Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday May 6 2007 - (813)

Sunday May 6 2007 edition
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New Flurry Of Twisters Hit Kansas 2007-05-06 02:01:03 A fresh wave of tornadoes ripped through the Plains late Saturday, a day after a tornado all but destroyed this town, killing at least eight and injuring dozens more. The Kansas Adjutant General's Department said it had confirmed reports of eight tornadoes touching down, including one that injured 11 people when it struck a pair of restaurants in the central Kansas town of Osborne. Vienna Janis, spokeswoman for Osborne County Emergency Management, said the twister hit around 6 p.m., ripping the roof off the Circle N restaurant and smashing windows in a Pizza Hut. "It touched down and would then go back up and then touch down and go back up," said Janis. Read The Full Story For Wounded Iraqi Soldiers, A Medical Morass 2007-05-06 02:00:29 Mohammed Mizher Massen was a different man on the morning of Feb. 21. His muscles filled out his Iraqi army uniform. His posture radiated the confidence of a soldier who had helped capture insurgents. And his heart swelled: In a few hours, after his unit finished its shift guarding a Baghdad construction project, he was going to propose to his girlfriend. Then the bomb in a cooking oil can on the roadside blew up, shredding his left leg and marking him with a constellation of shrapnel. Now 1st Sgt. Massen, 22, is a one-legged man whose brothers carry him from his bed, where he has dreams of loud explosions, to his computer, where he researches prosthetic legs. He spends his $460 monthly soldier's salary on the $3,400 in medical expenses that he has accrued. As the U.S. military prepares for an eventual handover of security duties to Iraqi forces, more of Iraq's 120,000 soldiers are advancing to the front lines of the war, and more are being wounded. Because there are no Iraqi military hospitals, thousands have been left to the mercy of overtaxed and corrupt civilian hospitals and a military compensation system paralyzed by red tape and disorganization, according to soldiers, family members, doctors and military officials. Many, feeling abandoned, turn to their families for help. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda No. 2 - Al-Zawahri - Mocks American 'Failure' 2007-05-06 01:59:41 A new video of al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader released on Saturday mocks President Bush and U.S. legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying the bill would rob the group's fighters of the chance to kill more Americans. Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri derided the new U.S.-backed Baghdad security plan, recounting an April 12 suicide bombing in Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone when an attacker slipped through security and killed a Sunni legislator in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria. An al-Qaeda-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents in Iraq claimed responsibility. "And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,'' said al-Zawahri. The video was obtained Saturday by U.S.-based monitoring groups who released a transcript to media. Read The Full Story 9 Die As Tornado Levles Kansas Town Of Greensburg 2007-05-05 17:15:06 Most of the southwest Kansas town of Greensburg was destroyed by a tornado, part of a violent storm system blamed for at least nine deaths, officials said Saturday amid warnings of more severe weather. It may take days for emergency crews to remove all the victims - dead and alive - from the rubble of homes and businesses, the city administrator said Saturday. The dead included eight in Kiowa County, where Greensburg is located, and one in nearby Stafford County, said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Department. The tornado that struck Greensburg late Friday damaged about 95 percent of the town about 110 miles west of Wichita, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said Saturday. Read The Full Story Taliban Delay French Hostage Decision 2007-05-05 17:14:09 Afghanistan's Taliban extended its deadline for a deal for the release of a French hostage until after Sunday's French presidential election, but also mounted an ambush and a string of suicide bombings that killed 10 police. Eight Afghan police were killed in a six-hour gunbattle after a Taliban ambush and two were killed when a suicide bomber rammed a car into their vehicle and blew himself up, said Afghan police. Separately, the U.S.-led coalition forces said they killed several leaders of the Taliban in controversial recent clashes in the western province of Herat, in which Afghan authorities say many civilians died. The Taliban leadership had put off Saturday's deadline for a hostage deal as a sign of mercy, Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said by phone from an undisclosed location. Read The Full Story	Editorial: The Scandal That Keeps Growing 2007-05-06 02:00:42 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Sunday, May 6, 2007. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declared recently, while batting down bipartisan calls for him to resign, that he had many things to do and “can’t just be focused on the U.S. attorneys situation.” It’s not surprising that Mr. Gonzales wants to change the subject. At best, the firing of eight United States attorneys, most of them highly respected, is an example of such profound incompetence that it should cost Mr. Gonzales his job. At worst, it was a political purge followed by a cover-up. In either case, the scandal is only getting bigger and more disturbing. New reports of possible malfeasance keep coming fast and furious. They all seem to make it more likely than ever that the firings were part of an attempt to turn the Justice Department into a partisan political operation. There is, to start, the very strong appearance that United States attorneys were fired because they were investigating powerful Republicans or refused to bring baseless charges against Democrats. There is reason to believe that Carol Lam of San Diego, who put Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman, in jail, and Paul Charlton of Arizona, who was investigating Representative Rick Renzi, among others, were fired simply for their nonpartisan pursuit of justice. Read The Full Story Mideast Conflict Slows Dead Sea Rescue 2007-05-06 02:00:03 Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians are slowly pushing through the tangle of their disputes and suspicions in a race to save a biblical and ecological treasure, the Dead Sea. The famously salty sea, which lies at Earth's lowest point, is shrinking. It has receded by some three feet a year for the past 25 years, and Jordan and Israel warn that if the trend continues, it will vanish by 2050 along with its unique ecosystem, defeated by river diversions, mineral extraction and natural reasons, like evaporation. A crucial project to boost the water level by piping in water from the Red Sea has long been held up by disputes between Israel and its Palestinian and Jordanian neighbors. "But the ball began to roll a few months ago because of the gravity of the situation and the dangers facing the Dead Sea, which is a unique heritage not only to the countries that border it but to the whole world," said Mohammed Thafer al-Alem, Jordan's water minister. Read The Full Story French To Vote For President After Scorching Finale 2007-05-06 01:59:20 She apocalyptically predicted that France would blow up if he were elected. He dismissively scoffed that she was too moody to run the country. Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy ended their campaigns for the French presidency on Friday with biting personal attacks on each other, racing against an election eve ban on all polling and politicking that began at midnight. France’s 44.5 million voters may well need the break before going to the polls on Sunday. In a closing IPSOS/Dell poll released just before midnight Friday, Sarkozy doubled his margin over Ms. Royal in the past week, leading 55 to 45. Read The Full Story From China To Panama, A Trail Of Poisoned Medicine That Killed Thousands 2007-05-05 17:14:33 The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die. Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents. The syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in antifreeze. It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident. Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine - cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs - a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products. Read The Full Story Jet With 114 On Board Crashes In Cameroon 2007-05-05 17:13:50 A Kenya Airways jet that took off during a midnight storm crashed early Saturday with 114 on board after sending out a distress signal over remote southern Cameroon, said officials. Nearby villagers reported hearing an explosion and seeing a flash of fire. The jet bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, went down near the town of Lolodorf, about 90 miles southeast of the coastal city of Douala, where it had taken off after midnight, said Alex Bayeck, a regional communications officer. There was no word on survivors, Bayeck said by telephone en route to the crash site. He said search planes were flying over the forested area where the airliner gave off a distress signal but no wreckage has been spotted. He said residents in the area, which has few roads and is dotted by small villages, reported hearing a "large boom" during the night, and some said they saw a flash of fire that looked markedly different from lightning. Read The Full Story
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