Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday June 4 2007 - (813)

Monday June 4 2007 edition
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The New Cold War: Russia's Missiles To Target Europe 2007-06-04 00:02:10 President Vladimir Putin Sunday declared that a new arms race and cold war with the west had begun and announced that Russia would retaliate against U.S. missile defense plans in Europe by pointing its missiles at European cities. In a hawkish speech that sets the stage for a frosty G8 summit this week, Putin launched an extraordinary broadside at the west over missile defense, Kosovo and democratic standards. Putin will meet George Bush, Tony Blair and other world leaders on Wednesday in the German resort of Heiligendamm for their annual meeting. In an interview released Sunday night he made his most strident attack yet on western power. He also indicated that he would not shy away from fights with the German chancellor Angela Merkel on human rights and harshly accused Britain of "politicizing" the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Read The Full Story 14 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq, Warning Of More Casualties 2007-06-04 00:00:37 America Sunday endured one of its deadliest days in Iraq since President Bush ordered more troops into the war zone, with the Pentagon announcing the deaths of 14 U.S. soldiers. Sunday's announced toll, which includes troops killed since the beginning of June, was one of the highest in a single day since President Bush sent more troops to Iraq, raising force strength there to 150,000. Six were killed Sunday, seven on Saturday and one on Friday. The latest casualties included four soldiers killed in a single roadside bombing during a search operation northwest of Baghdad, as well as a soldier who was blown up as he questioned a suicide bomber. They raise the toll of U.S.  forces in Iraq to 3,493. Read The Full Story Boeing Subsidiary To Be Sued Over 'Torture Flights' 2007-06-04 00:00:04 A former British resident being held at Guantanamo is suing a subsidiary of the Boeing corporation which he alleges was involved in arranging for him to be taken to secret American prisons around the world. Once there, he says, he was tortured. Lawyers for Benyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian national who grew up in Notting Hill, west London, say Jeppesen Dataplan has been providing logistical support for the Central Intelligence Agency's so-called extraordinary rendition program. According to legal papers filed in San Jose, California, by the London-based legal charity Reprieve, "Jeppesen has played a critical role in the successful implementation of the extraordinary rendition program" by providing support for flights to countries where the use of torture is routine. "Among other services provided, Jeppesen prepared pre-departure flight planning services, including itinerary, route weather, and fuel plans" for rendition flights, as well as landing and overflight permits, and arranged for fuel to be provided. The papers allege that Jeppesen facilitated more than 70 rendition flights over four years, and knew, or should have known, that detainees were being tortured at their destinations. Read The Full Story Attacks On U.S. Troops In Iraq Grow In Lethality, Complexity 2007-06-03 14:30:22 As U.S. troops push more deeply into Baghdad and its volatile outskirts, Iraqi insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated and lethal means of attack, including bigger roadside bombs that are resulting in greater numbers of American fatalities relative to the number of wounded. Insurgents are deploying huge, deeply buried munitions set up to protect their territory and mounting complex ambushes that demonstrate their ability to respond rapidly to U.S. tactics. A new counterinsurgency strategy has resulted in decreased civilian deaths in Baghdad but has placed thousands of additional American troops at greater risk in small outposts in the capital and other parts of the country. "It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up" and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq. At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. "The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people," he said. Read The Full Story Russia's Champion Of Hopeless Cases Targeted For Disbarment 2007-06-03 14:29:38 Karina Moskalenko spent a sleepless night in Strasbourg, France, last month writing and rewriting a petition to the European Court of Human Rights for Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and anti-Kremlin activist who was briefly arrested in connection with a demonstration in Moscow in April that riot police violently broke up. As soon as Moskalenko, one of Russia's leading human rights lawyers, had filed the plea, she flew back to Moscow for a court appearance on behalf of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned oil tycoon under investigation on fresh charges of money-laundering. "I am the champion of unsuccessful cases - at least in Russia," Moskalenko said in an interview at the offices of the International Protection Center, the legal defense organization she founded 12 years ago. "Hopeless people are my clients." Now, Moskalenko fears she will become a hopeless case herself. Read The Full Story	Brazil's President Rejects Bush Move On Climate Change 2007-06-04 00:01:55 Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has flatly rejected President Bush's proposals for parallel global negotiations to combat climate change, insisting that countries come to agreement at the United Nations, and not under U.S. leadership. In a rare interview with a British newspaper, President Lula told the Guardian that Brazil, a fast developing country whose support is critical to a global deal on emission cuts, had not even been informed that Bush was contemplating a new negotiating framework, before the U.S. president made his announcement last Thursday. "The Brazilian position is clear cut," said Lula. "I cannot accept the idea that we have to build another group to discuss the same issues that were discussed in Kyoto and not fulfilled. "If you have a multilateral forum [the U.N.] that makes a democratic decision .. then we should work to abide by those rules [rather than] simply to say that I do not agree with Kyoto and that I will develop another institution," said Lula, who was in London to watch Friday's England-Brazil international soccer match. Read The Full Story Israeli Ministers Discuss British Boycott Threats Amid Plans To Retaliate 2007-06-04 00:00:22 Israeli groups are planning to launch a counter-boycott of Britain in response to a series of boycotts proposed by British unions and associations. The counter-measures include an email campaign to convince North Americans to boycott British goods and services and a threat by union workers to refuse to unload British exports to Israel. Israelis have reacted angrily to proposals by the University and College Union and Unison, the largest public sector workers' union, to boycott Israel in protest at its treatment of Palestinians. The proposals follow a similar resolution passed by the National Union of Journalists earlier this year. Read The Full Story Nearly 1,000 Hurt In Protest Around G8 Meeting Site 2007-06-03 23:59:37 German authorities Sunday closed most routes to the G8 summit site at Heiligendamm and pulled over cars for spot checks on the main road from Rostock, where protest riots have led to hundreds of people being injured. Three days before the world's industrial powers gather, the situation around the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm was calm, said police but, after Saturday's violence, they had stepped up security in Rostock, stopping people in the city center Sunday to check bags and identity papers. The three-day summit starts Wednesday in Heiligendamm, about 12 miles west of Rostock, where the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will lead talks with the leaders of Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada and the U.S., on economics, aid and global warming. The summit, like past ones, is attracting protest against capitalism, globalization and the Iraq war. Read The Full Story Next Prime Minister May Pull British Troops Out Of Iraq 2007-06-03 14:30:07 British military chiefs are preparing to withdraw troops from Iraq within in 12 months to concentrate on Afghanistan, a British official said Sunday. A new timetable, which would see a complete unilateral British withdrawal from Iraq by next May, would be presented to incoming prime minister Gordon Brown within weeks of his taking over from Tony Blair on June 27, The Sunday Telegraph reported. The latest reports coincided with an urgent plea by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for the U.S.' NATO allies to contribute more to military operations in Afghanistan. Read The Full Story Car Slams Into D.C. Street Festival Injuring 35 People 2007-06-03 14:29:07 A vehicle hurtled through a crowded street festival in the Washington, D.C., area of Anacostia last night, knocking people down, throwing some in the air and pinning others beneath its wheels, according to accounts from police and witnesses. Authorities said 35 people were taken to hospitals, seven with severe injuries. The chaotic scene occurred about 8 p.m. at Unifest, an annual street festival sponsored by a prominent Anacostia church. Witness accounts indicated that a gray station wagon, with a woman driving, plowed through swarms of festival-goers on Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue and W Street SE, among other thoroughfares. Police said a 30-year-old Oxon Hill woman was taken into custody near the scene. They identified her as Tonya Bell. They said a child who was 7 or 8 was in her vehicle. Read The Full Story
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