Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday May 8 2007 - (813)

Tuesday May 8 2007 edition
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September Could Be Key Deadline On Iraq War 2007-05-08 02:27:22 Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline. In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq's warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding. "Many of my Republican colleagues have been promised they will get a straight story on the surge by September," said Sen. Gordon Smith(R-Oregon). "I won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq at that point. That is very clear to me." Read The Full Story Deal Is Offered For Wolfowitz Exit At World Bank 2007-05-08 02:26:54 Leading governments of Europe, mounting a new campaign to push Paul D. Wolfowitz from his job as World Bank president, signaled Monday that they were willing to let the United States choose the bank’s next chief, but only if Wolfowitz stepped down soon, European officials said. European officials had previously indicated that they wanted to end the tradition of the United States picking the World Bank leader. But now the officials are hoping to enlist American help in persuading Wolfowitz to resign voluntarily, rather than be rebuked or ousted. The goal, they said, is to avert a public rupture of the bank board over a vote, possibly later this week, to sanction Wolfowitz. Even if the vote is a reprimand, they said, it could effectively make it impossible for him to stay on. The Europeans worked to arrange a quick exit for Wolfowitz as a special bank committee concluded that he was guilty of breaking rules barring conflicts of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion for Shaha Ali Riza, his companion and a bank employee, in 2005. Read The Full Story Capitol Goes Ga Ga Over The Queen For A Day 2007-05-08 02:25:48 Queen Elizabeth II arrived at the White House Monday for the grand finale to a visit that's whirled from history to horse racing to high society with barely enough time for a spot of tea and a cucumber sandwich between. Hugs from schoolchildren, a private luncheon, a garden party and the Bush administration's first white-tie state dinner kept the queen changing hats and offering polite greetings most of the day and well into the evening. Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, arrived at the White House to greet an estimated 7,000 dignitaries, legislators, Cabinet members and invited guests on the South Lawn on a blossom-fresh spring day. President Bush welcomed the queen with a royal faux pas about her age, suggesting she had witnessed American independence in 1776. Expressing admiration for her long friendship with the United States, Bush noted that Elizabeth had dined with 10 presidents and had "helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 ..." He quickly caught and corrected his mistake, "in 1976." Her Majesty did not appear to be amused. Read The Full Story Wolfowitz Broke Rules, World Bank Panel Says 2007-05-07 18:51:36 A special panel has found that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz broke bank rules in arranging a pay package and promotion for his girlfriend, a person familiar with the report said Monday. Wolfowitz was presented with the findings by the special bank panel investigating his handling of the 2005 promotion and pay raise of bank employee Shaha Riza. The report was not made public, but the person familiar with its findings confirmed that violations were cited but did not provide any details. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been released. World Bank officials were bracing for a finding that Wolfowitz may have breached ethics rules in arranging the pay package for Riza. Read The Full Story Senate Blocks Bid To Allow Drug Imports 2007-05-07 18:50:59 In a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate on Monday killed a drive to allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from abroad at a significant savings over domestic prices. On a 49-40 vote, the Senate required the administration to certify the safety and effectiveness of imported drugs before they can be imported, a requirement that officials have said they cannot meet. "Well, once again the big drug companies have proved that they are the most powerful and best financed lobby in Washington," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. The vote neutralized a second amendment, later passed on a voice vote, that would legalize the importation of prescription drugs manufactured in Canada, Australia, Europe, Japan and New Zealand. Read The Full Story 8 U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq Bomb Attacks 2007-05-07 02:17:25 Eight American soldiers were killed in roadside bomb attacks Sunday, one of the highest single-day death tolls this year. They were among 12 U.S. service members whose deaths were announced on a day when car bombs killed scores of Iraqis across the country, threatening to deepen sectarian tensions. A senior U.S. commander said Sunday that the military was bracing for a rise in the casualty rate in the coming months, as an ongoing security offensive attempts to tame the devastating violence and stabilize Baghdad. "All of us believe that in the next 90 days, you'll probably see an increase in American casualties because we are taking the fight to the enemy," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army's Task Force Marne, told reporters Sunday. "This is the only way we can win the fight." Even as insurgents take aim at U.S. troops, they have stepped up their attacks on so-called soft targets, especially in Shiite areas of Baghdad, in an apparent attempt to stoke sectarian warfare. In the deadliest such attack Sunday, a car bomb explosion tore through one of the capital's biggest markets at midday, killing 42 people, police said. The blast, in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Bayaa, ravaged buildings, scorched vehicles and injured at least 67 people, police said. Read The Full Story Microwave Popcorn Flavoring Suspected In Illness 2007-05-07 02:16:48 She was once in constant motion; her co-workers compared her to a roadrunner because of the way she darted around the workplace. But now Irma Ortiz sits at the edge of her couch, too winded to sweep her patio or walk her son to school without resting. She is slowly suffocating. Ortiz, 44, is among a group of California food-flavoring workers recently diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and life-threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease. Also known as popcorn workers lung, because it has turned up in workers at microwave-popcorn factories, the disease destroys the lungs. A transplant is the only cure. Since 2001, academic studies have shown links between the disease and a chemical used in artificial butter flavor called diacetyl. Flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million as a result of lawsuits by people sick with popcorn workers lung over the past five years. One death from the disease has been confirmed. Read The Full Story	Exploded Star The Brightest Ever Seen 2007-05-08 02:27:09 Astronomers have spotted a cataclysmic explosion that marked the death of a huge, distant star in a blast five times as bright and powerful as any they had seen previously. They said Monday that a similar fate may be imminent for a star in Earth's galactic neighborhood. The size and energy of the newly recorded blast, 240 million light-years away, have already begun to transform scientific understanding of how especially large stars explode, and have left awestruck researchers concerned - and a little excited - about what might happen to the similarly enormous and unstable star closer to home. If that nearer star, named Eta Carinae, blows up like the one just discovered, they said, it could possibly spew dangerous radiation in Earth's direction. More likely, however, it would erupt into the most luminous star in our sky - visible during the day and bright enough to let people read unaided at night for weeks and perhaps months. The new discovery of a massive star exploding in a runaway thermonuclear reaction is especially exciting for scientists, who said it gives them important clues to the nature of the early universe and the formation and destruction of the earliest stars. Read The Full Story Wolfowitz Scandal May Jeopardize World Bank Funds 2007-05-08 02:26:38 The leadership crisis engulfing the World Bank began with talk of favoritism for a girlfriend and ill feeling about the Iraq war but, as the bank's board this week considers the fate of President Paul D. Wolfowitz, the ethics controversy has swelled into a test of who controls the institution and its future relevance in battling global poverty. The outcome could determine whether governments from Berlin to Buenos Aires would be willing to contribute new funds in support of the bank's mission. "There's a real danger because of this Wolfowitz stuff that donors are going to find a reason not to give," said Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy adviser for Oxfam International, an anti-poverty group in Washington, D.C. Read The Full Story 68 Killed Or Found Dead In Iraq 2007-05-07 18:51:50 Suicide bombers killed 13 people in a pair of attacks Monday around the Sunni Arab city of Ramadi in what local officials said was part of a power struggle between al-Qaeda and tribes that have broken with the terror network. In all, at least 68 people were killed or found dead nationwide Monday, police said. They included the bullet-riddled bodies of 30 men found in Baghdad - the apparent victims of sectarian death squads. All but two were found in west Baghdad, including 17 in the Amil neighborhood where Sunni politicians have complained of renewed attacks by Shiite militiamen, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release those details. Read The Full Story Archaeologist Finds Tomb Of King Herod 2007-05-07 18:51:15 An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Hebrew University said late Monday. The tomb is at a site called Herodium, a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert, clearly visible from southern Jerusalem. Herod built a palace on the hill, and researchers discovered his burial site there, the university said. The university had hoped to keep the find a secret until Tuesday, when it planned a news conference to disclose the find in detail, but the Haaretz newspaper found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site. Read The Full Story Pressure At Mortgage Firm Led To Mass Approval Of Bad Loans 2007-05-07 02:17:45 Maggie Hardiman cringed as she heard the salesmen knocking the sides of desks with a baseball bat as they walked through her office. Bang! Bang! " 'You cut my [expletive] deal!' " she recalls one man yelling at her. " 'You can't do that.' " Bang! The bat whacked the top of her desk. As an appraiser for a company called New Century Financial, Hardiman was supposed to weed out bad mortgage applications. Most of the mortgage applications Hardiman reviewed had problems, she said. But "you didn't want to turn away a loan because all hell would break loose," she recounted in interviews. When she did, her bosses often overruled her and found another appraiser to sign off on it. Hardiman's account is one of several from former employees of New Century that shed fresh light on an unfolding disaster in the mortgage industry, one that could cost as many as 2 million American families their homes and threatens to spill over into the broader economy. Read The Full Story 2 U.S. Soldiers Shot Dead At Afghan Prison 2007-05-07 02:17:07 A rogue Afghan soldier shot dead two U.S. soldiers at the high-security Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the eastern outskirts of Kabul, said the U.S. military. The Taliban said it was behind the shooting, saying the attacker was one of its fighters who had infiltrated the Afghan army. The soldier shot at vehicles leaving the prison on Sunday, and was then shot by other Afghan soldiers at the jail, U.S. coalition forces said in a statement. It said two American soldiers were wounded in the attack while the Taliban said six were killed. Read The Full Story
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