Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday April 25 2007 - (813)

Wednesday April 25 2007 edition
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China Could Overtake U.S. As Biggest Greenhouse Gas Producer By November 2007-04-25 02:30:13 China may overtake the United States as the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases within months, one of the world's leading energy analysts predicted Wednesday. Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), said the country's economic growth had been so fast in 2006 and 2007 that the historic global shift of climate-changing emissions from west to east which was previously predicted for 2009 or 2010 could now happen by November. Yet these predictions paled into insignificance, said Dr. Birol, if China took no measures to restrain emissions. At current rates, he said, it would be emitting twice as much CO2 as the world's 26 richest countries combined within 25 years. Read The Full Story Revival Of Oversight Role Sought By Congress 2007-04-25 02:29:34 Over the course of only 15 minutes Wednesday, three congressional committees will consider subpoenas for half a dozen officials from the White House and the departments of Justice and State. On the list is former presidential chief of staff Andrew H. Card, Jr., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Justice Department liaison to the White House Monica M. Goodling, a key figure in the controversial firing of eight U.S.attorneys. Republican leaders call it a "partisan witch hunt", but Democratic lawmakers, and even some Republicans, say it is an overdue return to their constitutional role of executive-branch oversight. Since Democrats assumed control of Congress in January, they have hired more than 200 investigative staffers for key watchdog committees. They include lawyers, former reporters and congressional staffers who left oversight committees that had all but atrophied during the six years that the GOP controlled Congress and the White House. They have already begun a series of inquiries on subjects ranging from allegations of administration meddling in federal scientists' work on global warming and the General Services Administration's alleged work for Republican campaigns to how disproved claims that Iraq had purchased nuclear material from Niger evolved into a case for war. Read The Full Story Scotland Yard Chief: Al-Qaeda Thriving Despite War On Terror 2007-04-25 02:27:40 The head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said Tuesday that al-Qaeda had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain. Deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, the national counterterrorism coordinator, warned in a lecture last night that terrorists "have momentum" and were on an "inexorable trend to more ambitious and more destructive attack planning". Clarke was giving a lecture in memory of Colin Cramphorn, the deceased former chief constable of West Yorkshire who was in charge of the force when it was revealed that three of the four bombers behind the attacks on London in July 7, 2005, came from his area. Read The Full Story Existing Home Sales See Biggest Decline Since 1989 2007-04-24 14:32:18 Bad weather and growing problems in the mortgage industry forced the steepest one-month decline in sales of existing homes in nearly two decades, dashing hopes that the housing market is headed for an imminent recovery, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. Sales of previously owned homes in March fell by 8.4 percent compared with February, the group reported. It was the largest one-month drop since sales of existing homes plunged 12.6 percent in January 1989, the last time the country was in a housing recession. It was also 11.3 percent below the number of units sold in March 2006. The drop - from a seasonably adjusted rate of 6.68 million homes sold in February to 6.12 million in March -  followed three consecutive months of increases in sales of existing single-family homes, townhouses, condos and co-ops. Read The Full Story Hamas: Truce With Israel Is Over 2007-04-24 14:30:21 The military wing of Hamas fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells Tuesday into southern Israel and reiterated that it would no longer abide by a five-month-old truce with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. Two of the six crude rockets fired from Gaza landed inside Israel, causing no injuries or damage. Eight mortar shells also landed in open areas during a two-hour attack. Israeli attack helicopters responded quickly, firing on the launch sites. Israeli military officials said the rocket strikes, the first claimed by Hamas since it agreed to a cease-fire with Israeli forces in Gaza last November, was designed to mask a Hamas attempt to enter Israel on the ground. Read The Full Story Pentagon Challenged On Lynch, Tillman 2007-04-24 14:29:08 Military and other administration officials created a heroic story about the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman to distract attention from setbacks in Iraq and the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the slain man's younger brother, Kevin Tillman, said Tuesday. Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Tillman said the military knew almost immediately that Corporal Tillman, an Army Ranger who left a career as a pro football player to enlist, had been killed accidentally in Afghanistan in April 2004 by fire from his own unit, but officials chose to put a "patriotic glow" on his death, he said. Tillman said the decision to award his brother a Silver Star and to say that he died heroically fighting the enemy was "utter fiction" that was intended to "exploit Pat's death". Read The Full Story Supreme Court Ponders Rights Of Passengers When Police Stop Vehicles 2007-04-24 14:27:57 Most people sitting in the passenger seat of a car that has been stopped by a police officer do not feel free to open the door and leave. Neither do most members of the Supreme Court, or so the justices’ comments indicated during an argument Monday on the constitutional rights of passengers in that familiar but uncomfortable situation. The question of whether a “reasonable” passenger would feel free to leave was significant because that perception is a principal part of the court’s test for whether a “seizure” has taken place within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. If a reasonable person would not feel constrained, then he or she has not been “seized” and has no basis for complaining that the police have violated the Fourth Amendment. The converse is also true: a person who reasonably feels detained by the police is entitled to challenge the validity of the police action and perhaps to keep illegally seized evidence out of court. Read The Full Story Commentary: Fascist America In 10 Easy Steps 2007-04-24 02:30:15 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Naomi Wolf who writes that from Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. Ms. Wolfe argues that Mr. Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all. Some of you will read this and start looking over your shoulders, others will be angry. Either way, it is well worth the read. Ms. Wolf's commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, April 24, 2007, follows: Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps. As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration. Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognize the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have. It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize. Read The Full Story	Commentary: The Last Thing Middle East Wants Is U.S. Troops To Leave Iraq 2007-04-25 02:29:52 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Hussein Agha, a senior associated member of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, writes that across the Middle East ordinary people want the U.S. to get out of Iraq but, from Israel to al-Qaeda, political groups and states have other ideas. Mr. Agha's commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Wednesday, April 25, 2007, follows: Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq "illegal" and "illegitimate". Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans. Not yet. For this there is a simple reason: while the U.S. can no longer successfully manipulate regional actors to carry out its plans, regional actors have learned to use the U.S. presence to promote their own objectives. Quietly and against the deeply held wishes of their populations, they have managed to keep the Americans engaged with the hope of some elusive victory. The so-called axis of moderate Arab states - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - dreads an early U.S.  withdrawal. First, because it would be widely interpreted as an American defeat, which would weaken these pro-American regimes while both energizing and radicalizing their populations. Read The Full Story U.S. Soldiers Face A Grisly Problem, Grateful Iraqis And A Grim Outlook 2007-04-25 02:28:58 The soldiers called him Bob, and for the past several weeks, until Tuesday morning, he was the biggest obstacle to the success of an important mission in a small but crucial corner of the Iraq war. "We can't get anybody to get Bob out. No one wants to do it," Army Maj. Brent Cummings, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said with worry one recent morning as Bob's story began unfolding. Cummings was looking at an aerial photograph of an area in east Baghdad called Kamaliya, where there was an abandoned spaghetti factory with a hole in the courtyard, a hole in which some of his soldiers had discovered Bob. Bob: It's shorthand for "bobbin' in the float," Cummings explained. Read The Full Story West's Foot-Dragging On Aid To Africa Putting Lives At Risk 2007-04-25 02:27:12 The west's foot-dragging over aid pledges to Africa was described last night as "grotesque" and a threat to the lives of the world's poor by the body set up by Tony Blair to monitor the results of Britain's Gleneagles summit. Almost two years after the G8 group of leading industrial nations promised to boost development assistance by $50 billion a year by 2010, the Africa Progress Panel (APP) headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said rich countries were only 10% of the way to their target. "If the efforts to double aid by 2010 are not increased soon it will be too late," said Annan as the APP presented its findings in Berlin to the prime minister and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will host this year's G8 summit in early June. Read The Full Story FCC Seeks To Rein-In Violent TV Shows 2007-04-24 14:31:49 Federal regulators, concerned about the effect of television violence on children, will recommend that Congress enact legislation to give the government unprecedented powers to curb violence in entertainment programming, according to government and TV industry sources. The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that regulating TV violence is in the public interest, particularly during times when children are likely to be viewers - typically between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., FCC sources say. The agency's recommendations - which will be released in a report to Congress within the next week, agency officials say - could set up a legal battle between Washington and the television industry. Read The Full Story Toyota Tops Auto Industry As Sales Surpass GM 2007-04-24 14:29:56 General Motors Corp., for 70 years the lead player in the global automotive industry, fell to second place during the first three months of this year when its sales slipped behind those of Japanese industrial giant Toyota Motor Corp. Driven by sales of its popular Camry and fuel-efficient Prius hybrid, Toyota on Tuesday reported global sales of 2.35 million vehicles in the first quarter of 2007, about 90,000 more vehicles than the quarterly sales reported by GM late last week. Industry analysts expect the trend to hold up for the full year, a turning point long anticipated by those who track Toyota's steadily increasing market share and popularity with consumers. "I won't say the trend is impossible to reverse, but it's extremely difficult," said Koji Endo, an analyst for Credit Suisse in Tokyo, in an interview with the Associated Press. "Toyota sales are booming because of its good image around the world about reliability and ecological technology. ... It's just the opposite for GM, and its image is deteriorating." Read The Full Story Gunman Kill At Least 69 People In Attack On Chinese-Run Oilfield In Ethiopia 2007-04-24 14:28:41 Gunmen attacked a Chinese-run oilfield in Ethiopia early Tuesday, killing at least nine Chinese and more than 60 Ethiopian workers, according to the New China News Agency. The official agency, in a dispatch it said was confirmed by the Chinese Embassy in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, reported more than 100 Ethiopian soldiers beat back the attackers in nearly an hour of shooting. The battle took place just after dawn in an oilfield at Abole, a small town the agency said lies 90 miles from Jijiga in Ethiopia's Somali State near the border with Somalia. Xu Shuang, acting manager of the Zongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau of the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., told the agency that, in addition to the fatalities, seven Chinese employees were believed kidnapped by the withdrawing assailants. He did not provide any casualty estimates for the Ethiopian soldiers guarding the oilfield. Read The Full Story SEC Files Civil Charges Against 2 Former Apple Executives 2007-04-24 14:27:29 The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges Tuesday against two former Apple Inc. officers over their alleged roles in backdating stock options. The agency immediately announced a settlement with one of them. Former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson, 62, has agreed to pay about $3.5 million in fines and penalties to settle the case, said the SEC. The case against former general counsel Nancy Heinen, 50, will proceed. Her attorneys have vowed to fight the charges. The commission accused Heinen of participating in fraudulent backdating and altering company records to conceal the fraud. The charges were in connection with two large options grants that caused the company to under report its expenses by nearly $40 million, said the SEC. Read The Full Story Blair Administration Tries To Sabotage BAE Bribes Investigation 2007-04-24 02:29:46 The U.K. is covertly trying to oust the head of the world's main anti-bribery watchdog to prevent criticism of ministers and Britain's biggest arms company, BAE, the Guardian has learned. The effort to remove Mark Pieth comes as his organization has stepped up its investigation into the British government's decision to kill off a major inquiry into allegations that BAE paid massive bribes to land Saudi arms deals. British diplomats are seeking to remove Professor Pieth, a Swiss legal expert who chairs the anti-corruption watchdog of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), claiming he is too outspoken. At the OECD meeting in Paris, France, last month, British officials tried to stop Prof. Pieth addressing a press conference at which he announced his agency was to conduct a formal inquiry into the Blair Administration's  decision to terminate the BAE investigation. They then privately briefed other diplomats involved with the OECD, saying he should be removed. Read The Full Story
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