Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday May 4 2007 - (813)

Friday May 4 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Sen. Clinton Proposes Vote To Rescind Iraq War Authorization 2007-05-03 23:19:56 Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed Thursday that Congress repeal the authority it gave President Bush in 2002 to invade Iraq,injecting presidential politics into the Congressional debate over financing the war. Clinton’s proposal brings her full circle on Iraq - she supported the war measure five years ago - and it sharpens her own political positioning at a time when Democrats are vying to confront the White House. “It is time to reverse the failed policies of President Bush and to end this war as soon as possible,” Clinton said as she joined Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, in calling for a vote to end the authority as of Oct. 11, the fifth anniversary of the original vote. Her stance emerged just as Congressional leaders and the White House opened delicate negotiations over a new war-financing measure to replace the one that Bush vetoed Tuesday. Read The Full Story NewsBlog: GOP Debate Wrap Up 2007-05-03 23:19:25 Intellpuke: The following newsblog is from The Fix, a washingtonpost.com newsblog written by Chris Cillizza. Following is Mr. Cillizza's take on Thursday evening's debate from Simi Valley, California, among Republican presidential candidates. And it's over. In the first Republican presidential debate of the 2008 race, the ten Republican presidential candidates engaged in a high-spirited debate although none of them were willing to directly criticize each other or President George W. Bush. I'll have a list of winners and losers tomorrow on The Fix - after I watch the debate a time or two more and study the transcript - but here are my initial thoughts. Take these with a grain of salt. I have been typing furiously for the past 90 minutes. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (Massachusetts) stood out with clear and crisp answers - showing flashes of humor and an ease with the important issues. He sounded authoritative when he talked about Iraq (not an easy task for a one-term governor of Massachusetts) and effectively cast himself - a Mormon - as part of the broad faith community in America. One note rang false, however. Romney seemed a bit too keen to make up for his previous comment that the government should not move "heaven and earth" to catch Osama bin-Laden. ""He is going to pay and he will die," Romney said. ...Okay, we get it. Read The Full Story Climate Panel Reaches Consensus On Need To Reduce Harmful Emissions 2007-05-03 23:16:56 Intellpuke: Following is the New York Times' article on the final report issued Friday by the International Panel On Climate Change. The world needs to divert substantially from today’s main energy sources within a few decades to limit centuries of rising temperatures and seas driven by the buildup of heat-trapping emissions in the air, the top body studying climate change has concluded. In an all-night session capping four days of talks in Bangkok, Thailand, economists, scientists and government officials from more than 100 countries agreed early Friday on the last sections of a report outlining ways to limit such emissions, led by carbon dioxide, an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal and oil. The final report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said prompt slowing of emissions could set the stage later in the century for stabilization of the concentration of carbon dioxide, which, at 380 parts per million now, has risen more than a third since the start of the industrial revolution and could easily double from the preindustrial level within decades. The report, which awaits only formal adoption Friday afternoon, concluded that significant progress toward that goal could be made in the next 25 years with known technologies and policy shifts, but would still need to be followed by a century-long transition to new energy sources that come with no climate impacts. Read The Full Story Nuclear Power A 'Dangerious Distraction' Says Greenpeace 2007-05-03 23:14:55 The average nuclear power station is four years behind schedule and runs three times over-budget, a new report out Thursday says. The Economics of Nuclear Power, commissioned by Greenpeace concludes that atomic power has been historically linked with high subsidies, complex technology and safety concerns, leaving it a "dangerous distraction" to finding better ways of tackling global warming. Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at Greenwich University and an author of the report, said: "The nuclear industry has always made unfulfilled promises; history reveals a damning testament to its failure. Pursuing a new program of nuclear reactors would deny us the opportunity to make the necessary investment in renewable technologies and energy efficiency to meet future energy needs in a viable and sustainable way." Read The Full Story GM's 1st Quarter Earnings Plunge 90 Percent 2007-05-03 23:13:36 Citing ongoing restructuring costs and big losses from its mortgage lending business, General Motors Corp. Thursday reported a 90% plunge in first quarter earnings. The company also lost its long-standing place as the world's largest automaker during the quarter as Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. edged past GM in global sales for the first time. The rough quarter was marked by continued but narrowing losses from GM's crucial North American automotive operations as demand and production diminished for its cars and trucks at home. GM's first-quarter net profit of $62 million, or 11 cents a share, was down from $602 million, or $1.06 a share, a year earlier. Many analysts had expected the company to do much better. Read The Full Story British General: U.S. And U.K. Must Admit Defeat, Leave Iraq 2007-05-03 23:12:38 A retired British army general says Iraq's insurgents are justified in opposing the occupation, arguing that the U.S.  and its allies should "admit defeat" and leave Iraq before more soldiers are killed. General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight program: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military solutions, the sooner they will come home and their lives will be preserved." Asked if that meant admitting defeat, the general replied: "Of course we have to admit defeat. The British admitted defeat in north America and the catastrophes that were predicted at the time never happened. "The catastrophes that were predicted after Vietnam never happened. The same thing will occur after we leave Iraq." Read The Full Story Rice Meets With Syrian Foreign Minister 2007-05-03 23:11:25 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, the first such high-level contact in more than two years between the Bush administration and a government it has denounced as a state sponsor of terrorism. "We talked about Iraq and bilateral relations," Moallem said as he was mobbed by reporters after the 30-minute meeting on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.. U.S. officials did not immediately provide details of the meeting, which took place in a side room off the main conference hall. A U.S. official said before the talks that Rice mainly wanted to discuss security on the border between Syria and Iraq. The United States has accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters, including adherents of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, to flow across the border into Iraq, where they have carried out suicide bombings and other attacks against U.S. and Iraqi targets, including civilians. Read The Full Story Astronaut Walter Schirra Dies At 84 2007-05-03 15:42:03 Walter M. Schirra, Jr., one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and the only man to fly on NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, died Thursday. He was 84. Schirra died of a heart attack at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, said Ruth Chandler Varonfakis, a family friend and spokeswoman for the San Diego Aerospace Museum. NASA had said he died late Wednesday but the family and the medical examiner's office both said it was Thursday. An aviation buff since childhood, known to fellow astronauts for his colorful personality and independent streak, Schirra became the third American to orbit the Earth in October 1962. He encircled the globe six times in a flight that lasted more than nine hours. Read The Full Story Queen Arrives In Former Colony Of Virginia 2007-05-03 15:41:30 Britain's Queen Elizabeth arrived here shortly before 3 p.m. Thursday and was met by a military bands at the airport and quickly whisked off in a motorcade for a visit to the newly refurbished state Capitol. At the Richmond International Airport, a trickle of people were stopping by the information desk earlier in the afternoon eagerly asking Judy Arenstein, the volunteer behind the counter, "Has the queen landed?" "Can we watch the queen land?" Officials were not giving out much information. The public wasn't even being told which landing strip the plane carrying Britain's Queen Elizabeth would use when she arrived at the beginning of a trip to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement at Jamestown. Even the list of official greeters wasn't available, said airport spokesman Troy Bell. Read The Full Story Virulent New Tuberculosis Strain Raising Fears Of Pandemic 2007-05-03 02:19:30 A virulent strain of tuberculosis resistant to most available drugs is surfacing around the globe, raising fears of a pandemic that could devastate efforts to contain TB and prove deadly to people with immune-deficiency diseases such as HIV-AIDS. Known formally as extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, the strain has been detected in 37 countries. It arises when the bacterium that causes TB mutates because antibiotics used to combat it are carelessly administered by poorly trained doctors or patients don't take their full course of medication. Rather than being killed by the drugs, the microbe builds up resistance to them. At least 50 percent of those who contract this strain of TB will die of it, according to medical experts. In trying to stop the spread of the disease, which can be transmitted through coughing, spitting or even speaking, health officials have imposed sometimes extreme controls on infected people. Read The Full Story Former Aide To Gonzales Accused Of Bias 2007-05-03 02:18:39 The U.S. Justice Department has launched an internal investigation into whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former White House liaison illegally took party affiliation into account in hiring career federal prosecutors, officials said Wednesday. The allegations against Monica M. Goodling represent a potential violation of federal law and signal that a joint probe begun in March by the department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility has expanded beyond the controversial dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys attorneys last year. The revelations about Goodling were among several developments yesterday in connection with the firings, including a new subpoena seeking presidential adviser Karl Rove's e-mails and new accusations from two of the dismissed U.S. attorneys. In newly released statements, the two alleged that they were threatened by Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty's chief of staff immediately before Gonzales testified in the Senate in January. Read The Full Story Britain's Ministry Of Defense Opens Its UFO Files To Public 2007-05-03 02:17:46 Britain's Ministry of Defense plans to open its "X-Files" on UFO sightings to the public for the first time. Officials have not yet decided on a date for the release of the reports, which date back to 1967, but it is hoped to be within weeks. The move follows the decision by the French national space agency to release its UFO files in March, the first official body in the world to do so. UFO buffs will be keen to find out what officials knew about some of the U.K.'s most famous sightings and whether any action was taken. One celebrated event - at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, in 1980 - has been dubbed "Britain's Roswell" after the UFO incident in the U.S. in 1947. At Rendlesham there were several witness reports of a UFO apparently landing. The released files should support or discount claims that radiation was detected at the site after the event. Read The Full Story	Congressional Leaders Want V.A. To Explain Bonuses 2007-05-03 23:19:41 Congressional leaders on Thursday demanded that the Veterans Affairs secretary explain hefty bonuses for senior department officials involved in crafting a budget that came up $1 billion short and jeopardized veterans' health care. Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would hold hearings to investigate after The Associated Press reported that budget officials at the Veterans Affairs Department received bonuses ranging up to $33,000. Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said the payments pointed to an improper "entitlement for the most centrally placed or well-connected staff." He has sent a letter to V.A. chief Jim Nicholson asking what the department plans to do to eliminate any bonuses based on favoritism. "These reports point to an apparent gross injustice at the V.A. that we have a responsibility to investigate," said Mitchell, D-Arizona. "No government official should ever be rewarded for misleading taxpayers, and the V.A. should not be handing out the most lucrative bonuses in government as veterans are waiting months and months to see a doctor." Read The Full Story 'Deal Struck' At U.N. Climate Talks 2007-05-03 23:19:09 Intellpuke: Following is the BBC News article on the final report issued Friday by the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change. You can find the New York Times article on the panel's report elsewhere on today's Free Internet Press mainpage. With any luck, it follows this article. Experts at a major United Nations climate change conference in Bangkok, Thailand, have reached a deal on the best ways to combat global warming, delegates say. It follows marathon talks with strong reservations voiced by China. Areas of dispute included language regarding the Kyoto protocol, the costs of cutting emissions and nuclear power. The third part of this year's assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) looks at ways to curb emissions and economic factors.  The report is due to be released in the Thai capital on Friday. Read The Full Story Intelligence Analysts Eye Climate Change 2007-05-03 23:15:10 Top intelligence analysts are diving into the politically sensitive issue of climate change, but some Democrats in Congress are demanding even more. The House Intelligence Committee approved a provision late Wednesday as part of a spy budget bill that would require the National Intelligence Council to produce its highest-level assessment - a National Intelligence Estimate - specifically on climate change. The bill, which the House could take up next week, calls on analysts to study the political, social, agricultural and economic risks associated with climate change over the next 30 years. Republicans rejected the endeavor as an unnecessary distraction from higher priorities. Read The Full Story DNA Find May Allow Early Identification Of Heart Risk Victims 2007-05-03 23:14:04 Scientists have discovered a strand of DNA that dramatically raises the risk of coronary heart disease and doubles the chances of younger people suffering a heart attack prematurely. The high-risk stretch of genes is common among Caucasian populations, with up to a quarter carrying copies that boost the risk of heart disease by 40% and increase the lifetime risk of a heart attack by 60%. Early-onset heart attacks, occurring in men under 50 and women under 60, were found to be twice as likely among those who inherited the high-risk gene sequence from both their mother and father. The strand of DNA, reported in the prestigious U.S. journal Science on Friday, is believed to be the most important genetic factor for heart disease yet found. Two groups of researchers, working independently of each other, identified the gene sequence after comparing the entire genomes of more than 40,000 people. Researchers from one of the teams, a Reykjavik-based biotech company called deCODE, hopes to have a test for the gene variant available by the end of the year, to identify people most at risk of developing heart disease later in life. Those who test positive would be encouraged to reduce their risk of heart attack by taking cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins, and encouraged to have heart scans to look for early signs of arterial disease. Read The Full Story New Century Financial Lays Off 2,000 Workers 2007-05-03 23:13:22 New Century Financial Corp., once the largest independent mortgage lender to risky borrowers, Thursday abandoned attempts to find a buyer for its loan-making arm and laid off 2,000 workers. The Irvine-based company, which originated or purchased about $60 billion in sub-prime loans last year, had found buyers previously for its loan portfolio and for its customer-service unit, which collects payments and handles foreclosures. New Century laid off 3,200 workers when it filed for bankruptcy protection in April but had kept a downsized staff on its payroll in hopes of finding a buyer for the loan-origination business. As recently as last week, New Century's attorneys had said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court that a dozen or more potential buyers had expressed interest in the unit. "However, none of the potential bids came to pass," New Century Chief Executive Brad Morrice told employees during a conference call this morning. Read The Full Story Thousands Of Israelis Rally For Olmert To Quit 2007-05-03 23:12:05 Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered at a mass rally in Tel Aviv last night to call for the resignation of the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, over his failings in last year's war in Lebanon. Although the rally served to highlight Olmert's deepening unpopularity, the prime minister appears to have weathered, at least for now, the worst of the storm that followed a highly critical report from the government-appointed Winograd commission into the war. Last night's rally, in Rabin Square - scene of the assassination in 1995 of the then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin - was a demonstration of the deep frustration and anger many Israelis feel at the conduct of their government, both in last year's war and in a series of scandals involving accusations ranging from rape allegations levelled against the president, Moshe Katsav, to corruption. Olmert's popularity ratings have been in single figures. Opinion polls this week suggest three-quarters of the population want him to resign. Read The Full Story Former Justice Department Officials Praises Fired U.S. Attorneys 2007-05-03 15:42:18 A former deputy attorney general today heaped praise on most of the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired after he left the job, testifying that he only considered one of them a weak prosecutor who had trouble managing his office. James B. Comey, the Justice Department's second-in-command from 2003 until August 2005, also told a House Judiciary subcommittee that he was never informed about an effort by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides to remove a large group of prosecutors that began in early 2005. Comey's testimony further undermined claims by Gonzales and his aides that the dismissed prosecutors had performance problems that led to their dismissals, and underscores the extent to which the firings, which originated in the White House, were handled outside the normal chain of command at Justice. Read The Full Story Senior Insurgent Leader Killed By U.S. Troops 2007-05-03 15:41:48 A senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader who helped orchestrate the kidnappings of American journalist Jill Carroll and Virginia peace activist Tom Fox was killed by U.S. troops early Tuesday, said a top U.S. military spokesman. The death of Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri came Tuesday during a strike on four buildings west of the Iraqi city of Taji, said U.S. military spokesperson Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell. The operation followed a separate, 72-hour attack dubbed Operation Rat Trap, which Caldwell said led to the death of 15 suspected insurgents and the capture of 95 others. Caldwell characterized both operations as a significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq - even as he acknowledged that the group has proven "resilient" and able to generate new leaders to replace those arrested or slain. Read The Full Story GOP Candidates Prepare For First Debate Of Campaign Tonight 2007-05-03 15:41:15 The national political spotlight shifts to the Republicans here tonight when 10 candidates take the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for their first debate of the 2008 campaign. Much of the focus will be on Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, although the fireworks, if there are any, may well be provided by others anxious to draw attention to their underdog candidacies. Reagan will loom large tonight, and not only because his widow, Nancy Reagan, will be in the front row. All the candidates have sought to claim the mantle of Reagan's conservatism, which has become a touchstone for a political party in search of identity in the closing years of President Bush's administration. The Republicans are caught now between rank-and-file activist determined to move the party back to basic conservative principles and a wider electorate that has soured on Bush's leadership and the Iraq war. Read The Full Story Kurdish, Sunni Iraq Blocs Opposed To Draft Oil Bill 2007-05-03 02:19:08 Kurdish and Sunni Arab officials expressed deep reservations on Wednesday about the draft version of a national oil law and related legislation, misgivings that could derail one of the benchmark measures of progress in Iraq laid down by President Bush. The draft law, which establishes a framework for the distribution of oil revenues, was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in late February after months of negotiations. The White House was hoping for quick passage to lay the groundwork for a political settlement among the country’s ethnic and sectarian factions, but the new Kurdish concerns have created doubts about the bill even before Parliament is to pick it up for debate. The issue comes at a delicate moment for Bush, who on Wednesday began negotiations with Congressional Democrats over a new war-spending measure. The president vetoed a $124 billion bill on Tuesday because it included timetables for troop withdrawals, and a House vote on Wednesday fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, with 222 voting in favor and 203 opposing the override. Read The Full Story E.U. Protests Over Russian Attacks On Ambassadors 2007-05-03 02:18:09 The confrontation between Russia and Estonia over second world war graves and monuments spread to the international stage Wednesday with protests to the Kremlin by the European Union, attacks on European diplomats in Moscow, and calls for the cancellation of an upcoming E.U.-Russia summit. Germany, which is chairing the E.U., delivered a diplomatic protest to the Russian government after the Estonian and Swedish ambassadors in Moscow were assaulted by youth activists loyal to President Vladimir Putin. In Brussels, the European commission voiced "deep concern regarding the increasing violence around the Estonian embassy in Moscow" and demanded that the Russian authorities honour their obligations to protect foreign diplomats. The president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, sent a terse message to Russia: "Try to remain civilized." 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