Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday May 23 2007 - (813)

Wednesday May 23 2007 edition
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Bush May Turn To U.N. In Search Of An Iraq Solution 2007-05-23 02:41:49 The Bush administration is developing plans to "internationalize" the Iraq crisis, including an expanded role for the United Nations, as a way of reducing overall U.S. responsibility for Iraq's future and limiting domestic political fallout from the war as the 2008 election season approaches. The move comes amid rising concern in Washington that President George Bush's controversial Baghdad security surge, led by the U.S. commander, General David Petraeus, is not working and that Iran is winning the clandestine battle for control of Iraq. "Petraeus is brilliant. But he is the captain of a sinking ship," said a former senior administration official who questioned whether Iraq's divided political leadership could prevent a descent into chaos. "Iraq's government is a mobile phone number that doesn't answer. Iraq probably can't be fixed." Although sectarian killings have fallen in Baghdad since the surge began in February, the level of violence across the country remains broadly unchanged. But the White House is fiercely resisting calls from Democrats and some Republicans to scrap the operation and set a timetable for a troop withdrawal. (Intellpuke: The Democrats did scrap the timetable. You can read a separate article on that elsewhere on today's Free Internet Press mainpage.) Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Votes To Keep Temporary Worker Program 2007-05-23 02:41:21 A comprehensive immigration bill survived a significant test on Tuesday as the Senate voted to keep a provision that would let hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers enter the country each year. If the guest worker program, part of the “grand bargain” negotiated with the Bush administration by a bipartisan group of 12 senators, had been stripped from the bill, the fragile deal could have collapsed. Despite the vote on Tuesday, supporters of the bill were clearly on the defensive. Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, who helped write the bill, said eliminating the guest worker program would be a “huge problem” for the architects of the proposal. Read The Full Story Democrats Drop Timeline From Iraq Spending Bill 2007-05-23 02:40:45 Democrats gave up their demand for troop-withdrawal deadlines in an Iraq war spending package Tuesday, abandoning their top goal of bringing U.S. troops home and handing President Bush a victory in a debate that has roiled Congress for months. Bush, who has already vetoed one spending bill with a troop timeline, had threatened to do the same with the next version if it came with such a condition. Democratic leaders had moved ahead anyway, under heavy pressure from liberals who believe that the party won control of Congress in November on the strength of antiwar sentiment. But in the end, Democrats said they did not have enough votes to override a presidential veto and could not delay troop funding. The spending package, expected to total $120 billion when the final version is released today, would require Bush to surrender virtually none of his war authority. Democrats were working to secure two other priorities that the president had previously resisted: an increase in the minimum wage and funding for domestic programs, including veterans' benefits, Hurricane Katrina relief and agricultural aid. Read The Full Story Bubonic Plague Kills A Monkey At Denver Zoo 2007-05-23 02:39:46 The death of a monkey at the Denver Zoo from bubonic plague has prompted officials to change the habitats of some zoo animals and renew efforts to keep visitors from feeding the urban wildlife here. The animal, an 8-year-old female hooded capuchin monkey named Spanky, was the first zoo animal to be infected with the plague since an outbreak was detected last month in squirrels and a rabbit in City Park, just outside the zoo. Bubonic plague, which came to be called the Black Death as it killed millions of people throughout Europe in the 14th century, is carried by fleas that infect rodents. Today, it is found mainly in rural areas of the West. While it can be deadly in humans and some animals, bubonic plague is treatable. Read The Full Story New Iraq Strategy Nearly Ready 2007-05-23 02:38:36 Top U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq  are completing a far-reaching campaign plan for a new U.S. strategy, laying out military and political goals and endorsing the selective removal of hardened sectarian actors from Iraq's security forces and government. The classified plan, scheduled to be finished by May 31, is a joint effort between Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American general in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. More than half a dozen people with knowledge of the plan discussed its contents, although most asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it to reporters. The overarching aim of the plan, which sets goals for the end of this year and the end of 2008, is more political than military: to negotiate settlements between warring factions in Iraq from the national level down to the local level. In essence, it is as much about the political deals needed to defuse a civil war as about the military operations aimed at quelling a complex insurgency, said officials with knowledge of the plan. Read The Full Story CO2 Emissions Rise Outpaces Worst-Case Global Warming Scenario 2007-05-22 14:26:50 Worldwide CO2 emissions rose at a faster rate in 2000-2004 than the worst-case scenario imagined in this year's United Nations reports on climate, according to new research. The rise over the first four years of this century is also greater than in the 1990s - 3.1% a year between 2000-2004, up from an average of 1.1% a year during the 1990s. This is faster than scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggesting even its most alarming predictions of the effects of climate change may not tell the whole story. In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists said the accelerating growth rate was largely due to the increasing energy intensity of economic activity, with growing populations and economies also having an impact. Read The Full Story Female Afghan And Pakistani Politicians Forced From Office 2007-05-22 14:26:17 Pakistan's and Afghanistan's leading female politicians have been pushed from office by conservative men accusing them of indecency and being too outspoken. Pakistan's minister of tourism, Nilofar Bakhtiar, has been forced to resign after hardline Islamist clerics tarred her as "obscene" for hugging a man after a charity parachute jump. In Kabul, Afghanistan, firebrand Parliament member Malalai Joya was banished from parliament after she compared her fellow, overwhelmingly male, colleagues to farmyard animals. Islamist extremists railed against Ms. Bakhtiar last month after local papers published photos showing the smiling minister embracing her parachute instructor in western France. A radical mosque in Islamabad that models itself on the Taliban published a fatwa against her for posing in an "obscene manner". Read The Full Story Britain Wants To Charge Former KGB Spy Lugovoi With Litvinenko Murder 2007-05-22 14:25:33 Andrei Lugovoi, one of the Russian men who met Alexander Litvinenko on the day he fell ill with polonium poisoning, should be charged with his murder, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service recommended Tuesday. The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, said he had instructed CPS lawyers to seek the early extradition of Lugovoi from Moscow to Britain to stand trial "for this extraordinarily grave crime". "I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning," Sir Macdonald said Tuesday morning. "I have further concluded that a prosecution of this case would clearly be in the public interest." Lugovoi said he was innocent of the murder of Litvinenko and that the decision to charge him was politically motivated. Read The Full Story 4 Dead, At Least 50 Injured In Ankara Bomb Blast 2007-05-22 14:24:53 A bomb ripped through one of the city's busiest commercial centers Tuesday, killing four people and wounded more than 50, said the mayor. The blast outside one of the oldest shopping malls in Ankara hurled glass and other debris over a wide area. A body, covered in a white sheet, lay outside the building. Private NTV television, quoting police sources, said the bomb was made of plastic explosives, the type favored by separatist Kurdish rebels. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Television video shortly after the blast showed medics tending to the wounded and carrying them to ambulances on stretchers. Read The Full Story Commentary: America's Reputation Is In Tatters, But After Bush Recovery Could Be Swift 2007-05-22 01:02:58 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Max Hastings writes that the next U.S. president will inherit a legacy of global mistrust. Restoration of is authority must begin with a painful exit from Iraq. Mr. Hastings commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, May 22, 2007, follows: Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter lambasted Tony Blair over the weekend for participating in George Bush's Iraq adventure. Carter might show a little more gratitude. It is Bush's achievement to have displaced him from the ignominy of bottom place in the roll call of modern American chief executives. Historians will surely judge that Bush's two terms of office have done much more damage to U.S. interests, and indeed to those of the world, than Carter's blunders a generation ago. A few months ago I heard a British diplomat in Washington bemoan the horrors of the current administration. We must just somehow stagger through to the end, he muttered. I said that it seemed rash to assume the next U.S. president would be perfectly to the taste of Britain, or the world, because few people elected to the White House ever are. He said: "Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be worse than what we have got now." This has become hard to dispute. Whatever happens between now and January 2009, America's next president will inherit a legacy of global mistrust, alienation and loss of respect unknown in modern times. It is unlikely that President Bush will admit the logic of defeat in Iraq and start withdrawing. It will fall to his successor to face that humiliation, which will dominate the first stage of a new administration. Read The Full Story Environmentalists: Fence Along U.S-Mexican Border Could Imperil Wildlife 2007-05-22 01:02:18 Nancy Brown drives a government truck slowly past mossy ponds, thick shrouds of beardlike Spanish moss and majestic ebony trees. As the truck rounds a bend near the greenish-brown Rio Grande, a bobcat scampers ahead. Somewhere in the forest, well-camouflaged by evolution, are ocelots and jaguarundi, both endangered species of cats. These are some of the natural wonders in the Rio Grande Valley that Ms. Brown and other wildlife enthusiasts fear could be spoiled by the fences and adjacent roads the government plans to erect along the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and smugglers. Environmentalists have spent decades acquiring and preserving 90,000 riverfront acres of Texas scrub and forest and protecting their wildlife. Now they fear that the hundreds of miles of border fences will undo their work and kill some land animals by cutting them off from the Rio Grande, the only source of fresh water. Read The Full Story U.S. Gasoline Prices Close To 1981 Record 2007-05-22 01:01:37 Gasoline prices last week came within a half penny of tying the modern era's inflation-adjusted record set in March 1981, the U.S. Energy Departmentsaid Monday. The nationwide price of unleaded regular gasoline hit $3.218 a gallon, barely below the adjusted $3.223 a gallon level 26 years ago. Behind the rise were high crude oil prices and disruptions in output at oil refineries. The 1981 record was set two years after the Iranian revolution brought down the pro-American shah, seven months after war broke out between Iraq and Iran and two months after President Ronald Reagan ended U.S. oil price and allocation controls. Read The Full Story American Scholar Is Charged With Trying To Topple Iran Government 2007-05-22 01:00:57 Noted American scholar and Potomac resident Haleh Esfandiari has been charged with "seeking to topple the ruling Islamic establishment," Tehran's state-controlled television reported Monday. Esfandiari was charged with setting up a network that was working "against the sovereignty" of Iran, the government outlet said. "This is an American-designed model with an attractive appearance that seeks the soft-toppling of the country," state television reported, according to the Associated Press. In a separate statement, Iran's intelligence ministry alleged that the 67-year-old grandmother, director of the Middle East program at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was involved in activities trying to foment a soft revolution. The Wilson Center denied the allegations. "Haleh was not engaged in any activities to undermine any government, including the Iranian government. Nor does the Wilson Center engage in such activities. ... There is not one scintilla of evidence to support these outrageous claims," said Lee H. Hamilton, Wilson Center director and co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, which in December urged U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran. Read The Full Story Lebanon Death Toll Rises As Army Clashes With Islamist Militants 2007-05-22 00:59:51 Plumes of thick black smoke towered into the sky against a backdrop of the Mediterranean Monday as shells rained on a sprawling Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli. Shrouded in dust from the explosions and with fires breaking out in breeze block apartment buildings, Nahr el-Bared camp, home to 40,000 Palestinians, suffered a second day of intense fighting which raised the death toll in the latest crisis to engulf Lebanon to more than 70. Across lush green banana and citrus groves, Lebanese army troops ferried ammunition up and down a deserted strip of highway to the camp's three main entrances, amid heavy machine gun and small arms fire. Witnesses described bodies lying in the streets leading into the camp. Residents from the surrounding area took shelter, hugging the walls as explosions shook buildings. Read The Full Story	Refugees Plead To Be Saved As Lebanese Troops Besiege Camp 2007-05-23 02:41:36 In the middle of the road into the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, scene of fierce fighting for the past three days, a woman lay shot, her body convulsing, unreachable by the army and Red Cross as snipers continued to fire over her. Inside the devastated camp, residents waited without water or electricity for a ceasefire to come into effect. Coming under sniper fire from two positions, a woman clutching her child screamed, "Take us out of here, please take us out of here, they are going to kill us." Peering out from a doorway, an older woman cried out, ducking as the bullets cracked and hissed through the air. "We have children in here, they need milk. Help us." Many of the villagers wanted to flee but said they were refugees and had nowhere to go, even if they were able to escape the camp. Late Tuesday night thousands were on the move - women clutching children and piling up in pickup trucks, some waving white flags, others fleeing on foot. Ambulances could be seen evacuating the wounded. United Nations relief officials said they expected up to 10,000 refugees to flee the camp through the night. Read The Full Story Commentary: Don't Get Fooled Again 2007-05-23 02:40:59 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, D.D. Guttenplan writes that the Bush Administration is trying to blame its failure in Iraq on Iran ... and that a lot of propaganda out of the administration is now setting the stage for this. Mr. Guttenplan's commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, May 22, 2007, follows: History really does repeat itself. Either that or the Bush administration has decided to show its commitment to the environment by recycling lies. Those are the only firm conclusions to be drawn from the Guardian's front page story Tuesday morning. Iran, we are told, has a secret plan to force the U.S. and Britain to withdraw from Iraq. Not only that, but "Iran has reversed its previous policy in Afghanistan" and is now supporting the Taliban. So when George Bush's famous "surge" - a desperate gambit to prop up a bankrupt policy - fails to usher in the cooperative commonwealth in Iraq, we Guardian readers will know it's really all Tehran's fault. Attentive readers may have noticed that the story itself - though obviously based on a single anonymous "senior U.S. official in Baghdad" and "a senior administration official in Washington" - was carefully drafted to include Iranian denials and the acknowledgement that even most of the U.S. Congress believe Iraq is in the grip of a civil war. No, what struck me about the story wasn't its credulous tone so much as the sense, as the great philosopher and N.Y. Yankee backstop Yogi Berra once said, of deja vu all over again. Read The Full Story Changes Spurred GSA Buying, Abuses - Taxpayers Overcharged Millions In Sun Deal 2007-05-23 02:40:19 In February 2005, an auditor at the U.S. General Services Administration presented evidence to agency leaders that one of the government's top technology contractors was overcharging taxpayers. GSA auditor James M. Corcoran reported that Sun Microsystems had billed the government millions more for computer software and technical support than it charged its commercial customers. If true, the allegation was grounds to terminate the contract and launch a fraud investigation. Instead, senior GSA officials pressed last summer to renew the contract. That decision meant the government's leading contracting agency would be able to continue collecting millions of dollars in what are called industrial funding fees from Sun under rules that permit the GSA to take a percentage of every sale made to the government. It also meant that taxpayers would pay millions more than necessary, according to congressional investigators. Read The Full Story Top British Judges Revolt Over Ministry Of Justice Changes 2007-05-23 02:38:55 Britain's most senior judges last night moved into open revolt against the government after eight weeks of talks broke down over safeguards for the independence of the judiciary following the creation of the Ministry of Justice. Amid a growing constitutional crisis, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, told Parliament members the department was only created to "clear the decks" so that the home secretary, John Reid, could mount a "concerted attack on terrorism". Lord Phillips also claimed that the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, was so far removed from the original decision that he only learned about it from an article by Reid in a Sunday newspaper. Lord Phillips said the two sides were "poles apart" with the government refusing judges' demands for a "fundamental review" of their constitutional position. The judges fear that the ministry will be swamped by the demands for resources from prisons and probation, and want the courts to be given special protection as an arms-length executive agency with a ring-fenced budget to protect their independence. Read The Full Story U.S. Coasts Brace For A Busy Hurricane Season 2007-05-22 14:27:01 This year's hurricane season will be busier than normal, U.S. government forecasters said Tuesday. National Weather Service forecasters said they expect 13 to 17 tropical storms, with seven to 10 of them becoming hurricanes. The forecast follows that of two other leading storm experts in anticipating a busy season. The likelihood of above normal hurricane activity is 75 percent, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. "With expectations for an active season, it is critically important that people who live in East and Gulf coastal areas as well as the Caribbean be prepared," said Bill Proenza director of the national hurricane center in Miami, Florida. Read The Full Story Mortgage Bill May Lose Bush Support 2007-05-22 14:26:37 Legislation to tighten federal oversight of the two biggest buyers of home mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sped toward adoption by the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday. The bill could lose the Bush administration's support because of a new provision trimming the authority of federal regulators. The legislation is the product of an earlier compromise between majority Democrats in the House and the Bush administration. It also has attracted support from a number of House Republicans. The House was voting on the bill providing for stricter federal supervision of the two government-sponsored companies, which together finance or guarantee more than three-quarters of U.S. home mortgages. The legislation also would create a housing aid fund - worth as much as $3 billion - to be financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read The Full Story Israel Threatens Hamas With Assassination Of Paletinian Prime Minister 2007-05-22 14:25:44 The Israeli government said Tuesday it would consider assassinating the Palestinian prime minister as the town of Sderot emptied following the first death from a Qassam rocket in six months. Ephraim Sneh, the deputy defense minister, said Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, was not immune from Israeli reprisals for the rocket fire which has forced thousands of Israeli residents close to the Gaza border to flee. Sneh described the Hamas leadership as "terrorists in suits" and told the Associated Press: "We don't care if he's a ringleader, a perpetrator of rocket attacks or if he is one of the political leaders. No one has immunity." Read The Full Story Lebanon Ceasefire Shattered Immediately 2007-05-22 14:25:11 A ceasefire between Lebanese forces and Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp Tuesday collapsed after less than an hour. Fighting stopped at the Nahr el-Bared camp outside the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli at about 2:30 p.m.  after Fatah al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-inspired group, announced it would stop firing. Less than an hour later, heavy exchanges of fire and several explosions were heard. The United Nations took advantage of the truce to deliver food, water and medical supplies to the camp, while many civilians packed their cars and fled, flying white flags from their windows. Read The Full Story Doctors, Legislators Resist Pharmaceutical Companies' Prying Eyes 2007-05-22 01:03:18 Seattle, Washington, pediatrician Rupin Thakkar's first inkling that the pharmaceutical industry was peering over his shoulder and into his prescription pad came in a letter from a drug representative about the generic drops Thakkar prescribes to treat infectious pinkeye. In the letter, the salesperson wrote that Thakkar was causing his patients to miss more days of school than they would if he put them on Vigamox, a more expensive brand-name medicine made by Alcon Laboratories. "My initial thought was 'How does she know what I'm prescribing?' " said Thakkar. "It feels intrusive. ... I just feel strongly that medical encounters need to be private." He is not alone. Many doctors object to drugmakers' common practice of contracting with data-mining companies to track exactly which medicines physicians prescribe and in what quantities - information marketers and salespeople use to fine-tune their efforts. The industry defends the practice as a way of better educating physicians about new drugs. Read The Full Story Federal Prosecutors Furious At Web Sites That Expose Informants, Undercover Officers 2007-05-22 01:02:42 There are three “rats of the week” on the home page of whosarat.com, a Web site devoted to exposing the identities of witnesses cooperating with the government. The site posts their names and mug shots, along with court documents detailing what they have agreed to do in exchange for lenient sentences. Last week, for instance, the site featured a Florida man who agreed in September to plead guilty to cocaine possession but not gun charges in exchange for his commitment to work “in an undercover role to contact and negotiate with sources of controlled substances.” The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet. “The reality is this,” said a spokesman for the site, who identified himself as Anthony Capone. “Everybody has a choice in life about what they want to do for a living. Nobody likes a tattletale.” Federal prosecutors are furious, and the Justice Department has begun urging the federal courts to make fundamental changes in public access to electronic court files by removing all plea agreements from them - whether involving cooperating witnesses or not. Read The Full Story Supporters Urge Musharraf To Alter Course Or Lose Power 2007-05-22 01:02:00 After a series of political blunders in the last two months, Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is being advised by his political supporters to make a dramatic change of course or risk losing power amid more chaos and bloodshed. Members of the ruling party, the Pakistani Muslim League, who provide General Musharraf’s base of support in Parliament, say that nationwide protests since the suspension of the country’s chief justice in March, and violent clashes that left 42 people dead in Karachi on May 12, have cast a pall over his leadership. They are encouraging General Musharraf to strike a compromise with the Supreme Court justice, who did not shy away from challenges to the government and whose removal has been protested as a threat to the judiciary. Read The Full Story Immigration Bill Passes First Test - Sort Of 2007-05-22 01:01:24 The Senate voted last night to move forward on an overhaul of immigration laws, but even proponents of the delicate compromise proposal conceded that the furor over the deal was surpassing their expectations and endangering the plan. The 69 to 23 vote masked deep troubles from the right flank of the Senate, as well as from the left. Opponents of even conducting a debate on the measure included some unexpected voices, such as freshman Sens. Jon Tester  (D-Montana) and Bernard Sanders, an independent liberal from Vermont. Several conservatives - and some liberals - made it clear that they cast a vote to proceed only in order to fundamentally change the proposed legislation in the coming days. With dozens of amendments planned, traps being laid by opponents could upset the fragile coalition that drafted the measure. What's more, Senate leaders gave up hope last night that they could pass the bill this week, ensuring it will be left hanging over a week-long Memorial Day recess. That will allow the opposition to gather strength before a final vote can be scheduled next month. Read The Full Story Iran's Secret Plan For Summer Offensive To Force U.S. Out Of Iraq 2007-05-22 01:00:45 Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaeda elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering U.S. Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, U.S. officials say. "Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against U.S. and British forces," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine U.S. will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]." The official said U.S. commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a U.S. retreat. "We expect that al-Qaeda and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the U.S. commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," said the official. Read The Full Story
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