Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday May 21 2007 - (813)

Monday May 21 2007 edition
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Discord On The Immigration Accord 2007-05-21 01:34:33 There is little doubt about how grass-roots organizations feel about a bipartisan immigration compromise reached in the Senate: They don't like it. The New York Immigration Coalition issued a statement that called the proposal unacceptable, saying, "We say no to this deal." In California, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund vowed to oppose numerous provisions in the plan. In Massachusetts, an immigrant and refugee advocacy coalition said the deal was "immoral, unworkable and unacceptable." While the senators and Bush administration officials exchanged congratulations on Capitol Hill for reaching the compromise, supporters and opponents of illegal immigrants eyed the politicians warily and prepared for a legislative showdown as the proposal heads to the Senate floor this week. Read The Full Story Commentary: Michael Moore? Oh Yes, He's Got An Agenda 2007-05-21 01:34:07 Intellpuke: The following commentary by journalist and film critic Agnes Poirier appears in the Guardian edition for Monday, May 21, 2007. Ms. Poirier is an independent adviser on British films for the Cannes film festival. Her commentary, in which she says Michael Moore's new documentary film "Sicko" should be seen in Europe as well as the U.S., follows: The big guy with a baseball cap knows his stuff. He has a point to make and he makes it efficiently and amusingly. In the past his targets were General Motors ruining Flint, Michigan; the gun lobby as the culprit for America's crime culture; the lies behind the Iraq war. He's back with a vengeance with Sicko, premiered at the Cannes film festival on Saturday. His question: What has happened to the idea of universal healthcare in the United States? In four tidy acts, Michael Moore spells out the facts. Act one: 50 million Americans have no health cover, and 250 million who think they do, through costly health insurance schemes ($2,000 per person a year), are often denied treatment when they need it. A guy without cover who chopped off two of his fingers in a bout of do-it-yourself  was presented with an invoice for $12,000 to reattach his ring-finger and $60,000 for his forefinger. Being a romantic, and skint, he chose to get his ring-finger back. Read The Full Story Bush Presidency Worst In History, Says Former President Carter 2007-05-21 01:33:28 Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter unleashed a torrent of criticism against George Bush and Tony Blair over the weekend, in which he accused the Bush presidency of being the "worst in history" and said Blair's support had been abominable and subservient. Even for a former politician with a reputation for plain talking, Carter's blazing criticism took observers by surprise and had the Republican leadership responding in equally harsh measure. The White House spokesman Sunday called Carter "increasingly irrelevant", adding that his "reckless personal criticism is out there". In a newspaper interview, Carter said of the Bush years: "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." And speaking on BBC Radio 4, Carter criticized Blair, who leaves office next month, for his close relations with Bush, particularly concerning the Iraq war. Read The Full Story China To Take A $3 Billion In U.S. Equity Firm The Blackstone Group 2007-05-21 01:32:56 China's new state investment agency is taking a $3 billion stake in U.S. private equity firm The Blackstone Group, in a sign China plans to use its financial reserves to become a global investor. The agreement gives China's government a stake in the private equity boom sweeping the globe and hands a key alliance to Blackstone at a time foreign investors struggle to gain support from the Chinese government for takeovers of domestic assets. The announcement comes just days before this week's planned visit to the United States by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi to discuss sticking points in trade. The talks are hosted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "If we are going to borrow from them, then we have to let them buy things," said William Overholt, director of the RAND Corp's Center for Asia Pacific Policy. Read The Full Story Sen. Specter Predicts Gonzales Resignation, Perhaps As Early As This Week 2007-05-20 14:40:57 The top Republican on the Senate committee investigating Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes Gonzales could step down before a no-confidence vote sought this week by Senate Democrats. Gonzales failed to draw a public statement of support from Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Asked whether Gonzales effectively can lead the Justice Department, McConnell said "that's for the president to decide." The senator suggested there may be several resolutions introduced to dilute a no-confidence vote. "In the Senate, nobody gets a clear shot," said McConnell, R-Kentucky. Yet Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he believed a "sizable number" of GOP lawmakers would join Democrats in expressing their lack of confidence in the attorney general. Read The Full Story Democrats Scramble To Avoid Florida Primary Election Fiasco 2007-05-20 14:40:25 For front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Florida looked to be a major battleground in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. With its big, sprawling population, the state was a natural for high-profile candidates who could afford costly campaigns, and the prize was a whopping 210 delegates. But now, because of an unexpected glitch, those delegates could go to a candidate most Americans don't even know is running: a crusty former senator from Alaska named Mike Gravel. Or maybe to Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, the quixotic peace candidate who barely registers in the polls. It sounds like just another wacky political dust-up from the land of hanging chads and butterfly ballots. But the problem is considered so serious that Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and state party officials are embroiled in frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations to stave off a potential disaster that could quickly spread across the nation. Read The Full Story Iraqi Shiite Leader Has Lung Cancer 2007-05-20 14:39:55 Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party and a key figure in the country's political reform process, was diagnosed with lung cancer and traveled immediately to Iran to seek medical treatment, officials said Sunday. The development was expected to create disarray in the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the powerful political organization the U.S. has counted on to help push through reforms such as a revenue-sharing oil law, constitutional amendments and expanded political opportunities for Sunnis. Hours earlier, President Jalal Talabani flew to the U.S. for a medical checkup and a three-week-long vacation, sidelining another key Iraqi politician at a critical time. Talabani, a Kurd and a close ally of al-Hakim, was hospitalized briefly in Jordan in February after collapsing because of exhaustion and dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections. Read The Full Story U.S. Pays Pakistan Billions To Fight Terrorism, But Patrols Ebb 2007-05-20 01:20:59 The United States is continuing to make large payments of roughly $1 billion a year to Pakistan for what it calls reimbursements to the country’s military for conducting counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan,  even though Pakistan’s president decided eight months ago to slash patrols through the area where al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are most active. The monthly payments, called coalition support funds, are not widely advertised. Buried in public budget numbers, the payments are intended to reimburse Pakistan’s military for the cost of the operations. So far, Pakistan has received more than $5.6 billion under the program over five years, more than half of the total aid the United States has sent to the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, not counting covert funds. Some American military officials in the region have recommended that the money be tied to Pakistan’s performance in pursuing al-Qaeda and keeping the Taliban from gaining a haven from which to attack the government of Afghanistan. American officials have been surprised by the speed at which both organizations have gained strength in the past year. Read The Full Story Iraq's Sadr Overhauls His Tactics - And Image 2007-05-20 01:20:28 The movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has embarked on one of its most dramatic tactical shifts since the beginning of the war. The 33-year-old populist is reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders, from politicians to insurgents, and purging extremist members of his Mahdi Army militia who target Sunnis. Sadr's political followers are distancing themselves from the fragile Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which is widely criticized as corrupt, inefficient and biased in favor of Iraq's majority Shiites. And moderates are taking up key roles in Sadr's movement, professing to be less anti-American and more nationalist as they seek to improve Sadr's image and position him in the middle of Iraq's ideological spectrum. "We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al-Qaeda, not between Iraqis," Ahmed Shaibani, 37, a cleric who leads Sadr's newly formed reconciliation committee, said as he sat inside Sadr's heavily guarded compound here. Read The Full Story Ashcroft's Tenure At Justice Department Revisited 2007-05-20 01:19:28 As U.S. attorney general, John D. Ashcroft was the public face of an administration pushing the boundaries of the Constitution to hunt down terrorists, but behind the scenes, according to former aides and White House officials, he at times resisted what he saw as radical overreaching. Testimony last week that a hospitalized Ashcroft rebuffed aides to President Bush intent on gaining Ashcroft's approval of a surveillance program he had deemed illegal provided a rare view of the inner workings of the early Bush presidency and the depth of internal disagreement over how far to go in responding to the threat of terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to former officials, it was not the only time that the former Missouri senator chosen for the Bush Cabinet in part for his ties to the Christian right would challenge the White House in private. In addition to rejecting to the most expansive version of the warrantless eavesdropping program, the officials said, Ashcroft also opposed holding detainees indefinitely at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without some form of due process. He fought to guarantee some rights for those to be tried by newly created military commissions. And he insisted that Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers, be prosecuted in a civilian court. Read The Full Story	Meet The All-Broad Fraud Squad: Mortgage Fraud Is Up, But Not In Their Back Yard 2007-05-21 01:34:22 The three women call themselves the All-Broad Fraud Squad. Nearly a decade ago, concerned that mortgage fraud was threatening their pastoral towns, the women - two full-time mothers and a mortgage executive then in their 40s - got together to write down license plate numbers of suspicious cars in their neighborhoods, scour public documents for housing titles and deeds and seek the help of local law enforcement. At first they were ignored, written off as bored housewives. Today, the three women - Ann Fulmer, Alicia Sheppard and Julia Barrette - are helping train F.B.I. agents, speaking to lending associations across the country and lecturing college students on how to identify mortgage fraud. “For us in the industry, we could deal with mortgage fraud during the day but go to our homes at night and forget about it,” said Matt Wade with Fannie Mae in Atlanta. “But for these gutsy women, it was personal.” Read The Full Story Coming Soon: The Shopping Channel Run By Pharmaceutical Companies 2007-05-21 01:33:56 Four of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies are proposing to launch a television station to tell the public about their drugs, amid strenuous lobbying across Europe by the industry for an end to restrictions aimed at protecting patients. Pharma TV would be a dedicated interactive digital channel funded by the industry with health news and features but, at its heart, would be detailed information from drug companies about their medicines. A 10-minute pilot DVD, seen by the Guardian, featured a white-coated doctor discussing breast cancer and a woman patient who reassured viewers that "there are many new treatments available". Under the proposals, viewers could use their remote control to click on treatment options and read what manufacturers have to say about the latest branded breast cancer drugs. Four companies, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Novartis and Procter & Gamble, are behind the pilot, which they are offering to the European commission as a way to give patients more information. The commission is consulting on potential changes to the regulations that ban all direct-to-consumer advertising of medicinal drugs. Read The Full Story Iraq Study Group Report May Get A Second Look 2007-05-21 01:33:19 After an initially tepid reception from policymakers, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are getting a second look from the White House and Congress, as officials continue to scour for bipartisan solutions to salvage the American engagement in Iraq. With negotiations continuing this week on a new war funding bill, the administration is strongly signaling that it would accept the idea of requiring the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks or else risk losing some assistance from the United States. That was one of the key proposals from the group headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton, but it was initially dismissed by the White House when first proposed last December. The administration is also preparing for its first substantive discussions with Iran, to begin on Memorial Day, not long after its first high-level talks with Syria in more than two years. The Iraq Study Group had strongly urged such regional diplomacy aimed at fostering a political settlement and bringing down the sectarian violence in Baghdad. "They are coming our way," Hamilton said in a recent interview. Read The Full Story Guantanamo Detainee Hicks Returns To Australia 2007-05-21 01:32:41 David M. Hicks, the first of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees convicted under Congress' new rules for enemy-combatant terrorism trials, arrived home in Australia Sunday to finish his prison sentence after more than five years in U.S. custody, the Pentagonand the Australian government announced. Hicks, 31, will serve nine months in isolation at a maximum-security prison near his home town of Adelaide, under a March 30 plea deal in which he confessed to material support of terrorists and received a suspended seven-year sentence. The high school dropout, Muslim convert and al-Qaeda recruit fought for two hours alongside the Taliban before he sold his rifle for taxi fare and was captured trying to escape Afghanistan in December 2001. He will be eligible for release Dec. 29. "It was a clear look of relief and joy that he was back in the land of his countrymen," Hicks' attorney, David H.B. McLeod, told reporters outside Yatala Labor Prison, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "He was generally very relieved and grateful to the Australian taxpayers for bringing him home." Read The Full Story CIA: Al-Qaeda Increasingly Being Funded With Cash From Iraq 2007-05-20 14:40:43 A major CIA effort launched last year to hunt down Osama bin Laden has produced no significant leads on his whereabouts, but has helped track an alarming increase in the movement of al-Qaeda operatives and money into Pakistan's tribal territories, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation. In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that al-Qaeda's command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network's operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity. The influx of money has bolstered al-Qaeda's leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of al-Qaeda funds, with the network's leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells. Read The Full Story Israel Strikes Hamas Dwelling - 8 Dead 2007-05-20 14:40:08 Israel threatened Sunday to keep attacking Islamic militants in response to rocket fire from Gaza and hours later, an air force plane fired a missile at the house of a Hamas leader and killed eight people, said witnesses and hospital officials. Israeli air attacks on Islamic militant targets earlier in the day killed another three Palestinians. The attack on the house was the deadliest airstrike since last Tuesday when Israel started reprisals for the rocket barrages. Residents said the house belonged to a Hamas lawmaker Khalil al-Haya, and six of the dead were members of his family. Al-Haya was not at home and was not harmed, they said. He was one of the Hamas representatives in cease-fire talks with Fatah and was attending an Egyptian-sponsored truce meeting just before the strike, said residents. Read The Full Story Police Officer Dies After Idaho Shootings 2007-05-20 14:39:36 A Moscow, Idaho, police officer who was shot responding to a gunman spraying bullets at a courthouse died of his injuries Sunday, said police. Law enforcement officers stormed the church Sunday where the gunman hid after shooting three people, including the officer, in an ambush late Saturday, police said. They found the body of the likely gunman and another man, police said. The shooting also wounded another officer and a civilian, said David Duke, Moscow's assistant police chief. The name of the officer killed was not immediately released. Read The Full Story Concerns Mount Over Tainted Chinese Imports 2007-05-20 01:20:40 Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides. These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines. For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught - many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry. Read The Full Story Lebanese Troops Battle Islamic Militants In Tripoli 2007-05-20 01:20:01 Lebanese forces fought Islamic militants with alleged links to al-Qaeda in the northern city of Tripoli and an adjacent Palestinian refugee camp early Sunday, causing casualties on both sides, said security officials and witnesses. The fighting between troops surrounding the refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared and fighters from the Fatah Islam militant group began after a gunbattle raged in a neighborhood of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city. Witnesses said Fatah Islam gunmen seized Lebanese army positions at the entrance to the camp, capturing military vehicles. The army brought in reinforcements and fired on Fatah-Islam positions. The clashes in the camp began shortly after police raided an apartment in Tripoli that was occupied by armed militants who resisted arrest and sparked a gunbattle that spread to surrounding streets. Read The Full Story Report: Global Warming Threatens State Flowers 2007-05-20 01:19:09 Imagine the Sunflower State without sunflowers. That's one of the dire predictions contained in a new report on global warming released by the National Wildlife Federation, which says the Kansas state flower could move north to other states in a few decades. Increasingly warm temperatures also could mean the end of the state tree, the eastern cottonwood, according to "The Gardener's Guide to Global Warming." "Everything being equal, these plants won't thrive and will shift north," said Patty Glick, the report's author and the federation's senior global warming specialist. Read The Full Story
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