form the basis for an entirely new class of AIDS drugs, according to scientists. The chemical prevents the HIV virus from entering human immune cells and it is effective even against strains of the virus that are resistant to other drugs. "You want a lot of drug classes, because multi-drug resistant viruses are starting to show up more and more," said Frank Kirchhoff at the University of Ulm in Germany, one of the authors of the study. The newly identified compound prevents the virus from attaching a molecular anchor to the cell it is invading. No existing drugs affect this stage of infection, so the team hopes the compound could be modified to form a new class of similar drugs. With nearly 40 million people living with HIV worldwide and 3 million deaths last year, new approaches are urgently needed. Read The Full Story	Britain's Prince Harry Is 'Mother Of All Targets' In Iraq 2007-04-22 00:02:51 Britian's Prince Harry was left under no illusions of his value as a scalp for Iraqi insurgents. Even so, senior military officers could never have predicted the sheer scale of and nature of the threats lying in wait. Iraqi militia groups have already hatched detailed plans to seize him as a hostage when he arrives in Iraq next month. In a remarkable series of interviews, some of the most notorious paramilitary factions in southern Iraq claim that informants placed inside British military barracks in Iraq have received orders to "track" the movements of the third in line to the throne. The claims again question the Ministry of Defense's (MoD) decision to allow Harry to serve in Iraq where he and his unit will be seen as a valuable target to those attacking U.S. and British forces. Saturday night a Ministry of Defense spokesman said: "We have not concealed the fact that he is going out there and the bad guys know that he's coming and we expect that they will consider him a high-profile scalp." Despite the threats, Whitehall officials ruled out the possibility of the prince not being sent to Maysan, the most volatile province in southern Iraq, where attacks against British forces are mounting. Read The Full Story Update: Blue Angel Pilot Dies In Crash At Airshow 2007-04-22 00:02:08 A Navy Blue Angel fighter jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot, said the county coroner. It was the first death of a Blue Angel pilot since 1999. Witnesses said the Navy aerial-demonstration team, made up of six planes, was flying in formation at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, in South Carolina, when one jet dropped below the tree line and crashed, sending up clouds of smoke. It was not immediately known whether anyone on the ground was injured. Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris. He said the wreckage hit "plenty of houses and mobile homes." At least one home was set on fire. Read The Full Story Guliani Flip-Flops On Immigration 2007-04-21 18:05:30 Rudolf W. Giuliani is a long way from Ellis Island. A decade ago, as mayor of New York, Giuliani used that historic backdrop to champion the cause of immigrants, calling attacks on people who came here legally a blow to “the heart and soul of America.” And from City Hall he often defended illegal immigrants, ordering city workers not to deny them benefits and advocating measures to ease their path to citizenship. Now he is running for president, and the politics of immigration in the post-9/11 world is vastly different, with the issue splitting the Republican Party and voters peppering Giuliani on the campaign trail with questions about his current thinking. Perhaps more than any other candidate, Giuliani has a record on immigration with the potential to complicate his bid for the nomination. In contrast to his years as mayor, when he fought federal efforts to curtail public hospital or educational services to illegal immigrants, he now talks of penalties for people here illegally and requirements for them to wait at the back of the line. And while he once pushed policies like providing schooling for the children of illegal immigrants by saying, “The reality is that they are here, and they’re going to remain here,” now he emphasizes denying amnesty. Read The Full Story Report Condemns Marines Over Haditha Civilian Slayings 2007-04-21 18:04:37 The U.S. Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the 2005 slayings of two dozen civilians in Haitha, and commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to an Army general's investigation. Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell's 104-page report on Haditha is scathing in its criticism of the Marines' actions, from the enlisted men who were involved in the shootings on Nov. 19, 2005, to the two-star general who commanded the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time. Bargewell's previously undisclosed report, obtained by theWashington Post, found that officers may have willfully ignored reports of the civilian deaths to protect themselves and their units from blame. Though Bargewell found no specific coverup, he concluded that there also was no interest at any level in investigating allegations of a massacre. "All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," wrote Bargewell. He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes." Read The Full Story Vermont State Senate Calls For Bush's, Cheney's Impeachment 2007-04-21 11:49:13 Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions in Iraq and the U.S. "raise serious questions of constitutionality". The non-binding resolution was approved 16-9 without debate - all six Republicans in the chamber at the time and three Democrats voted against it. The resolution was the latest, symbolic, effort in the state to impeach Bush. In March, 40 towns in the state known for its liberal leaning voted in favor of similar, non-binding resolutions at their annual meetings. State lawmakers in Wisconsin and Washington have also pushed for similar resolutions. The resolution says Bush and Cheney's actions in the U.S. and abroad, including in Iraq, "raise serious questions of constitutionality, statutory legality, and abuse of the public trust". "I think it's going to have a tremendous political effect, a tremendous political effect on public discourse about what to do about this president," said James Leas, a vocal advocate of withdrawing troops from Iraq and impeaching Bush and Cheney. Read The Full Story U.S. Census Bureau May Have Violated Privacy Law 2007-04-21 11:48:32 For more than a decade, the Census Bureau posted on a public Web site the Social Security numbers of 63,000 people who received financial aid, officials said Friday. The apparent violation of federal privacy law prompted concerns about identity theft. Government officials removed the data from the Web site on April 13, the day they were alerted to the breach by an Illinois farmer who discovered the numbers while surfing the Internet. They did not publicize the matter until Friday, saying they needed the delay to enable information-security officials to contact those whose numbers were revealed and to contact "at least a half-dozen" mirror sites. "We take full responsibility for this and offer no excuses for it," said Terri Teuber, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture."We absolutely do not think it was appropriate." A watchdog group countered that officials tried to suppress the news. Read The Full Story World Bank Investigates Contracts Linked To Wolfowitz 2007-04-21 11:47:17 Paul Wolfowitz's grip on his job as president of the World Bank was shaken Friday after the bank's governing council declared it had "great concern" and ordered an investigation into the contracts of staff connected to him. After an emergency meeting, the bank's executive directors set up a wide-ranging inquiry into alleged breaches of the bank's code of conduct and ethical rules, and into statements about the controversy made by Wolfowitz's office. The decision increases the pressure on Wolfowitz, since the board's move widens the investigation to include the employment contracts of two of Wolfowitz's advisers. Robin Kellems and Robin Cleveland moved from working for the Bush administration to the World Bank alongside Wolfowitz in 2005, and have formed part of his inner circle, leading to accusations by bank staff members of special treatment. The investigation will also look into the revelations that Shaha Riza, a bank employee and Wolfowitz's girlfriend, was given a large pay rise and promotion on his orders when she was seconded outside the bank to avoid rules barring employees in a relationship from working together. Read The Full Story
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