Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday April 11 2007 - (813)

Wednesday April 11 2007 edition
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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 U.S. House Judiciary Committe Subpoenas Gonzales For Documents 2007-04-10 16:29:51 The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Tuesday seeking hundreds of pages of new or uncensored records related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year, said officials. It is the first subpoena to be served on the Bush administration in connection with the dismissals and escalates the confrontation between Democrats and the Bush administration, which has resisted demands for more documents and for public testimony from White House aides about the dismissals. "We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials," Rep. John conyers (D-Michigan), the judiciary panel's chairman, wrote Gonzales in a letter that accompanied the subpoena. "Unfortunately, the department has not indicated any meaningful willingness to find a way to meet our legitimate needs." Conyers added that "further delay in receiving these materials will not serve any constructive purpose." Read The Full Story Questions On World Court's Genocide Ruling 2007-04-10 16:28:58 The United Nations' highest court ruled Serbia was not guilty of genocide against Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s even though the judges never saw the full records of meetings by top Serbian political and military officials at the time, lawyers said. Was there a smoking gun in the documents that was missed by the International Court of Justice in the February ruling? "This is one of the things we just do not know," Phon van den Biesen, one of the lawyers representing Bosnia in the case, said Tuesday. "We had the strong impression that they could be relevant for the court to see." Read The Full Story Israeli Security Agency Warns Of Hamas Attacks 2007-04-10 16:28:25 A recent wave of arrests of Hamas militants in the West Bank town of Qalqilya provided evidence that members of the Palestinian faction there are primed to resume attacks in Israel, the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet asserted today. It added that the Qalqilya network had already sent a truck packed with explosives on a failed suicide mission in the Tel Aviv area in March. According to the Shin Bet’s unusual statement, information about the truck bomb emerged during the interrogation of detainees. A would-be suicide bomber had driven a truck packed with about 220 pounds of explosives to the Tel Aviv area, said Shin Bet, but for unspecified reasons, the attack was not carried out. The truck returned to Qalqilya, and later blew up there in what Shin Bet termed a “work accident.” Nineteen members of the Hamas network in Qalqilya have since been arrested, the statement said, thwarting plans to carry out attacks during the Passover holiday, which ended here Monday night. The statement warned that Hamas operatives in Qalqilya “continue to work on the planning and execution of significant attacks, including ones in the immediate future.” Read The Full Story Commentary: There Is Climate Change Censorship - And It's The Deniers Who Dish It Out 2007-04-10 12:51:45 Intellpuke: The following commentary by Prof. George Monbiot appears in the Guardian's edition for Tuesday, April 10, 2007. Prof. Monbiot writes that global warming scientists are under intense pressure to water down their findings, and are then accused of silencing their critics. Prof. Monbiot's commentary follows: The drafting of reports by the world's pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel's reports are conservative - even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be. Then, when all is settled among the scientists, the politicians sweep in and seek to excise from the summaries anything that threatens their interests. Article continues The scientists fight back, but they always have to make concessions. The report released on Friday, for example, was shorn of the warning that "North America is expected to experience locally severe economic damage, plus substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from climate change related events". This is the opposite of the story endlessly repeated in the rightwing press: that the IPCC, in collusion with governments, is conspiring to exaggerate the science. No one explains why governments should seek to amplify their own failures. In the wacky world of the climate conspiracists no explanations are required. The world's most conservative scientific body has somehow been transformed into a conspiracy of screaming demagogues. Read The Full Story Woman Suicide Bomber Kills At Least 19, Wounds 33 Near Baghdad 2007-04-10 12:50:29 A woman with explosives hidden under her black gown blew herself up Tuesday in a crowd of police applicants northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and injuring 33, said police and witnesses. As the smoke and dust settled, a horrific scene revealed torn limbs, severed torsos and dozens of charred and bloodied victims, writhing and screaming on the ground. "I've never seen anything like this," said Saleh Dari, 37, who was walking to his shop this morning in Muqdadiyah when the blast occurred in front of him. Read The Full Story Georgia Health Officials Lose Disk With Data On 2.9 Million State Residents 2007-04-10 12:49:49 A computer disk containing the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 2.9 million Medicaid and children's health care recipients is missing, Georgia health officials said Tuesday. The state said the security breach was reported by Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a private vendor with a contract to handle health care claims for the state. The CD was lost while it was being shipped from Georgia to Maryland, said ACS spokesman David Shapiro. The company has been working with the carrier, which Shapiro would not identify, for several days to find the package, he said. Shapiro said there was no indication anyone had tried to access any of the personal data. Read The Full Story 6 U.S. Attorneys Moonlighting In Washington, D.C. 2007-04-10 02:00:38 A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records. Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two years - prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his removal and call Mercer's office "a mess". Another U.S. attorney, Michael J. Sullivan, of Boston, Massachusetts, has been in Washington for the past six months as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is awaiting confirmation to head the agency permanently while still juggling his responsibilities in Massachusetts. The number of U.S. attorneys pulling double duty in Washington is the focus of growing concern from other prosecutors and from members of the federal bench, according to legal experts and government officials. 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 Maryland Governor Signs Bill To Bypass Electoral College 2007-04-10 16:29:37 Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) signed a bill into law Tuesday that makes Maryland the first state in the nation to join a movement to bypass the Electoral College and elect U.S. presidents by national popular vote. The bill, passed in a session of the General Assembly that concluded Monday, would award the state's 10 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide - not statewide. The agreement would not take effect until states that cumulatively hold 270 electoral votes - the number needed to win a presidential election - sign on. Supporters of the measure, which is being championed by a national nonprofit group, say deciding elections by popular vote would give candidates reason to campaign nationwide and not concentrate their efforts in "battleground" states, such as Florida and Ohio, that have dominated recent elections. Read The Full Story More U.S. Army Deserters Being Prosecuted 2007-04-10 16:28:43 With the nation fighting two wars, the number of soldiers deserting has increased and the Army is stepping up prosecutions. Army statistics released this week show the number of desertions rose in the four years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America prompted the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Desertions then fell for three years but they have been rising steadily again in the last three years as the increasingly unpopular campaign in Iraq has worn on. Even with the recent increases, less than 1 percent of the Army's active duty force of 507,000 soldiers desert, according to Army data. That compares with 3.4 percent of the 1971 force that fought the Vietnam war, Maj. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said Tuesday. Even with a sizable boost in the rate of prosecutions, the overwhelming majority of cases still are handled through administrative discharge. Some 5 percent of cases go to trial, said Edgecomb. Read The Full Story Venezuela's Chavez Plays The Oil Card 2007-04-10 12:52:01 With President Hugo Chavez setting a May 1 deadline for an ambitious plan to wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies, a showdown is looming here over access to some of the most coveted energy resources outside the Middle East. Moving beyond empty threats to cut off all oil exports to the United States, officials have recently stepped up the pressure on the oil companies operating here, warning that they might sell American refineries meant to process Venezuelan crude oil even as they seek new outlets in China and elsewhere around the world. “Chavez is playing a game of chicken with the largest oil companies in the world,” said Pietro Pitts, an oil analyst who publishes LatinPetroleum, an industry magazine based here. “And for the moment he is winning.” But this confrontation could easily end up with everyone losing. Read The Full Story California's Antelope Valley Struggles With Memories Of 90's Housing Crash 2007-04-10 12:50:45 John Rockey has been hanging drywall for 35 years, and he's seen it all in California's boom-again, bust-again Antelope Valley housing market. As residential construction flourished in the late 1980s, his company's ranks swelled to 200 - then shriveled to five when the economy tanked a couple of years later. By the time a new building spree peaked in 2005, Rockey's payroll had again grown to 200. But then came slumping home sales and a sharp rise in mortgage defaults and foreclosures. Now, his Lancaster-based Progression Drywall Corp. is down to 50 employees, and he's got a serious case of deja vu. "This is looking like 1990 all over again," he said. Read The Full Story U.N.: Nearly 400 Killed In Attacks Near Darfur 2007-04-10 12:50:06 Janjaweed militiamen killed up to 400 people in the volatile eastern border area near Sudan's Darfur region, leaving an ''apocalyptic'' scene of mass graves and destruction, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday. The attacks took place March 31 in the border villages of Tiero and Marena, some 550 miles from the capital, N'djamena. Chadian officials initially said 65 people had died, but added that the toll was sure to rise. ''Estimates of the number of dead have increased substantially and now range between 200 and 400,'' said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). ''Because most of the dead were buried where their bodies were found - often in common graves owing to their numbers - we may never know their exact number.'' The attackers encircled the villages and opened fire, pursuing fleeing villagers, robbing women and shooting the men, said the UNHCR. Many who survived the initial attack died later from exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Weary Of Sadr's Mahdi Militia 2007-04-10 02:00:54 No, there have been no problems, the police commander was telling the armor-laden American soldiers squeezed into his office in the vast Shiite enclave of Sadr City. Except, he said, for the text-messaged death threats he often received from militia members. Suddenly the meeting was interrupted by a loud mortar blast, followed by another explosion. A third, thunderous boom rattled the room, sending ripples through the yellow curtains and bringing the U.S. soldiers to their feet. The soldiers later learned the target was a nearby outpost they had recently established with Iraqi security forces on the edge of Sadr City. The third explosion was a car bomb that upended a blast barrier and punched three neat holes through a concrete wall 50 yards away. The holes, the soldiers said, were telling: The bomb was one of the potent projectile-emitting weapons that the U.S. military says Iran provides to Shiite militias in Iraq. And in Sadr City, militia means one thing: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's formidable Mahdi Army. Read The Full Story
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