Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday April 12 2007 - (813)

Thursday April 12 2007 edition
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U.S. Extending Tours In Iraq From 12 Months To 15 Months 2007-04-12 02:28:14 The military announced Wednesday that most active duty Army units now in Iraq and Afghanistan and those sent in the future would serve 15-month tours, three months longer than the standard one-year tour. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who announced the change at a news conference at the Pentagon, said that the only other way to maintain force levels would have been to allow many soldiers less than a year at home between combat tours. Gates said the problem was evident even before President Bush ordered an increase in troops for Iraq this year. Officials said the change became inevitable as the numbers of extra troops that were needed - and, most likely, the time the extra forces would have to stay - increased. Read The Full Story Civilian Claims On U.S. Reflect Toll Of War 2007-04-12 02:27:42 In February 2006, nervous American soldiers in Tikrit killed an Iraqi fisherman on the Tigris River after he leaned over to switch off his engine. A year earlier, a civilian filling his car and an Iraqi Army officer directing traffic were shot by American soldiers in a passing convoy in Balad, for no apparent reason. The incidents are among many thousands of claims submitted to the Army by Iraqi and Afghan civilians seeking payment for noncombat killings, injuries or property damage American forces inflicted on them or their relatives. The claims provide a rare window into the daily chaos and violence faced by civilians and troops in the two war zones. Recently, the Army disclosed roughly 500 claims to the American Civil Liberties Union in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. They are the first to be made public. They represent only a small fraction of the claims filed. In all, the military has paid more than $32 million to Iraqi and Afghan civilians for noncombat-related killings, injuries and property damage, said an Army spokeswoman.  That figure does not include condolence payments made at a unit commander’s discretion. Read The Full Story Panel Reviewing Walter Reed Issues Sharp Rebuke, Urges Closure Of Facility 2007-04-12 02:25:08 A top-level Pentagon review panel has concluded that Walter Reed Army Medical Center should be closed as soon as possible, following revelations of poor care that the panel blamed on a "perfect storm" of failed leadership, flawed policies and overwhelming casualties. In a preliminary report released Wednesday, the panel appointed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recommended accelerating the closure of the Northwest Washington hospital but improving conditions there in the meantime. Under defense realignment decisions made two years ago, the hospital's facilities were scheduled to move to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda by 2011. A faster move could mean speeding up or waiving an environmental review and releasing money to break ground on a $2 billion expansion plan at Bethesda, Maryland, according to the draft report from the Independent Review Group. Construction of a larger Army hospital at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia also should be expedited, said the report. Read The Full Story ABC News Obtains Palfrey's Records 2007-04-12 02:24:19 A Vallejo [California] woman indicted for allegedly running a prostitution ring in the nation's capital has turned over phone records of thousands of clients to ABC News as part of an interview that is to air next month, her civil attorney said Monday. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, was interviewed by ABC News several weeks ago, the network confirmed Monday. The network did not pay Palfrey for the interview, which is to run on "20/20" beginning May 4, according to ABC News and Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley. Palfrey has hinted that well-known people in Washington were among her clients from 1993 to 2006, but has not named any. Asked whether ABC News could identify former clients, Sibley said, "Records were turned over unconditionally to them. They're going to do what they're going to do. Who knows?" Read The Full Story Oxford Research Group: Terror War Increases Risk Of Future 9/11 Attacks 2007-04-11 12:58:31 The ongoing "war on terror" and in particular, the war in Iraq are actually increasing, rather than decreasing, the likelihood of future terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11, a new security report said Wednesday. "Things are moving in a worryingly counter-productive direction," the Oxford Research Group (ORG) warned in its latest study, "Beyond terror: The truth about the real threats to our world". Despite the recent efforts on climate change, it said that governments were "still focused on international terrorism and are not recognizing the genuine threats to security". The new warning comes after ORG issued an influential report in 2006 showing that the fundamental threats to world stability did not come from international terrorism, as claimed by many world leaders, but from four interrelated, and far more dangerous, trends. Read The Full Story Former Sen. Fred Thompson Reveals He Has Cancer 2007-04-11 12:57:55 Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tennessee) announced Wednesday that he was diagnosed with cancer more than two years ago but the disease is currently in remission. "I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms," Thompson told Fox News. "My life expectancy should not be affected." Thompson said the lymphoma, which he described as "indolent" - meaning it typically responds well to treatment -  was found during a physical exam two and a half years ago and is currently in remission. If the cancer re-emerged at some point, Thompson told Fox, "it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future - and with no debilitating side effects." Read The Full Story NASA Scientists: Alien 'Plants' Could Be Purple Or Yellow 2007-04-11 12:57:11 "The vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant color, is of a vivid bloodred tint." H G Wells's vision of Martian plant-life in his science fiction epic "The War of the Worlds" turned out to be wrong, but NASA scientists now think they can predict what colour plants on alien planets will be - if they are out there. The idea behind the research is that if you want to find evidence of life in the cosmos you need to know what you are looking for. The researchers have worked out which wavelengths of light would hit the surface of potential life-bearing planets in other solar systems and so worked out what kinds of light-gathering pigments plant-like organisms would need to exploit them. And their results are truly alien, with predictions of purple and yellow-orange vegetation on some other worlds. "As a result, once we have found an extrasolar terrestrial planet and made the first effort to characterise its atmosphere, it helps us to constrain the plausible range of colours for plants on that planet, which in turn will help us to search for them," said Vikki Meadows at the Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Read The Full Story Pet Food Officer Sold Stock Before Recall 2007-04-11 00:53:25 The chief financial officer of Menu Foods sold about half of his stake in the company three weeks before the widespread pet food recall, Canadian insider-trading reports showed. Finance chief Mark Wiens called it a "horrible coincidence" in the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper, adding that he did not hear of any problems with the company's products until at least a week later. Wiens sold 14,000 shares on Feb. 26 and 27 for about $90,000. The shares now are worth about $54,000. Meanwhile, a large veterinary hospital chain said it saw a 30 percent increase in kidney failure among cats during the three months that contaminated pet food was on the market, supporting the belief among pet owners and animal doctors that adulterated food has sickened or killed far more pets than officially recognized. Read The Full Story Russia Threatening New Arms Race Over Missile Defense 2007-04-11 00:52:41 Russia is preparing its own military response to the U.S.' controversial plans to build a new missile defense system in eastern Europe, according to Kremlin officials, in a move likely to increase fears of a cold war-style arms race. The Kremlin is considering active counter-measures in response to the Bush Administration's decision to base interceptor missiles and radar installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move Russia says will change "the world's strategic stability". The Kremlin has not publicly spelled out its plans, but defense experts said its response is likely to include upgrading its nuclear missile arsenal so that it is harder to shoot down, putting more missiles on mobile launchers, and moving its fleet of nuclear submarines to the north pole, where they are virtually undetectable. Russia could also bring the new U.S. silos within the range of its Iskander missiles launched potentially from the nearby Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, they add. Read The Full Story 4 Iraqi Soldiers Killed, 16 U.S. Soldiers Hurt In Daylong Battle In Baghdad 2007-04-11 00:51:45 A raging, daylong battle erupted in central Baghdad on Tuesday and four Iraqi soldiers were killed, 16 U.S. soldiers were wounded and a U.S. helicopter was hit by ground fire at the close of the second month of the massive security crackdown on the capital. Sixty miles to the north, in the mostly Sunni city of Muqdadiyah, a woman with a suicide vest strapped beneath her black Muslim robe blew herself up in the midst of 200 Iraqi police recruits. The attack killed at least 16 men waiting to learn if they had been hired. The security crackdown, which began Feb. 14 and will see nearly 170,000 American forces in Iraq by the end of May, has curbed some sectarian attacks and assassinations in the capital, but violence continues to flare periodically in Baghdad and has risen markedly in nearby cities and towns. The fierce fighting in central Baghdad shut down the Sunni-dominated Fadhil and Sheik Omar neighborhoods just after 7 a.m., the U.S. military said. After American and Iraqi troops came under fire during a routine search operation, helicopter gunships swooped in, engaging insurgents with machine gun fire. Read The Full Story Hezbollah Accuses U.S. Of Secret War, Arming Opponents 2007-04-11 00:50:39 Washington is waging a covert war against Hezbollah, according to the militant group, which accuses the U.S.  administration of arming anti-Hezoullah militias and seeking to undermine the Lebanese army in moves which could plunge the country back into civil war. "Dick Cheney [U.S. vice president] has given orders for a covert war against Hezbollah ... there is now an American program that is using Lebanon to further its goals in the region," Sheikh Naim Qasim, Hezbollah's deputy secretary general, told the Guardian in an interview in a safe house deep in Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. The accusation follows reports in the U.S. and British media that the CIA has been authorised to take covert action against the militant Shia group, which receives substantial military backing from Iran, as part of wider strategy by the Bush administration to prevent the spread of Iranian influence in the region. Read The Full Story	Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught The Imagination Of His Age, Is Dead At 84 2007-04-12 02:28:00 Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island, New York. Mr. Vonnegut suffered irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, according to his wife, Jill Krementz. Mr. Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction, but it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and ’70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States. Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well? Read The Full Story Bush Advisers' Use Of Republican National Committee Email Accounts Draws Fire 2007-04-12 02:27:15 Political advisers to President Bush may have improperly used their Republican National Committee  e-mail accounts to conduct official government business, and some communications that are required to be preserved under federal law may be lost as a result, White House officials said Wednesday. Of the 1,000 White House officials with political duties, 22 - including Karl Rove, the chief political strategist -  have Republican National Committee accounts that are supposed to be used only for campaign-related work, but recent revelations that some officials have used those accounts for Bush administration business, including discussions of a plan to dismiss United States attorneys,has prompted a Congressional investigation. On Wednesday, Scott Stanzel, deputy White House press secretary, said the administration had recently begun its own inquiry, and had concluded that its policy governing political e-mail accounts was unclear, that the White House was not aggressive enough in monitoring political e-mail and that some people who had the accounts did not follow the policy closely enough. Read The Full Story MSNBC Drops Simulcast Of Imus Show 2007-04-12 02:24:33 MSNBC said Wednesday it will drop its simulcast of the “Imus in the Morning” radio program, responding to growing outrage about the radio host’s racial slur against the Rutgers women’s basketball team. “This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees,” NBC news said in a statement. Talk-show host Don Imus triggered the uproar on his April 4 show, when he referred to the mostly black Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” His comments have been widely denounced by civil rights and women’s groups. Read The Full Story Bomb Rocks Algerian Prime Minister's Office 2007-04-11 12:58:43 Two almost simultaneous bomb blasts in Algiers, one targeting the prime minister's office, have killed at least 23  people and injured more than 80, Algerian authorities said Wednesday. Nine people died in the explosion at the headquarters of the prime minister, Abdelaziz Belkhadem. A second bomb at a police station in Bab Ezzouar, on the city's eastern outskirts, killed eight and wounded 50. Police sources said the attack on the government building, at 10:45 a.m. local time, was a suicide bombing. Dozens of ambulances raced to the affluent residential neighborhood, in the center of the Algerian capital, as thousands of people poured onto the streets and survivors were led from the building. Read The Full Story Climate Change Threatens World's Natural Wonders 2007-04-11 12:58:16 Hundreds of the world's most precious natural and cultural sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, Mount Kilimanjaro and Venice, are under threat from climate change, a United Nations report warned Wednesday. Rising sea levels, increased flooding risks and depleted marine and land biodiversity could have disastrous effects on the 830 designated UNESCO world heritage sites, according to the study. "The international community now widely agrees that climate change will constitute one of the major challenges of the 21st century," Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of UNESCO, said in a foreword to the report. "[Its] impact on the world's cultural and natural heritage is also a subject of growing concern." Read The Full Story Citigroup To Eliminate 17,000 Jobs 2007-04-11 12:57:40 Citigroup Inc., the financial services giant ailing after overseas scandals and lagging profit growth, said Wednesday it would slash 17,000 jobs and transfer another 9,500 to cheaper locations around the world in an effort to cut the cost of its widespread operations. The layoffs are a small part of Citigroup's sprawling, 327,000-person payroll, but are a centerpiece of chief executive Charles Prince's effort to control a conglomerate criticized for becoming too big to manage. The reorganization aims to strip out levels of middle management, force different parts of Citigroup's operation to share legal, human resources and other services, and consolidate some offices. The company operates in more than 100 countries. Read The Full Story Vast Areas Of Congo Rainforest Sold To U.S., European Logging Companies For Bags Of Salt, Sugar 2007-04-11 00:53:42 Vast tracts of the world's second-largest rainforest have been obtained by a small group of European and American industrial logging companies in return for minimal taxes and gifts of salt, sugar and tools, a two-year investigation will disclose Wednesday. More than 150 contracts covering an area of rainforest nearly the size of the United Kingdom have been signed with 20 companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past three years. Many are believed to have been illegally allocated in 2002 by a transition government emerging from a decade of civil wars and are in defiance of a World Bank moratorium. According to the report, the companies, mainly from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Singapore and the U.S., are already stripping from the 21 million hectares (52 million acres) of forest, primarily to extract African teak, which sells for more than £500 ($1,000) a cubic meter and is widely used for flooring, furniture and doors in Britain. According to the 100-page study, compiled by Greenpeace International working with Congolese ecological and human rights groups, if all the forests identified for logging are felled, it could "release" up to 34 billion tons of carbon - nearly as much as Britain has emitted in 60 years. Read The Full Story 3 Generals Spurn Position Of U.S. War 'Czar' 2007-04-11 00:53:12 The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation. At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military. "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks'," he said. Read The Full Story Sea's Rise In India Buries Islands And A Way Of Life 2007-04-11 00:52:16 Shyamal Mandal lives at the edge of ruin. In front of his small mud house lies the wreckage of what was once his village on the fragile delta island of Ghoramara near the Bay of Bengal. Half of it has sunk into the river. Only a handful of families still hang on so close to the water, and those that do are surrounded by reminders of inexorable destruction: an abandoned half-broken canoe, a coconut palm teetering on a cliff, the gouged-out remnants of a family’s fish pond. All that stands between Mandal’s home and the water is a rudimentary mud embankment, and there is no telling, he confessed, when it, too, may fall away. “What will happen next, we don’t know,” he said, summing up his only certainty. The sinking of Ghoramara can be attributed to a confluence of disasters, natural and human, not least the rising sea. The rivers that pour down from the Himalayas and empty into the bay have swelled and shifted in recent decades, placing this and the rest of the delicate islands known as the Sundarbans in the mouth of daily danger. Read The Full Story Wolfowitz Email Backfires At World Bank 2007-04-11 00:51:08 An attempt by the World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, to reach out to disaffected and angry employees backfired Tuesday with a new wave of outrage at the pay rises and promotion given to his partner. A staff email from Wolfowitz appears to have stoked further anger at the $61,000 (£30,000) pay rise and promotion given to his partner, Shaha Riza, two years ago. Ms. Riza, who has been romantically linked to Wolfowitz since 2001, was assigned to the state department shortly after he joined the bank in 2005 because of rules on conflict of interest. Yet she remained on the World Bank payroll. Read The Full Story
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