Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday May 31 2007 - (813)

Thursday May 31 2007 edition
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Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Clash Over Kosovo Plan, Defense Missile Shield 2007-05-31 01:48:21 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday tangled fiercely over U.S. proposals to grant Kosovo independence and build a missile defense shield. Lavrov accused the United States of starting a new arms race with its plan to install a radar system in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. On Kosovo, Lavrov all but threatened a veto if Western nations attempted to pass a U.N. National Security Council resolution backing a plan for Kosovo's independence, saying he hoped such a response would not be necessary. "This is an issue on which our positions are diametrically opposed," he said. "At the moment I don't see any chance of the positions moving towards each other." The disputes, laid bare at a news conference following a meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers, signaled that rising U.S.-Russia tensions could dominate next week's G-8 summit on the Baltic Coast. Read The Full Story Iran Warns Academics: Talk To Foreigners, We Will View As A Spy 2007-05-31 01:47:49 Iran's powerful intelligence ministry has stepped up its war of nerves with the west by telling the country's academics they will be suspected of spying if they maintain contact with foreign institutions or travel abroad to international conferences. The blunt warning has been issued by the ministry's counter-espionage director in an atmosphere of rising suspicion and paranoia as Iran claims to have cracked a CIA-backed spy ring and has charged three American citizens with spying. In a briefing with Iranian journalists, the official - whose identity was not disclosed - accused western intelligence agencies of using academic contacts to lure scholars into an espionage network against Iran. He said seminars inside and outside the country were used. Read The Full Story Student Loan Scandal Deepens 2007-05-31 01:45:12 A former financial aid director at Johns Hopkins University who cultivated a national reputation as a stickler for ethics accepted more than $130,000 from eight lending industry companies during her tenure, twice as much money as previously disclosed, according to documents and interviews. In 18 years at Johns Hopkins, Ellen Frishberg advised the federal government on rules for officials dealing with the student loan industry and lectured peers on the need to avoid perceived conflicts of interest. "Appearance of impropriety is as important as impropriety itself," she said in a 2000 presentation to California aid administrators. This month, Frishberg resigned after the university concluded that she failed to comply with ethics policies by accepting $65,000 from a lending company she had urged students to use. But her financial ties to the industry were more extensive than Hopkins or Frishberg have publicly said, amounting to at least $133,695, according to hundreds of pages of financial records, contracts and e-mails the Washington Post obtained from Senate investigators. Read The Full Story Thompson Says He'll Run For U.S. President 2007-05-31 01:43:38 Hollywood actor Fred Thompson said in an interview that he plans to run for U.S. president in 2008, joining a crowded field of Republican candidates. "I can't remember exactly the point I said, 'I'm going to do this,"' Thompson said of his planned presidential run in Thursday's edition of USA Today. "But when I did, the thing that occurred to me: 'I'm going to tell people that I am thinking about it and see what kind of reaction I get to it."' Thompson, a 64-year-old social conservative, said he was planning a campaign that will use blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters turned off by "politics-as-usual" in both parties, USA Today said. Read The Full Story GOP Fears Fallout From New Ethics Probes 2007-05-30 19:19:04 A half dozen federal investigations into the activities of Republican lawmakers are raising new worries for GOP leaders who hope to regain the House majority they lost last fall. In recent weeks, two veteran Republicans surrendered prominent committee seats after FBI agents raided the offices of family businesses. Others have long-running investigations hanging over them. Some conservative activists are criticizing the party's handling of the matters. Democrats say at least six GOP House members are under some degree of Justice Department scrutiny, although Republicans question whether all the inquiries are active. Read The Full Story Bush Names Land Management Chief 2007-05-30 19:18:25 President Bush said Wednesday he is nominating James Caswell, a public land official in Idaho, to head the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management. The appointment requires Senate approval. Caswell, who now runs Idaho's Office of Species Conservation, would succeed Kathleen Clarke, who resigned in February. Jim Hughes has served as acting director since then. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor and senator, praised Caswell. Read The Full Story Cheney's Lawyer Had Visitor Logs Eliminated 2007-05-30 12:07:07 A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states. The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act. Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president. The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence. Read The Full Story Bush Chides GOP Critics Of Immigration Bill 2007-05-30 12:06:31 President Bush lashed out at critics within his own party Tuesday, accusing Republican opponents of distorting the immigration deal he negotiated with leading congressional Democrats and playing on the politics of fear to undermine public support. In stern tones normally reserved for the liberal opposition, Bush said conservatives fighting the immigration proposal "haven't read the bill" and oppose it in some cases because "it might make somebody else look good." Their "empty political rhetoric," he said, threatens to thwart what he called the last, best chance to fix an immigration system that all sides agree is broken. "If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick out one little aspect out of it," he told thousands of trainees at a federal center here that prepares Border Patrol officers. "You can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all, so the people who wear the uniform in this crowd can do the job we expect them to do." Read The Full Story 28 Russians Die In Heatwave Drunk Drownings 2007-05-30 12:05:54 Twenty-eight people, many of them drunk, have drowned in the Russian capital this month as Muscovites cool off from a record heatwave in ponds, fountains and canals, rescue services said on Wednesday. "The main reason for the deaths is that people bathe in places were they are not supposed to ... but at the same time 75 percent of them are not sober," said Vladimir Plyasunov, the head of Moscow's lifeguards. "Because of the unusually high temperatures all our lifeguards have been put on high alert," Plyasunov told the Vesti-24 news channel. Moscow has been sweltering this week in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). Meteorologists said Monday was the hottest May day in the city since records began. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Video Threatens Attacks On U.S. 2007-05-30 02:30:36 An American member of al-Qaeda warned President Bush on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape. Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaeda would not negotiate on its demands. "Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech,'' he said in the seven-minute video. Read The Full Story Pfizer Faces Charges In Nigeria 2007-05-30 02:29:57 Nigerian officials have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. Authorities in Kano, the country's largest state, filed eight charges this month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer, the world's largest drug company. The move represents a rare - perhaps unprecedented - instance in which the developing world's anger at multinational drug companies has boiled over into criminal charges. It also represents the latest in a string of public-relations blows stemming from the decade-old clinical trial, in which Pfizer says it acted ethically. Read The Full Story Hamas Leader: Attacks On Israel Will Continue 2007-05-30 02:29:26 Khaled Mashal, the influential political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, insists attacks on Israel will continue despite overwhelming Israeli retaliation that has cost scores of lives in the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks. Speaking in Damascus Tuesday he asserted it was the right of the Palestinians to resist "Zionist aggression" regardless of whether their actions were effective. The continuing siege of the Palestinians would lead to an explosion that would affect the entire Middle East, he predicted. "Under occupation people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he told the Guardian in a rare interview at his heavily guarded offices, plastered with images of Jerusalem and "martyrs" killed by the Israelis. Read The Full Story	Baghdad Lockdown As Troops Look For Kidnapped Britons 2007-05-31 01:48:08 Areas of Baghdad were under lockdown Wednesday as American and Iraqi troops searched for the five British men who were kidnapped in the city on Tuesday. There was speculation that the four security guards and the financial consultant they were protecting were taken hostage as an act of revenge for the British army's help in the killing of a Mahdi army militia leader. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said Shia militia groups had taken the men, but a leading cleric with experience in hostage negotiation said he did not believe the Mahdi army was responsible. Sheikh Abdel al-Sattar al-Bahadli told the BBC Arab Service that Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia were not involved, and wanted to peacefully build a new Iraq. The four security guards, employed by GardaWorld, and their client, who works for the U.S. company BearingPoint, were abducted from inside the finance ministry building in Baghdad just before noon on Tuesday. They were driven away by men in police uniforms in the direction of Sadr City, the Shia district to the northeast. Read The Full Story Editorial: Injustice 5, Justice 4 2007-05-31 01:45:25 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Thursday, May 31, 2007. The Supreme Court struck a blow for discrimination this week by stripping a key civil rights law of much of its potency. The majority opinion, by Justice Samuel Alito, forced an unreasonable reading on the law, and tossed aside longstanding precedents to rule in favor of an Alabama employer that had underpaid a female employee for years. The ruling is the latest indication that a court that once proudly stood up for the disadvantaged is increasingly protective of the powerful. Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Gadsden, Alabama, sued her employer for paying her less than its male supervisors. At first, her salary was in line with the men’s, but she got smaller raises, which created a significant pay gap. Late in her career, Ms. Ledbetter filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A jury found that Goodyear violated her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Goodyear argued that she filed her complaint too late and, by a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court agreed. Title VII requires employees to file within 180 days of “the alleged unlawful employment practice.” The court calculated the deadline from the day Ms. Ledbetter received her last discriminatory raise. Bizarrely, the majority insisted it did not matter that Goodyear was still paying her far less than her male counterparts when she filed her complaint. Read The Full Story Ohio Company Used Melamine In Feed 2007-05-31 01:44:52 An Ohio company - Tembec BTLSR of Toledo - has long been adding the industrial toxin melamine to animal feed ingredients, and those feeds have been eaten by livestock and fish meant for human consumption, officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday. The company used the chemical as a binding agent to hold feed granules in pellet form, in contrast to the recent pet food scandal, which involved imported ingredients that were spiked with melamine to provide a false measure of protein content, said officials. As with the pet food scandal, they said, the levels of melamine involved appear to be too low to harm humans who may have eaten animals that consumed the tainted feed. Read The Full Story U.S. Chopper Shot Down In Afghanistan, 5 GIs Killed 2007-05-30 19:19:16 Five U.S. soldiers were killed when their Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, said a U.S. military official. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, said the U.S. military official, who requested anonymity because details of the crash had not yet been released. It wasn't clear if there were any survivors, said the official. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to the Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in the volatile province of Helmand, the world's largest poppy-growing region and the scene of heavy fighting in recent months. That claim could not be immediately verified. Read The Full Story U.S. Judge: Release Jailed Immigrant 2007-05-30 19:18:48 A Middle Eastern man jailed for nearly four years must be released by June 8 because the government, which wants to deport him, has taken too long to find a country that will take him, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman said in his order issued Friday that the government violated Majed Talat Hajbeh's constitutional rights and that he must be released within 14 days of the order. "The court finds it difficult to conceive how his continued confinement remains reasonable," the judge wrote. "There is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future." Hajbeh was arrested and detained in 2003 in a sweep of suspected immigration violators. An immigration judge ordered him deported, reasoning that Hajbeh entered incorrect information on papers when he entered the United States in 1993. Hajbeh said he made a mistake when he checked "single" instead of "married". The judge did not take into account that Hajbeh was acquitted in federal court of a criminal charge of falsifying the document. Read The Full Story Experts: U.S. Interrogation Methods Outmoded, Amateurish And Unreliable 2007-05-30 12:07:21 As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable. The psychologists and other specialists, commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board, make the case that more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has yet to create an elite corps of interrogators trained to glean secrets from terrorism suspects. While billions are spent each year to upgrade satellites and other high-tech spy machinery, the experts say, interrogation methods - possibly the most important source of information on groups like al-Qaeda - are a hodgepodge that date from the 1950s, or are modeled on old Soviet practices. Read The Full Story Turkey Sends Troops To Iraq Border 2007-05-30 12:06:49 Turkey has sent large contingents of soldiers, tanks, guns and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq - amid heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases. The military has said the border reinforcement is routine in summer, to prevent guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, from infiltrating from bases in northern Iraq. For weeks, television stations have broadcast images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border with Iraq's Kurdish zone, and trains transferring tanks and guns to reinforce an already formidable force in the area. Read The Full Story Journalists Receive Bullet Threats 2007-05-30 12:06:07 Three Pakistani journalists employed by foreign news agencies each found an envelope stuffed with a single bullet waiting for them when they returned to their cars in the southern port city of Karachi, a local press official told CNN. There were no reports that an individual or group claimed responsibility, but a spokesman with the Pakistan Federation of Union Journalists said the move was an attempt to intimidate and threaten working journalists. A police official told CNN an investigation into the case has been launched. Tuesday's incident comes in the wake of widespread political turmoil caused by President Pervez Musharraf's suspension of the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, nearly three months ago. Read The Full Story Editorial: The Coal Trap 2007-05-30 02:30:47 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Thursday, May 30, 2007. There is a rule for judging solutions to the twin problems of energy dependence and global warming: A policy designed to solve one problem should not make the other worse. But that is a likely outcome of the many “energy independence” bills circulating in Congress that aim to build a whole new generation of coal-to-liquid plants to convert coal into automotive fuel. These bills have already acquired an enthusiastic constituency and will be offered as amendments to what is now a relatively simple and sound energy bill designed to increase the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks, encourage the production of biofuels and provide research and development money for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. There are, of course, ways to make this bill better. Senator Jeff Bingaman will offer a useful amendment to require utilities to generate a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources like wind. But there are also ways to make the bill a lot worse. One of them is to require the expenditure of billions of dollars in loans, tax incentives and price guarantees to lock in a technology that could end up doing more harm than good. Read The Full Story Chavez Attacks Another Private TV Channel 2007-05-30 02:30:18 President Hugo Chavez condemned Venezuela's last remaining opposition-aligned TV station Tuesday, two days after pulling the plug on another critical broadcaster. The president called cable news channel Globovision an enemy of the state, and accused it of fomenting violence and attempts to assassinate him. "Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings gentlemen of Globovision. You should watch where you are going," he said, in a speech all stations were obliged to air. He accused it of distorting reaction to the closure of RCTV, a network which closed on Sunday after the government refused to renew its license. "I recommend they take a tranquilizer, that they slow down, because if not, I'm going to slow them down." Tens of thousands of mostly youthful protesters have marched through the capital, Caracas, and other cities for four days chanting slogans accusing the government of drifting towards Cuba-style authoritarianism. Clashes with police have left dozens injured. Read The Full Story Rice Cautions Israel On Syria 2007-05-30 02:29:38 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday cautioned against a growing sentiment in Israel to pursue peace with Syria instead of with warring Palestinian factions, saying there is "no substitute" for creating a Palestinian state. Rice, who will discuss the stalled peace process with diplomats here Wednesday, has worked for months to lay the groundwork for Palestinians and Israelis to begin discussing what she calls a "political horizon" - the parameters of a possible Palestinian state. But with violence erupting between Palestinian factions - and with Israel under constant attack from rockets launched from the Gaza Strip - Rice has faced criticism from some outside experts for spending so much time on a diplomatic long shot, rather than seeking to quickly end the violence. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday May 30 2007 - (813)

Wednesday May 30 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Editorial: The Coal Trap 2007-05-30 02:30:47 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Thursday, May 30, 2007. There is a rule for judging solutions to the twin problems of energy dependence and global warming: A policy designed to solve one problem should not make the other worse. But that is a likely outcome of the many “energy independence” bills circulating in Congress that aim to build a whole new generation of coal-to-liquid plants to convert coal into automotive fuel. These bills have already acquired an enthusiastic constituency and will be offered as amendments to what is now a relatively simple and sound energy bill designed to increase the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks, encourage the production of biofuels and provide research and development money for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. There are, of course, ways to make this bill better. Senator Jeff Bingaman will offer a useful amendment to require utilities to generate a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources like wind. But there are also ways to make the bill a lot worse. One of them is to require the expenditure of billions of dollars in loans, tax incentives and price guarantees to lock in a technology that could end up doing more harm than good. Read The Full Story Chavez Attacks Another Private TV Channel 2007-05-30 02:30:18 President Hugo Chavez condemned Venezuela's last remaining opposition-aligned TV station Tuesday, two days after pulling the plug on another critical broadcaster. The president called cable news channel Globovision an enemy of the state, and accused it of fomenting violence and attempts to assassinate him. "Enemies of the homeland, particularly those behind the scenes, I will give you a name: Globovision. Greetings gentlemen of Globovision. You should watch where you are going," he said, in a speech all stations were obliged to air. He accused it of distorting reaction to the closure of RCTV, a network which closed on Sunday after the government refused to renew its license. "I recommend they take a tranquilizer, that they slow down, because if not, I'm going to slow them down." Tens of thousands of mostly youthful protesters have marched through the capital, Caracas, and other cities for four days chanting slogans accusing the government of drifting towards Cuba-style authoritarianism. Clashes with police have left dozens injured. Read The Full Story Rice Cautions Israel On Syria 2007-05-30 02:29:38 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday cautioned against a growing sentiment in Israel to pursue peace with Syria instead of with warring Palestinian factions, saying there is "no substitute" for creating a Palestinian state. Rice, who will discuss the stalled peace process with diplomats here Wednesday, has worked for months to lay the groundwork for Palestinians and Israelis to begin discussing what she calls a "political horizon" - the parameters of a possible Palestinian state. But with violence erupting between Palestinian factions - and with Israel under constant attack from rockets launched from the Gaza Strip - Rice has faced criticism from some outside experts for spending so much time on a diplomatic long shot, rather than seeking to quickly end the violence. Read The Full Story U.S. Seeks Fliers Possibly Exposed To Drug-Resistent TB, 1 Person Quarantined 2007-05-29 19:26:01 Federal health authorities are looking for people who may have been exposed aboard a plane to someone infected with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis known as XDR-TB. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that the case involves a U.S. citizen who traveled on two international flights. XDR-TB was recently defined as a subtype of multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis. It can be fatal. As with all TB, the disease can be spread through the air. "In this case, the infected patient traveled on two trans-Atlantic air flights and, in doing so, may have exposed passengers and crew to XDR-TB," said the agency. Read The Full Story 10 U.S. Soldiers Killed On Memorial Day, 5 British Nationals Kidnapped 2007-05-29 15:23:38 Gunmen dressed in police uniforms kidnapped five Britons from Iraq's Finance Ministry Tuesday, the same day that two suicide bombings killed at least 44 people and U.S. officials announced the Memorial Day deaths of 10 American soldiers. Four of the abducted British nationals were bodyguards from a private Canadian security firm and the fifth was their client, said a spokesman for the firm, GardaWorld Security Corp. "A client and four GardaWorld security professionals were forcibly taken from a work site this morning," spokesman Joe Gavaghan said, adding that the firm is "supporting recovery efforts." Among its various services, GardaWorld offers "contingency planning and response" for "kidnap and ransom" incidents around the world, according to its Web site. The British Foreign Office confirmed the kidnappings but would not immediately provide any details. Read The Full Story Obama Offers Universal Health Care Plan 2007-05-29 15:23:04 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday offered a sweeping health care plan that would provide every citizen a means for coverage and calls on government, businesses and consumers to share the costs of the program. Obama said his plan could save the average consumer $2,500 a year and bring health care to all. Campaign aides estimated the cost of the program at $50 billion to $65 billion a year, financed largely by eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy that are scheduled to expire. President Bush wants to make those cuts permanent. "The time has come for universal, affordable health care in America," Obama said in a speech in Iowa City, at the University of Iowa's medical school. While Obama's plan is aimed at expanding coverage, he said cutting costs is also essential. Read The Full Story 3 Americans Charged With Espionage By Iran 2007-05-29 15:22:12 Iran Tuesday formally charged three Americans with espionage and endangering national security, the judicial spokesman said, in a move that widens Tehran's clampdown against U.S. citizens. The three are prominent Washington scholar Haleh Esfandiari, social scientist Kian Tajbakhsh of the Open Society Institute, and Parnaz Azima, correspondent for U.S.-funded Radio Farda. Iran announced over the weekend that it had wrapped up American spy networks and summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to protest. The State Department called on Tehran to immediately free the Americans. "These are individuals that have family ties to Iran [and] have done independent research and other kinds of civil society activities there for many years. They certainly pose no threat or challenge to the regime," said spokesman Tom Casey. Read The Full Story Russia Test-Launches New ICBM 2007-05-29 15:21:10 Russia Tuesday test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads, and a top government official said it could penetrate any defense system, a news agency reported. The new missile would modernize Russia's stockpile at a time of rising tensions with the West. The ICBM was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch site in northwestern Russia, and its test warhead landed on target about 3,400 miles away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, a statement from the Russian Strategic Missile Forces said. Read The Full Story Congress Members Push For Big Subsidy For Coal Process 2007-05-29 02:37:41 Even as Congressional leaders draft legislation to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming, a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicansis pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels. Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years. With both House and Senate Democrats hoping to pass “energy independence” bills by mid-July, coal supporters argue that coal-based fuels are more American than gasoline and potentially greener than ethanol. Read The Full Story China Embraces Nuclear Future 2007-05-29 02:37:08 Not far from the old Silk Road, Chinese government scientists have begun boring holes deep into granite in the first steps toward building what could become the world's largest tomb for nuclear waste. As governments worldwide look at nuclear power as a possible answer to global warming, China has embarked on a nuclear-plant construction binge that eventually could exceed the one the United States undertook during the technology's heyday in the 1960s. Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today. Read The Full Story	Al-Qaeda Video Threatens Attacks On U.S. 2007-05-30 02:30:36 An American member of al-Qaeda warned President Bush on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape. Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaeda would not negotiate on its demands. "Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech,'' he said in the seven-minute video. Read The Full Story Pfizer Faces Charges In Nigeria 2007-05-30 02:29:57 Nigerian officials have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. Authorities in Kano, the country's largest state, filed eight charges this month related to the 1996 clinical trial, including counts of criminal conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They also filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $2 billion in damages and restitution from Pfizer, the world's largest drug company. The move represents a rare - perhaps unprecedented - instance in which the developing world's anger at multinational drug companies has boiled over into criminal charges. It also represents the latest in a string of public-relations blows stemming from the decade-old clinical trial, in which Pfizer says it acted ethically. Read The Full Story Hamas Leader: Attacks On Israel Will Continue 2007-05-30 02:29:26 Khaled Mashal, the influential political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, insists attacks on Israel will continue despite overwhelming Israeli retaliation that has cost scores of lives in the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks. Speaking in Damascus Tuesday he asserted it was the right of the Palestinians to resist "Zionist aggression" regardless of whether their actions were effective. The continuing siege of the Palestinians would lead to an explosion that would affect the entire Middle East, he predicted. "Under occupation people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he told the Guardian in a rare interview at his heavily guarded offices, plastered with images of Jerusalem and "martyrs" killed by the Israelis. Read The Full Story Bush Nominates Robert Zoellick To Head World Bank 2007-05-29 19:25:46 President Bush has decided to nominate Robert Zoellick, the former U.S. trade representative and former deputy secretary of state, to be president of the World Bank, a senior administration official said Tuesday. "We believe Bob Zoellick is uniquely qualified for the job," said the official, who requested anonymity because Bush has yet announce the choice. "He really has an incredible resume and he has the trust and respect of many officials around the world. He also believes deeply in the World Bank's mission of lifting people out of poverty." Bush is expected to announce his choice tomorrow, ending a search led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson,  Jr., for a replacement for Paul D. Wolfowitz, who is leaving at the end of June. Wolfowitz announced plans to step down earlier this month after a bank panel concluded that he broke ethics rules in arranging a generous pay raise for his girlfriend, bank employee Shaha Riza. The deal and resultant uproar proved to be the final straw in what had been a tumultuous relationship between Wolfowitz and the World Bank staff. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Limits Pay Discrimination Suits 2007-05-29 15:23:20 A divided Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that workers may not sue their employers for unequal pay because of discrimination that may have occurred years earlier. The court ruled 5-4 that Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama, did not file her lawsuit against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in the timely manner specified by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A jury had originally awarded her more than $3.5 million because it found it "more likely than not" that sex discrimination during her 19-year career led to her being paid substantially less than her male counterparts. An appeals court reversed, saying the law requires the suit be filed within 180 days "after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred," and Ledbetter couldn't prove discrimination within that time period. She had argued that she was discriminated against throughout her career and each paycheck that was less because of discrimination was a new violation. Read The Full Story Bush Tightens Economic Sanctions Against Sudan Over Darfur Genocide 2007-05-29 15:22:47 President Bush announced Tuesday that he is imposing stiff economic sanctions against Sudan and that he will press the United Nations for additional action to end the violence in Darfur. “The people of Sudan are crying out for help and they deserve it,” he said in a brief statement at the White House. The decision makes good on a threat the president made nearly six weeks ago. Bush warned then that the United States would act if Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, did not permit a full deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces, allow aid to reach the Darfur region and end his support for the janjaweed, the militias that have been systematically killing civilians there. Read The Full Story China Sentences Former Drug Regulator To Death 2007-05-29 15:21:33 The former head of China’s top food and drug safety agency was sentenced to death today after pleading guilty to corruption and accepting bribes, according to the state-controlled news media. Zheng Xiaoyu, who served as director of China’s Food & Drug Administration from its founding in 1998 until mid 2005, was detained in February as part of a government investigation into the agency that is supposed to be the nation’s food and drug watchdog. Two other top agency officials were also detained in February. The unusually harsh sentence for the former director comes at a time of heightened concerns about the quality and safety of China’s food and drug system after a series of scandals involving tainted food and phony drugs. Read The Full Story U.K. Told To Pay More For Climate Change 2007-05-29 15:19:50 The U.K. should stump up an extra £1.2 billion ($2.4 billion) to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change, Oxfam said Tuesday. The country is already the biggest global contributor to international "adaptation" funds, paying in £20 million ($40 million), but along with other G8 nations its payments are not enough to reflect its role in producing the emissions and to compensate for the impact of its actions on developing countries, the charity said. While the U.K. has designated £178 million ($356 million) to pay for cooling systems to "climate-proof" the London Underground, the world's richest countries have only pledged around half of that to help other regions. Read The Full Story Hispanic Groups Reconsider Support Of Alberto Gonzales 2007-05-29 02:37:27 Two years ago, major Hispanic groups broke with other civil rights organizations and supported Alberto R. Gonzales' nomination for attorney general, primarily because he would become the highest-ranking Latino ever in a presidential Cabinet. Now, these groups say they are suffering from buyer's remorse. "I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House." Read The Full Story Campaign Puts Pressure On U.S. Secret Service 2007-05-29 02:36:48 The U.S. Secret Service expects to borrow more than 2,000 immigration officers and federal airport screeners next year to help guard an ever-expanding field of presidential candidates, while shifting 250 of its own agents from investigations to security details. Burdened by the White House's wartime security needs, the persistent threat of terrorism and a field of at least 20 presidential contenders, the Secret Service was showing signs of strain even before the Department of Homeland Security ordered protection for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) as of May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been assigned protection in an election season. Its $110 million-plus budget for campaign protection - two-thirds more than the record $65 million it spent for the 2004 election - was prepared when the service did not expect to be guarding Obama or anyone else until January. The agency has already been forced to scale back its efforts to battle counterfeiting and cybercrime. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday May 29 2007 - (813)

Tuesday May 29 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Congress Members Push For Big Subsidy For Coal Process 2007-05-29 02:37:41 Even as Congressional leaders draft legislation to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming, a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicansis pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels. Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years. With both House and Senate Democrats hoping to pass “energy independence” bills by mid-July, coal supporters argue that coal-based fuels are more American than gasoline and potentially greener than ethanol. Read The Full Story China Embraces Nuclear Future 2007-05-29 02:37:08 Not far from the old Silk Road, Chinese government scientists have begun boring holes deep into granite in the first steps toward building what could become the world's largest tomb for nuclear waste. As governments worldwide look at nuclear power as a possible answer to global warming, China has embarked on a nuclear-plant construction binge that eventually could exceed the one the United States undertook during the technology's heyday in the 1960s. Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today. Read The Full Story Disillusion Rises For Some G.I.s As Iraqi Allies Turn Foe 2007-05-28 16:22:33 Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents. “In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.” But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army. Read The Full Story 'That's Where The Journalists Were Shot' 2007-05-28 16:22:05 Intellpuke: Western broadcasters rely on local stringers for much of their coverage from Iraq. But are they ignoring their obligations to the people who risk their lives to get those dramatic images? It's an interesting question and the BBC's developing world correspondent David Loyn examines it in the following article, which is an edited extract of his article that appears in the British Journalism Review, Volume 18, Number 2. The policeman who stopped us at the checkpoint was quite matter of fact when we told him our occupation. "You are journalists, are you?" he said. "That's where the journalists were shot this morning." We looked briefly across the rubbish-strewn wasteground under the flyover that soars above Baghdad on the east side of the Tigris and then drove on. I had heard about the incident before we set out: two Iraqi journalists, identified and shot. It would hardly feature on the news in Baghdad, let alone abroad. The most dangerous place in the world for journalists has imposed a new set of rules on reporting. A shabby Toyota saloon, with a smeared windscreen fringed by woollen tassels, and grey nylon curtains obscuring the rear windows, is now the vehicle of choice, leaving fleets of expensive armored vehicles to gather dust in garages. A low profile is better protection than armor plating. All reporters have a second backup vehicle a discreet distance behind, and the escorts are armed. You try not to make appointments, so that ambushes cannot be prepared; you try to stay only 20 minutes at any location, varying the route in and out, to make it harder for kidnappers. The big agencies, with permanent staffs, have their own security. But even journalists with smaller organizations have their own safety net, keeping each other informed of their whereabouts. There are no scoops in Baghdad. Read The Full Story U.S., Iran Meet To Discuss Iraq Security 2007-05-28 16:21:38 U.S. and Iranian diplomats met Monday in formal, bilateral talks for the first time in more than a quarter century and agreed in general terms on the advances they would like to see to restore stability to this fractured country, where both have vital interests, the U.S. envoy reported. Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told reporters after the session that his four-hour meeting with Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi had been business-like and "proceeded positively" and that both sides wanted to move toward a stable, federal Iraq. But he said at a press conference that he made clear that the United States wants "Iranian actions on the ground to come into harmony with their described principles." "I laid out to the Iranians direct, specific concerns about their behavior in Iraq and their support for militias that are fighting Iraqi and coalition forces," including the imports of explosives from Iran into Iraq that have been used against U.S. and Iraqi forces, Crocker said. Read The Full Story U.S. Immigration Agency Mired In Inefficiency 2007-05-28 03:00:00 Last June, U.S. immigration officials were presented a plan that supporters said could help slash waiting times for green cards from nearly three years to three months and save 1 million applicants more than a third of the 45 hours they could expect to spend in government lines. It would also save about $350 million. The response? No thanks. Leaders of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected key changes because ending huge immigration backlogs nationwide would rob the agency of application and renewal fees that cover 20 percent of its $1.8 billion budget, according to the plan's author, agency ombudsman Prakash Khatri. Read The Full Story Heavy Rains Strand 1,500 Oklahoma Campers 2007-05-28 02:59:34 Heavy rains pounded central Oklahoma on Sunday, sending swollen rivers and creeks over their banks and stranding hundreds of campers who came for the holiday weekend at a popular park. About 1,500 campers at Turner Falls Park near Davis were stuck with their vehicles Sunday after flash flooding forced the closure of the only road leading into the campgrounds, park manager Tom Graham said. No injuries were reported. "One minute it was OK, and 20 minutes later a wave came through and caused us to shut it down," said Graham. "We started warning people yesterday evening that if they stayed, they may get flooded in." Read The Full Story U.S., Iraqi Troops Free 42 Iraqis Held By Al-Qaeda 2007-05-28 02:59:03 U.S. and Iraqi forces freed 42 kidnapped Iraqis - some of whom had been hung from ceilings and tortured for months - in a raid Sunday on an al-Qaeda hideout north of Baghdad, said the U.S. military. Military officials said the operation, launched on tips from residents, showed that Iraqis in the turbulent Diyala province were turning against Sunni insurgents and beginning to trust U.S. troops. "The people in Diyala are speaking up against al-Qaeda," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. Elsewhere in Diyala, a U.S. soldier was killed when an explosion hit his vehicle and a second soldier was killed in an explosion in Baghdad, the military said. The deaths brought the number of troops killed this month to at least 102, putting May on pace to become the deadliest month for Americans here in more than 2 years. Read The Full Story Japan's Agriculture Minister Dies 2007-05-28 02:58:24 Japan's agricultural minister died Monday after reportedly hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in parliament in a political scandal, said officials. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, was found unconscious in his apartment and rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead hours later, said a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official. "We've confirmed that Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka is dead," said Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the chief government spokesman. "We are greatly saddened." Shiozaki said the police were still investigating the cause of death, and that he could not officially confirm it was a suicide. Japanese media reported that Matsuoka had been found hanging in his apartment and that efforts to resuscitate him at the hospital failed. Read The Full Story Assad The Only Choice In Presidential Referendum 2007-05-28 02:57:56 High above the teeming streets of Damascus, from giant hoardings, posters and balloons, Bashar al-Assad gazed benignly down on his people - determined, proud, statesmanlike and reassuring - the carefully crafted image of a man fit to carry on leading Syria for another seven years. Banners praised "our Bashar", defender of sovereignty and stability. "We love you," declared another slogan, printed over a thumbprint in the national colors. Nightly street parties, concerts, dabke dancing and rallies created a festive, jubilee-like atmosphere in the run-up to Sunday's presidential referendum. No one was surprised that celebrations were taking place before a single ballot was cast; President Assad was, after all, the only candidate nominated by the ruling Ba'ath party. There is no legal opposition. Tellingly, the event is described in Arabic as "renewing the pledge of allegiance" as if this young, British-educated ophthalmologist and computer buff were a mediaeval Caliph. Read The Full Story	Hispanic Groups Reconsider Support Of Alberto Gonzales 2007-05-29 02:37:27 Two years ago, major Hispanic groups broke with other civil rights organizations and supported Alberto R. Gonzales' nomination for attorney general, primarily because he would become the highest-ranking Latino ever in a presidential Cabinet. Now, these groups say they are suffering from buyer's remorse. "I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House." Read The Full Story Campaign Puts Pressure On U.S. Secret Service 2007-05-29 02:36:48 The U.S. Secret Service expects to borrow more than 2,000 immigration officers and federal airport screeners next year to help guard an ever-expanding field of presidential candidates, while shifting 250 of its own agents from investigations to security details. Burdened by the White House's wartime security needs, the persistent threat of terrorism and a field of at least 20 presidential contenders, the Secret Service was showing signs of strain even before the Department of Homeland Security ordered protection for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) as of May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been assigned protection in an election season. Its $110 million-plus budget for campaign protection - two-thirds more than the record $65 million it spent for the 2004 election - was prepared when the service did not expect to be guarding Obama or anyone else until January. The agency has already been forced to scale back its efforts to battle counterfeiting and cybercrime. Read The Full Story Congressional Study Raises Concerns Of Militarization Of U.S. Foreign Policy In Africa 2007-05-28 16:22:19 The creation of the Defense Department Africa Command (AFRICOM), with responsibilities to promote security and government stability in the region, has heightened concerns among African countries and in the U.S.  government over the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, according to a newly released study by the Congressional Research Service. The Africa Command (AFRICOM) was announced in February by the Bush administration and is scheduled to begin operations in October with temporary headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. AFRICOM would have traditional responsibilities of a combat command "to facilitate or lead [U.S.] military operations" on the continent, but would also include "a broader 'soft power' mandate aimed at preemptively reducing conflict and would incorporate a larger civilian component to address those challenges," according to the CRS study. AFRICOM raises oversight issues for congressional committees, according to the report. "How will the administration ensure that U.S. militaryefforts in Africa do not overshadow or contradict U.S. diplomatic and development objectives?" the report asks. Similar concerns are being raised between Defense and State Department officials over the Pentagon's plans to take economic assistance programs begun in Iraq and Afghanistan and make them permanent and worldwide, with more than $1 billion allocated to them annually. Read The Full Story Bush Pays Tribute To Fallen Troops 2007-05-28 16:21:49 President Bush on Monday honored U.S. troops who have fought and died for freedom and expressed his steely resolve to succeed in the war in Iraq. "As before in our history, Americans find ourselves under attack and underestimated," he said. Bush marked his sixth Memorial Day as a wartime president with a somber speech at Arlington National Cemetery. He said he hoped the United States will always prove worthy of the sacrifices fallen troops have made, and recognized the grief suffered by families and friends of troops killed in war, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Now this hallowed ground receives a new generation of heroes - men and women who gave their lives in places such as Kabul and Kandahar, Baghdad and Ramadi," he said. "Like those who came before them, they did not want war, but they answered the call when it came. They believed in something larger than themselves. They fought for our country, and our country unites to mourn them as one." Read The Full Story Man Wrestles Leopard That Jumped In Bed 2007-05-28 16:21:09 A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family. "This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted." Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans. Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat. Leopards living near humans are usually too old to hunt in the wild and resort to chasing down domestic dogs and cats for food, he added. Read The Full Story Another Memorial Day Marks Grief's Journey 2007-05-28 02:59:49 Not a waking hour goes by when Judy Adamouski does not think of the son she lost at war. Some nights, she drifts from room to room in her Springfield home - sleepless, taking in what is left of his life. A framed photograph of a soldier in uniform. A wedding portrait. A diploma from West Point. "You miss the voice," she said. "You miss seeing him. It's just hard. All we have is our memories and our pictures." Her son is not a recent casualty but one of the early deaths of the Iraq war: Army Capt. James F. Adamouski, killed April 2, 2003, in a Black Hawk helicopter crash as U.S. troops made their way toward Baghdad two weeks into combat operations. This is her fifth Memorial Day since then - a holiday that marks time's passing but still finds her living with a mother's grief. "Jimmy," as she called him, was her only son, 29 years old, newly married, bound for Harvard University for a master's degree. Read The Full Story Guantanamo Detainee Told: Stay In Jail Or Face Torture In Home Country 2007-05-28 02:59:22 The British government was under pressure last night to allow a London man held in Guantanamo Bay for four years to return to Britain after the U.S. cleared him for release from the notorious prison. Jamil el-Banna was detained by the U.S. in 2002 after Britain sent the CIA false information about him. He had also failed to accept an MI5 offer to turn informant. If refused entry to Britain, Banna could be returned to face torture in his native Jordan, from where he fled to Britain in 1994 after alleging ill treatment. Speaking through his lawyer from Guantanamo, Banna described how he longed to be reunited with his wife and five children, and denied involvement in terrorism. "They should admit the truth - that they have been holding an innocent man for four-and-a-half years. I just want to be home with my family," he said. Read The Full Story Police Use Water Cannons To Stop Protest As Anti-Chavez Station Taken Off The Air 2007-05-28 02:58:45 Troops and police broke up an opposition protest using water cannon and tear gas last night as the Venezuelan government prepared to pull the plug on a TV channel opposed to President Hugo Chavez. Protesters scattered as they were hit by water jets then sang the national anthem as they returned to face riot police outside the state telecommunications commission. Tension mounted in Caracas, the capital, as the clock ticked towards the midnight deadline for the channel to cease broadcasting, a decision which has triggered accusations of censorship. Radio Caracas Television, the country's "oldest and most popular" private channel, hosted an emotional farewell to viewers and depicted its imminent demise as a political watershed. "This marks a turn toward totalitarianism," said its director, Marcel Granier. Read The Full Story Israeli Prime Minister Risks Losing Office 2007-05-28 02:58:08 Israel's government faces fresh upheaval Monday when the Labor party begins primaries for a new leader who could deal a final blow to Ehud Olmert's tenure as prime minister. The two leading contenders to take the party's helm from Peretz have said that they will work to get rid of Olmert, who has been under intense pressure following a damning report into his prosecution of last year's war in Lebanon. Labor is part of the ruling coalition along with Olmert's Kadima party. Peretz, also tainted by the Lebanon campaign, has already said he will resign as defense minister after the primaries. Opinion polls suggest that Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet internal security service, will win but may not get the required 40% of the vote to avoid a second round of voting. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, is second with Peretz a distant third. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday May 28 2007 - (813)

Monday May 28 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
U.S. Immigration Agency Mired In Inefficiency 2007-05-28 03:00:00 Last June, U.S. immigration officials were presented a plan that supporters said could help slash waiting times for green cards from nearly three years to three months and save 1 million applicants more than a third of the 45 hours they could expect to spend in government lines. It would also save about $350 million. The response? No thanks. Leaders of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected key changes because ending huge immigration backlogs nationwide would rob the agency of application and renewal fees that cover 20 percent of its $1.8 billion budget, according to the plan's author, agency ombudsman Prakash Khatri. Read The Full Story Heavy Rains Strand 1,500 Oklahoma Campers 2007-05-28 02:59:34 Heavy rains pounded central Oklahoma on Sunday, sending swollen rivers and creeks over their banks and stranding hundreds of campers who came for the holiday weekend at a popular park. About 1,500 campers at Turner Falls Park near Davis were stuck with their vehicles Sunday after flash flooding forced the closure of the only road leading into the campgrounds, park manager Tom Graham said. No injuries were reported. "One minute it was OK, and 20 minutes later a wave came through and caused us to shut it down," said Graham. "We started warning people yesterday evening that if they stayed, they may get flooded in." Read The Full Story U.S., Iraqi Troops Free 42 Iraqis Held By Al-Qaeda 2007-05-28 02:59:03 U.S. and Iraqi forces freed 42 kidnapped Iraqis - some of whom had been hung from ceilings and tortured for months - in a raid Sunday on an al-Qaeda hideout north of Baghdad, said the U.S. military. Military officials said the operation, launched on tips from residents, showed that Iraqis in the turbulent Diyala province were turning against Sunni insurgents and beginning to trust U.S. troops. "The people in Diyala are speaking up against al-Qaeda," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. Elsewhere in Diyala, a U.S. soldier was killed when an explosion hit his vehicle and a second soldier was killed in an explosion in Baghdad, the military said. The deaths brought the number of troops killed this month to at least 102, putting May on pace to become the deadliest month for Americans here in more than 2 years. Read The Full Story Japan's Agriculture Minister Dies 2007-05-28 02:58:24 Japan's agricultural minister died Monday after reportedly hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in parliament in a political scandal, said officials. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, was found unconscious in his apartment and rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead hours later, said a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official. "We've confirmed that Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka is dead," said Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the chief government spokesman. "We are greatly saddened." Shiozaki said the police were still investigating the cause of death, and that he could not officially confirm it was a suicide. Japanese media reported that Matsuoka had been found hanging in his apartment and that efforts to resuscitate him at the hospital failed. Read The Full Story Assad The Only Choice In Presidential Referendum 2007-05-28 02:57:56 High above the teeming streets of Damascus, from giant hoardings, posters and balloons, Bashar al-Assad gazed benignly down on his people - determined, proud, statesmanlike and reassuring - the carefully crafted image of a man fit to carry on leading Syria for another seven years. Banners praised "our Bashar", defender of sovereignty and stability. "We love you," declared another slogan, printed over a thumbprint in the national colors. Nightly street parties, concerts, dabke dancing and rallies created a festive, jubilee-like atmosphere in the run-up to Sunday's presidential referendum. No one was surprised that celebrations were taking place before a single ballot was cast; President Assad was, after all, the only candidate nominated by the ruling Ba'ath party. There is no legal opposition. Tellingly, the event is described in Arabic as "renewing the pledge of allegiance" as if this young, British-educated ophthalmologist and computer buff were a mediaeval Caliph. Read The Full Story U.S. House Speaker Pelosi Heads To Europe For Climate Talks 2007-05-27 14:04:43 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on an overseas trip to embrace an audience and a topic for which President Bush has shown scant affection: "Old Europe" and global warming. Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and seven other House members left Saturday for meetings with scientists and politicians in Greenland, Germany and Belgium on ways to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The trip comes shortly before a climate change summit next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in industrialized countries. It expires in 2012. Bush rejected the accord, saying that it would harm the U.S. economy and that it unfairly excluded developing countries such as China and India from its obligations. Pelosi, who disagrees with Bush's decision and many other of his environmental policies, said Friday that she wanted to work with the administration rather than provoke it. Read The Full Story Without Foreign Workers, U.S. Parks Struggle 2007-05-27 14:04:05 From Ukraine to Ecuador, scores of young maids and dishwashers are having trouble getting U.S. visas this spring  - and that means trouble in Yosemite Valley. "I've been making beds and scrubbing showers," said Tracy Rogge, vice president of operations for park concessionaire Delaware North Cos. The chief operating officer "cleaned toilets and bagged groceries. Our director of finance was making burgers. This really caught us off-guard." Laura Chastain, recruiting manager for Delaware North, estimates that she is 300 employees short. "I don't sleep at night right now," she said. Concession managers in Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks bring in hundreds of foreign workers annually from Eastern Europe, South America, Asia and Southern Africa because, they say, they cannot recruit American youths to fill the dirtiest jobs in the park's kitchens and hotels. Read The Full Story U.N.: Thousands Leave Lebanon Refugee Camp 2007-05-27 14:03:29 A majority of families from a besieged Palestinian refugee camp caught in the crossfire between Islamic militants and the Lebanese army have fled but thousands remain trapped inside, a U.N. official said Sunday. The Nahr al-Bared camp, located near the outskirts of this northern Lebanon port city, was calm Sunday after sporadic gunfire overnight between the army and Fatah Islam militants inside punctured a four-day-old truce. Hoda al-Turk, a spokeswoman for U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, said more 5,000 refugee families - or about 25,000 refugees - have left the camp since the fighting began one week ago. The camp is home to about 31,000 people. A majority of the families have fled to the nearby Beddawi refugee camp, while others are staying in Tripoli and other villages, she said. Read The Full Story Hundreds Participate In Hong Kong Tiananmen March 2007-05-27 14:02:36 Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to commemorate the Tiananmen Square protests 18 years ago, angry over comments from a lawmaker who appeared to take China's side in the crackdown. Walking through heavy rain, the demonstrators chanted slogans condemning the lawmaker, Ma Lik, who disputed witness accounts of the June 4, 1989, crackdown, saying Chinese troops did not fire indiscriminately at protesters. Organizers said about 1,500 people took part in the march, which has been held every year since 1989 on the Sunday before June 4. Police put the figure at 1,000. Read The Full Story Taliban Release 3 Afghan Aid Workers 2007-05-27 14:00:40 The Taliban released three Afghan aid workers Sunday who were kidnapped with two French colleagues nearly two months ago, as the militant group announced a new operation targeting foreign and government forces. The three aid workers from the France-based group Terre d'Enfance - Mohammad Hashim and brothers Ghulam Rasul and Ghulam Azrat - were abducted April 3 along with the two French nationals in the southwestern province of Nimroz. The Taliban released the French woman, Celine Cordelier, on April 28, and the man, Eric Damfreville, on May 11. "The three Afghans who were detained with the two French aid workers have been released today in Nimroz province at the request of tribal leaders," purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said Sunday. Read The Full Story A Longtime Gone For Minnesota National Guardsmen 2007-05-27 02:01:28 As often as he can, 6-year-old Austin Cassavant sits by his mother's computer in Crookston, Minnesota, and watches his father's face appear on the webcam from Iraq. On good days, sitting thousands of miles apart, they will tell stories and play tic-tac-toe. Waiting for his father's return, Austin began writing down his thoughts on slips of paper and dropping them in a jar. No one knows what he writes. "He and his dad can go through them," his grandmother said, "when he's home." By the time winter gave way to spring, the Minnesota National Guard was supposed to be back from war. Austin's father, Sgt. 1st Class Corey Cassavant, would be fishing for walleye and bass and grilling his catch. Spec. Corey Stusynski would be behind the counter at his paint store and teaching Sunday school. Staff Sgt. Logan Wallace would be plowing the fields near Thief Lake. Read The Full Story U.S., British Troops Clash With Sadr Militia 2007-05-27 02:01:02 U.S. and British troops battled Maqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra  on Friday and Saturday, killing about a dozen fighters shortly after the influential Shiite cleric demanded a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that six American soldiers and two Marines were killed Friday and Saturday in five separate attacks, bringing to at least 101 the number of service members killed in Iraq this month. Most of the latest deaths came in roadside bombings or other attacks against vehicles, the military said. In other violence Saturday, an armed Shiite militia attacked a community in Khalis, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, about noon and killed 17 Sunnis and burned 20 houses, according to Lt. Mohammed Hakman of the Diyala province police. In recent months, the province has been the scene of some of Iraq's worst sectarian violence. During Sadr's Friday sermon in the southern holy city of Kufa, he called on Iraqis of all faiths and sects to stop fighting one another and instead unite against the U.S. military occupation. Read The Full Story U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire In Baghdad 2007-05-27 02:00:04 Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, said U.S.and Iraqi officials. A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area. Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly. Read The Full Story	Another Memorial Day Marks Grief's Journey 2007-05-28 02:59:49 Not a waking hour goes by when Judy Adamouski does not think of the son she lost at war. Some nights, she drifts from room to room in her Springfield home - sleepless, taking in what is left of his life. A framed photograph of a soldier in uniform. A wedding portrait. A diploma from West Point. "You miss the voice," she said. "You miss seeing him. It's just hard. All we have is our memories and our pictures." Her son is not a recent casualty but one of the early deaths of the Iraq war: Army Capt. James F. Adamouski, killed April 2, 2003, in a Black Hawk helicopter crash as U.S. troops made their way toward Baghdad two weeks into combat operations. This is her fifth Memorial Day since then - a holiday that marks time's passing but still finds her living with a mother's grief. "Jimmy," as she called him, was her only son, 29 years old, newly married, bound for Harvard University for a master's degree. Read The Full Story Guantanamo Detainee Told: Stay In Jail Or Face Torture In Home Country 2007-05-28 02:59:22 The British government was under pressure last night to allow a London man held in Guantanamo Bay for four years to return to Britain after the U.S. cleared him for release from the notorious prison. Jamil el-Banna was detained by the U.S. in 2002 after Britain sent the CIA false information about him. He had also failed to accept an MI5 offer to turn informant. If refused entry to Britain, Banna could be returned to face torture in his native Jordan, from where he fled to Britain in 1994 after alleging ill treatment. Speaking through his lawyer from Guantanamo, Banna described how he longed to be reunited with his wife and five children, and denied involvement in terrorism. "They should admit the truth - that they have been holding an innocent man for four-and-a-half years. I just want to be home with my family," he said. Read The Full Story Police Use Water Cannons To Stop Protest As Anti-Chavez Station Taken Off The Air 2007-05-28 02:58:45 Troops and police broke up an opposition protest using water cannon and tear gas last night as the Venezuelan government prepared to pull the plug on a TV channel opposed to President Hugo Chavez. Protesters scattered as they were hit by water jets then sang the national anthem as they returned to face riot police outside the state telecommunications commission. Tension mounted in Caracas, the capital, as the clock ticked towards the midnight deadline for the channel to cease broadcasting, a decision which has triggered accusations of censorship. Radio Caracas Television, the country's "oldest and most popular" private channel, hosted an emotional farewell to viewers and depicted its imminent demise as a political watershed. "This marks a turn toward totalitarianism," said its director, Marcel Granier. Read The Full Story Israeli Prime Minister Risks Losing Office 2007-05-28 02:58:08 Israel's government faces fresh upheaval Monday when the Labor party begins primaries for a new leader who could deal a final blow to Ehud Olmert's tenure as prime minister. The two leading contenders to take the party's helm from Peretz have said that they will work to get rid of Olmert, who has been under intense pressure following a damning report into his prosecution of last year's war in Lebanon. Labor is part of the ruling coalition along with Olmert's Kadima party. Peretz, also tainted by the Lebanon campaign, has already said he will resign as defense minister after the primaries. Opinion polls suggest that Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet internal security service, will win but may not get the required 40% of the vote to avoid a second round of voting. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, is second with Peretz a distant third. Read The Full Story Republican Rift Over Immigration Bill Widens 2007-05-27 14:04:59 The roiling congressional debate over a plan to legalize undocumented immigrants has rekindled a bitter fight in the Republican Party over the best strategy to restore the GOP to political dominance - with each side accusing the other of following a course that would destroy the party for decades. The clash has grown increasingly intense in recent days, drawing in the most senior figures in Republican politics. President Bush aimed unusually pointed language Thursday at critics, many in his own party, who opposed a more permanent status for illegal immigrants. Two conservative senators were booed by Republican crowds in their home states last week for endorsing the legalization effort. And conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh attacked the Bush-backed plan as the "Destroy the Republican Party Act." Read The Full Story Commentary: I Lost My Son To A War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty. 2007-05-27 14:04:26 Intellpuke: The following commentary appears in the Washington Post edition for Sunday, May 27, 2007. It was written by Andrew J. Bacevich, whose son was killed in Iraq on May 13th after a suicide bomb explosion in Salah al-Din province. Mr. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston College. His commentary follows: Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death. Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings. This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. By encouraging "the terrorists," opponents of the Iraq conflict increase the risk to U.S. troops. Although the First Amendment protects antiwar critics from being tried for treason, it provides no protection for the hardly less serious charge of failing to support the troops - today's civic equivalent of dereliction of duty. What exactly is a father's duty when his son is sent into harm's way? Read The Full Story Chaudhry Warns Against Musharraf 2007-05-27 14:03:43 Pakistan's suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry warned against centralized power in a thinly disguised criticism of President Pervez Musharraf, without ever mentioning him by name. In a nationally televised address at a judiciary seminar Saturday, Chaudhry told the thousands of lawyers gathered, along with several diplomats, "The determination of the people cannot be resisted for long." "Centralization of power in one person or institution is dangerous," he added. Thousands of supporters rallied with anti-Musharraf slogans outside the court where the seminar, entitled "Separation of Power and Independence of Judiciary," was held. A large television set up on the street televised Chaudhry's speech. Read The Full Story Syrian President Assad's Fortunes Revive In Time For Election 2007-05-27 14:03:08 Inside the tent, the trappings of a modern election campaign were on display: jingles playing, flags waving, confetti coating the floor, and posters of President Bashar al-Assad hanging near the stage. Outside, however, Syria’s realities were evident. Government security officers manhandled anyone trying to come in and blocked reporters from covering the rally, which was financed by one of Syria’s most powerful oligarchs. The sparseness of the crowd at the start of the campaign on May 11 hinted at growing fear of the future and apathy about Syrian politics. Only a year ago, Assad faced so many troubles that some Syrians began questioning his political survival. His troops had been forced out of Lebanon, his government faced accusations of collusion in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, and the Bush administration had imposed sanctions that affected everything from the fleet of Boeings in Syria’s national airline to medical equipment. Waning oil reserves hinted at economic collapse, and the European Union delayed signing a much-needed trade agreement. Read The Full Story Viking Longship To Sail Across North Sea 2007-05-27 14:02:20 On the skipper's command, deckhands haul in tarred ropes to lower the flax sail. Oars splash into the water. The crew, grimacing with strain, pull with steady strokes sending the sleek Viking longship gliding through the fjord. A thousands years ago, the curved-prow warship might have spewed out hordes of bloodthirsty Norsemen ready to pillage and burn. This time, the spoils are adventure rather than plunder. The Sea Stallion of Glendalough is billed as the world's biggest and most ambitious Viking ship reconstruction, modeled after a warship excavated in 1962 from the Roskilde fjord after being buried in the seabed for nearly 950 years. Read The Full Story Russian Police Detain Gays As Punches Fly 2007-05-27 14:00:21 Russian nationalists shouting "death to homosexuals" punched and kicked demonstrators calling for the right to hold a Gay Pride parade in central Moscow on Sunday while riot police detained dozens of gay protesters. Two European parliamentarians were among those held as they tried to present a petition asking Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called gay marches satanic acts, to lift a ban on the parade. Nationalists and extreme Russian Orthodox believers held icons and denounced homosexuality as "evil" while a group of thick-set young men turned up with surgeon's masks, which they said would protect them from the "gay disease". "We are defending our rights," said a young gay man named Alexey, with blood pouring from his nose after he was beaten up by a man screaming "homosexuals are perverts" opposite the mayor's office. His attacker was detained. Read The Full Story Editorial: War Without End 2007-05-27 02:01:13 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Sunday, May 27, 2007. Never mind how badly the war is going in Iraq. President Bush has been swaggering around like a victorious general because he cowed a wobbly coalition of Democrats into dropping their attempt to impose a time limit on his disastrous misadventure. By week’s end, Mr. Bush was acting as though that bit of parliamentary strong-arming had left him free to ignore not just the Democrats, but also the vast majority of Americans, who want him to stop chasing illusions of victory and concentrate on how to stop the sacrifice of young Americans’ lives. And, ever faithful to his illusions, Mr. Bush was insisting that he was the only person who understood the true enemy. Speaking to graduates of the Coast Guard Academy, Mr. Bush declared that al-Qaeda is “public enemy No. 1” in Iraq and that “the terrorists’ goal in Iraq is to reignite sectarian violence and break support for the war here at home.” The next day, in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush turned on a reporter who had the temerity to ask about Mr. Bush’s declining credibility with the public, declaring that al-Qaeda is “a threat to your children” and accusing him of naively ignoring the danger. Read The Full Story Engulfed By Climate Change, Alaska Town Seeks Lifeline 2007-05-27 02:00:39 The sturdy little Cessnas land whenever the fog lifts, delivering children’s bicycles, boxes of bullets, outboard motors and cans of dried oats. And then, with a rumble down a gravel strip, the planes are gone, the outside world recedes and this subarctic outpost steels itself once again to face the frontier of climate change.  “I don’t want to live in permafrost no more,” said Frank Tommy, 47, standing beside gutted geese and seal meat drying on a wooden rack outside his mother’s house. “It’s too muddy. Everything is crooked around here.” The earth beneath much of Alaska is not what it used to be. The permanently frozen subsoil, known as permafrost, upon which Newtok and so many other Native Alaskan villages rest, is melting, yielding to warming air temperatures and a warming ocean. Sea ice that would normally protect coastal villages is forming later in the year, allowing fall storms to pound away at the shoreline. Erosion has made Newtok an island, caught between the ever widening Ninglick River and a slough to the north. The village is below sea level, and sinking. Boardwalks squish into the spring muck. Human waste, collected in “honey buckets” that many residents use for toilets, is often dumped within eyeshot in a village where no point is more than a five-minute walk from any other. The ragged wooden houses have to be adjusted regularly to level them on the shifting soil. Read The Full Story Chinese Media Blast Pentagon Report 2007-05-27 01:59:47 Chinese state media on Sunday blasted a Pentagon report on Beijing's defense plans as misleading and insulting, and said China had to pursue military modernization to avoid falling further behind the United States. The U.S. Defense Department report released on Friday said that while Beijing remained focused on the Taiwan Strait as a potential flashpoint, it also appeared to be looking to project its growing military strength elsewhere. Beijing has yet to give a formal reaction to the report, but the ruling Communist Party's newspaper and other state media signaled China's rancor. While Beijing and Washington have been cooperating on North Korea and other international crises, the tough words underscored the distrust that overshadows military perceptions on both sides. Read The Full Story
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