Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday June 30 2007 - (813)

Saturday June 30 2007 edition
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Turkey Warns Of Plans To Invade Northern Iraq 2007-06-30 02:15:46 Turkey has prepared a blueprint for the invasion of northern Iraq and will take action if U.S. or Iraqi forces fail to dislodge the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from their mountain strongholds across the border, Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gul has warned. "The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them," Gul told Turkey's Radikal newspaper. "If neither the Iraqi government nor the U.S. occupying forces can do this [crush the PKK], we will take our own decision and implement it," said Gul. The foreign minister's uncharacteristically hawkish remarks were seen as a response to pressure from Turkey's generals, who have deployed some 20,000-30,000 troops along the borders with Iraq, and who are itching to move against the rebels they say are slipping across the border to stage attacks inside Turkey. Among other things, Turkish military planners have been working on a scheme to establish a buffer zone on Iraqi soil to try to stop the rebels' movements. Read The Full Story Commentary: I Have A New Hero And Her Name Is Mika Brzezinski 2007-06-30 02:15:15 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Guardian correspondent David Adams, writing from Washington, D.C., about the media "kerfuffle" on Paris Hilton's release from jail. It appears in the Guardian newspaper's edition for Saturday, June 30, 2007. Mr. Adams commentary follows: It was Peter Finch, in the 1976 movie "Network", who first played a newsreader suffering an on-air breakdown. Driven to madness by poor ratings, Finch's character snaps and tells viewers to shout: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more." It's hard not to think of Finch, who won an Oscar for his performance, when watching a similar implosion by the newsreader Mika Brzezinski on the cable news channel MSNBC on Wednesday morning. Despite goading from her co-hosts, including the former Republican congressman turned rightwing talkshow host Joe Scarborough, Brzezinski stood her ground and refused to read her segment's lead news item on Paris Hilton. After a media frenzy that saw even arch-publicist Michael Moore elbowed off CNN's Larry King show to make way for Hilton's first post-jail interview, Brzezinski has become a cyberspace star. Clips of her shredding the script were the lead item on the Technorati search, while the blogosphere was alight with praise. "I have a new hero, and her name is Mika Brzezinski," wrote one. Read The Full Story Car Bombs Come To London 2007-06-30 02:14:13 British police were Friday night hunting a suspected al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell after the discovery of two "Iraqi style" car bombs, which United Kingdom officials said were designed to cause mass murder. One was outside a London nightclub, and a second nearby. Only luck and probable faults in the bombs' construction meant that the first device, inside a metallic green Mercedes, could be disarmed, while the second, in a blue Mercedes 280E, failed to explode. Police say both were capable of causing severe casualties and were intended to have been detonated remotely, most likely by a mobile phone. Counter-terrorism officials said the first device - made up of 60 liters of petrol, several propane gas cylinders, nails and a detonation mechanism - was similar to those used by al-Qaeda in Iraq. [Intellpuke: You might want to read my comment at the end of this article.] The second car, containing similar lethal materials, was given a parking ticket at 2:30 a.m. before being towed to a car park in Park Lane, central London. Read The Full Story Hamas Takeover In Gaza Leaves Israel Facing Tough Calls 2007-06-30 02:11:48 Since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israel has faced an increasingly complex set of military options to stop attacks from the territory, and a debate over its humanitarian responsibilities for the strip's 1.4 million people. The political split between the West Bank and Gaza has also strengthened calls in Israel to abandon the idea of a Palestinian state, which was at the core of the Oslo peace accords signed in 1993. Gaza is now ruled by an ascendant Islamic movement that calls for Israel's destruction, and the West Bank by a disorganized secular party seeking immediate peace negotiations. That divide has cast doubts on whether the formula of a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel is still viable. "What is starting to emerge is a Palestinian Authority with two heads - one that accepts the two-state solution of Oslo lock, stock and barrel, and the other that does not," said Ron Pundak, an Israeli architect of the Oslo  agreement. "And there is concern the West Bank could become a new battleground between Fatah and Hamas. But is Oslo dead? No. Is it threatened? Yes." Read The Full Story Egypt Officials Ban Female Circumcision 2007-06-29 21:35:05 On Thursday, the Egyptian Health Ministry issued a decree stating that it is "prohibited for any doctors, nurses, or any other person to carry out any cut of, flattening or modification of any natural part of the female reproductive system, either in government hospitals, nongovernment hospitals or any other places." It warned that violators would be punished, but did not specify the penalty. The ban is not as enforceable as a law, which requires passage in the national legislature. Read The Full Story Cyclone Yemyin Leaves Hundreds Of Thousands Of Pakistanis Homeless 2007-06-29 17:57:00 Some 800,000 people have now been hit by flooding in Pakistan's Balochistan province, with hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, say officials. Many of them are without electricity or drinking water four days after a cyclone hit coastal districts. Eyewitnesses say there is almost no sign of government relief getting to the affected areas. Police have fired tear gas on hundreds of angry protesters in the city of Turbat who were demanding help. The central government has confirmed 14 deaths and 24 people missing in Balochistan since Tuesday, but other reports put the figure much higher. Read The Full Story Native Canadians Hold Peaceful Protests Across Nation 2007-06-29 17:55:24 Aside from a few morning disruptions in Eastern Ontario and near Montreal, the national day of protest organized by Native Canadians was marked by peaceful marches in pockets across the country. Ontario Provincial Police reopened Highway 401 just west of Kingston, Ontario by lunch hour, after Natives had set up a blockade on a highway that police had cordoned off late Thursday night. “People were concerned that it may be too much of an imposition and erode any support that there might be for First Nations' issues,” Native protest leader Shawn Brant said from an overpass on top of the highway. He added this was not a result of police intervention early Friday morning but merely a “gesture to the public.” Read The Full Story Supreme Court To Hear Guantanamo Detainees Case 2007-06-29 13:16:35 The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it would review the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their confinements in federal court, reversing a decision in April not to take up that issue. The justices did not say what had changed their minds. The Bush administration had praised the court's earlier decision not to review the matter. At the time, only three of four justices necessary to grant review - David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer - were willing to take the two cases involved, saying "these questions deserve this court's immediate attention.'' Two other justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy, issued a statement saying they might want to hear the issue in the future. Friday's order, by tradition, does not indicate which justices decided to hear the cases, but the decision to reopen the matter is unusual. Read The Full Story British Police: Car Bomb Found In London May Have Been Inspired By Al-Qaeda 2007-06-29 12:40:37 Senior British police and Whitehall sources Friday said the failed attempt to inflict mass murder in central London was the work of al-Qaeda or those inspired by its ideology. "You only have to read past cases of those convicted for terrorism to realize they have been plotting to blow up nightclubs and putting gas cylinder bombs in cars," said one senior source. Counter-terrorism sources said the car bomb found in Haymarket - one of London's main nightlife districts - was similar to car bombs used in Iraq. The car had been left outside the Tiger Tiger club, near Piccadilly Circus, which had hundreds of people inside. More were milling around on the street. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Coming Biofuels Disaster 2007-06-29 02:19:45 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Joe Brewer, a Research Fellow at The Rockridge Institute. This commentary was initially posted at the Truthout.org website on Thursday, June 28, 2007, but I believe it merits a broader audience and hope Mr. Brewer and Truthout agree. Mr. Brewer's commentary follows. Have you ever tried to solve a problem only to discover that you made things worse in the process? This is happening right now with biofuels. We are on the road to disaster because the problem we are trying to solve has been framed inadequately. Harmful impacts from large-scale biofuel production are largely overlooked. And we aren't even addressing the right problem! The truth can be seen when we frame issues in the context of livability. Solving the Wrong Problem Policymakers have been grappling with the fact that an excessive amount of carbon dioxide is polluting our atmosphere, disrupting global weather patterns and shifting the world's climate beyond safe boundaries. The solution required by this problem is that we stop increasing greenhouse pollution levels. This can be accomplished by shifting our energy sector in a direction that ultimately reduces the amount of heat-trapping gases that have accumulated since the dawn of the industrial revolution. On the surface, biofuels present the ideal solution to this problem. We can grow them in large amounts, and the carbon that is released by burning them is equal to the amount they breathe in as they grow. This simple mental accounting is very appealing, but woefully inaccurate for describing what is really going on. The real problem is that the way we use energy is out of balance with natural processes, driving us away from the equilibrium necessary for our communities to survive. This is evident in the planet's atmosphere where global warming is running rampant; our cities are submerged in toxic gases, and the protective ozone shield is tattered. It is also evident in the biosphere, where we are in the midst of the Earth's sixth mass extinction (the first in the planet's 4.5 billion-year history caused by a single species - humans). Soils in our agricultural plains are lost to wind and water, reducing the land's capacity to produce food. And our water supplies are being diverted, drained and contaminated by toxic run-off. We need to find livable solutions to this problem. Read The Full Story Russian Probe Shuts U.S.-Funded Media Foundation 2007-06-29 02:19:12 A Russian nonprofit organization funded by the U.S. government to train journalists and improve management at local television stations has been shuttered by a criminal investigation that critics charge is politically motivated. Authorities targeted the Educated Media Foundation after its head was found with slightly more than $12,500 in undeclared currency at a Moscow airport, an offense that routinely would be settled with a fine, said lawyers. Instead, Manana Aslamazyan, 55, is facing up to five years in prison on smuggling charges. Her organization, previously called Internews Russia, is accused of money laundering - an allegation that Russian journalists and civic activists, as well as Western diplomats, dismissed as absurd. Read The Full Story DNA Study Traces Cats' Ancestry To Middle East 2007-06-29 02:18:23 Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East, an audacious wildcat crept into one of the crude villages of early human settlers, the first to domesticate wheat and barley. There she felt safe from her many predators in the region, such as hyenas and larger cats. The rodents that infested the settlers’ homes and granaries were sufficient prey. Seeing that she was earning her keep, the settlers tolerated her, and their children greeted her kittens with delight. At least five females of the wildcat subspecies known as Felis silvestris lybica accomplished this delicate transition from forest to village. And from these five matriarchs all the world’s 600 million house cats are descended. A scientific basis for this scenario has been established by Carlos A. Driscoll, of the National Cancer Institute, and his colleagues. He spent more than six years collecting species of wildcat in places as far apart as Scotland, Israel, Namibia and Mongolia. He then analyzed the DNA of the wildcats and of many house cats and fancy cats. Read The Full Story	House, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairs Tell Bush To Justify Executive Privilege 2007-06-30 02:15:33 The chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees Friday ratcheted up their fight with President Bush over documents on the firing of U.S. attorneys, sending the White House a barbed letter demanding that the president back down from a claim of executive privilege - or give Congress a detailed explanation for withholding each document. In the letter to the White House counsel, Rep. John conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) accused the administration of a "veil of secrecy ... unprecedented and damaging to the tradition of open government." The correspondence came a day after the White House invoked executive privilege, for the second time in Bush's tenure, to block the release of internal e-mails and other documents that congressional investigators are seeking to clarify what role Bush's senior staff played in the Justice Deparment's removal of nine chief federal prosecutors last year. The firings have triggered bipartisan calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalesto resign. Friday's letter marks Congress's first move toward enforcing subpoenas issued by the committees this month. The lawmakers had sought documents and testimony from former White House political director Sara M. Taylor and former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers. Internal Justice e-mails show they were involved in the dismissals. Read The Full Story Emergency Chiefs In Britain Fear The Worst With Warnings Of New Downpours 2007-06-30 02:14:33 Hundreds of extra emergency staff, troops and police special constables have been mobilized in flood-stricken regions of Britain as control centers prepare for a possible 60 millimeter (2.4 inches) of rainfall - the same as Monday's devastating weather - although police and fire service commanders are hoping that lower estimates of 20 millimeters prove accurate. "Even that level would have consequences, falling on ground which is waterlogged and rivers which are very high," said Meredydd Hughes, chief constable of South Yorkshire, whose gold command center has run the country's biggest crisis operation for the past six days. The Sheffield-based operation is getting updates from the Meteorological Office on two depressions tracking in from the Atlantic. Similar bulletins have gone to the other main flood area, the low-lying basin of the river Severn. The current forecasts predict a second band of rain on the west coast today, larger than a system which caused the prolonged downpours Friday in southern England before moving northwards Friday night. Read The Full Story Democrats Plan To Press GOP On Iraq 2007-06-30 02:12:29 With the immigration bill dead, troop-withdrawal deadlines vetoed and other high-profile initiatives stalled, Democratic leaders closed six months in control of Congress mired in low approval ratings and plotting a legislative blitz on an issue they once tried to escape: Iraq. Defeated last month on a war funding bill, Democratic leaders had hoped to spend June delivering on prominent domestic issues, such as homeland security, ethics rules and immigration. Instead, they limped out of Washington for a week-long Fourth of July break with few successes to boast about while complaining bitterly of Republican tactics that had stymied their higher-profile efforts. "Because of the obstructionism of the Republicans in the United States Senate, I'm not happy with Congress either," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California). On Thursday alone, parliamentary trench warfare helped torpedo President Bush's immigration bill. Hours later, two of the same warriors - Sens. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) - blocked Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) as he tried to finish work on ethics legislation and a bill instituting most of the homeland security recommendations of the blue-ribbon committee that studied the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Read The Full Story China Enacts Strong New Labor Law To Protect Migrant Workers 2007-06-30 02:11:24 The Chinese legislature passed a law Friday to provide more protection to the millions of farm youths who leave home and become cheap labor in the factories and construction sites that have mushroomed in China's booming economy. The Standing Committee of the China People's Congress, in approving the law, presented it as a bulwark against widespread abuses of the often-uneducated migrant workers, such as forced labor, withholding of pay and unwarranted dismissal. The country was alarmed two weeks ago, for example, by the discovery that hundreds of Chinese were forced to work in conditions resembling slavery at dozens of brick kilns in Shanxi province while local Communist Party officials did nothing to stop it. In reaction, lawmakers at the last minute added a provision to the long-discussed labor code to mandate punishment for officials who are shown to be negligent or corrupt in allowing entrepreneurs to abuse workers. This and the unusual public rollout of the new law seemed designed to show the Chinese public that the central government of President Hu Jintao is determined to crack down on corrupt officials and protect those left behind by the swift economic growth of the past 25 years. Read The Full Story Sunni Arab Bloc Boycotts Participation In Iraq Government 2007-06-29 17:57:18 Iraq's main Sunni Arab bloc has said it will boycott government meetings because of legal steps being taken against one of its ministers. The Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) has six ministers, and its move is seen as a blow to the Shia-led cabinet as it tries to reconcile the two communities. Earlier this week, an arrest warrant was issued for Culture Minister Asaad Kamal al-Hashemi, an IAF member. The case concerns the killing of two sons of a Sunni politician in 2005. IAF head Adnan al-Dulaimi told the BBC that the bloc's ministers would continue their work apart from the cabinet meetings. Read The Full Story Commentary: Iraq - Grim Situation, Uncertain Future 2007-06-29 17:55:39 Intellpuke: The following commentary by Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan was posted in the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Arab News edition for Friday, June 29, 2007. Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan is a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh. His commentary follows: Local newspapers and alarabiya.net reported on Thursday, June 21, the shocking news about a government-run orphanage for children with special needs in Iraq. The harrowing scene at the Baghdad facility shocked some of the U.S. and Iraqi soldiers who found the children in tears. The 24 boys were found naked and lying on concrete floors, covered in their own excrement, flies and sores. Some were nearly dead. The news was horrifying, especially the pictures published of the children tied to their beds with their skinny bodies that revealed their bones. I can’t talk enough about this brutal treatment of innocent homeless children. These Iraqi children were supposed to be taken care of by their Iraqi supervisor. Unfortunately, he instead used the money set apart for the orphanage, abused the children and sold their canned food in open market. This is not the only scandal we hear of happening in Iraq. There are many conspiracies, betrayals and murders resulting from clashes between the government forces and Islamic groups and between Iraqis and some Arab and foreign fighters. And with this religious and racial polarization that is killing and destroying everything, our voices are becoming louder in condemning the foreign invaders blaming them for everything going on in Iraq. How could a foreign enemy convince a people to kill each other if sectarianism and discrimination didn’t exist among them in the first place? Read The Full Story Canada's Economy Wilts 2007-06-29 17:55:08 Canadian economic growth stalled for the first time in 10 months amid a slowdown in wholesale trade - though the Bank of Canada is still seen raising interest rates next month. Both the goods and services sides of the economy stood still, after the economy expanded 0.3-per-cent pace in March, Statistics Canada said Friday. It was the first month of no growth since June, 2006. Growth may have dwindled in April, but it comes after five months of solid gains and may prove to be a temporary blip. Most economists still expect the Bank of Canada (BoC) to raise interest rates next month as inflation picks up and the labor market remains tight. “The loss of economic momentum in the spring and the evident impact of the high Canadian dollar will raise a few eyebrows at the BoC,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist with BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. in a note. Read The Full Story U.S. Urges Vigilance After Car Bomb Discovered In London 2007-06-29 13:16:23 The government is urging Americans to be vigilant about suspicious activity after British police defused a bomb in downtown London, but officials said they saw no potential terrorist threat in the United States ahead of next week's Fourth of July holiday. "At this point, I have seen no specific, credible information suggesting that this incident is connected to a threat to the homeland," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement. "We have no plans at this time to change the U.S. threat level," he said. The current national threat level is yellow, or elevated, meaning there is a "significant risk" of terrorist attacks. "We encourage the public to enjoy the upcoming holiday but ask, as always, that they be vigilant and report any suspicious activities to authorities," said Chertoff. Read The Full Story Iranian Unrest Grows Amid Gas Rationing 2007-06-29 02:19:57 Unrest spread in Tehran on Thursday, the second day of gasoline rationing in oil-rich Iran, with drivers lining up for miles, gas stations being set on fire and state-run banks and business centers coming under attack. Dozens were arrested, and the Tehran police chief, Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, complained to reporters that the police had been caught unaware by the decision to ration fuel. The anger posed a keen threat to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected two years ago on a platform of bringing income from oil to the nation’s households. Instead, even though Iran is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, it has been forced to import about 40 percent of its gasoline at an annual cost of $5 billion to make up for shortfalls in its archaic refining industry. Some analysts said the decision to ration gasoline was intended to prepare for the possibility of more United Nations economic sanctions as a result of concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Read The Full Story U.S. Blocks Chinese Seafood Shipments 2007-06-29 02:19:26 The list of quality-compromised goods from China grew longer Thursday, as federal authorities slapped a highly unusual hold on shrimp and certain fish from that country after tests showed contamination from potentially harmful drugs. The Food and Drug Administration said it would block all shipments from China of farm-raised shrimp, catfish, eel and two other kinds of fish until importers can produce independent test results showing the items to be free of drugs banned in U.S. fish farming. Agency officials said there was no immediate threat to human health. An industry expert said he didn't expect shortages of shrimp because of the FDA action, since there was more than enough available on the world market. Read The Full Story Israel Drops Rape Charges As President Agrees To Quit 2007-06-29 02:18:43 The Israeli government has dropped rape charges against President Moshe Katsav in exchange for his agreement to step down and to plead guilty to lesser charges, the attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, announced Thursday. Katsav, 61, will receive a suspended sentence and will pay a total of $11,695 in compensation to two of the women who accused him, said Mazuz. One of them had worked for Katsav when he was tourism minister in the late 1990s; the other worked in his office in 2003 and 2004. Katsav will plead guilty to committing indecent acts without consent, sexual harassment of the two women and harassing a witness. He is expected to resign on Friday. His seven-year term as president, a largely ceremonial post, was to end in July. Shimon Peresis expected to take office as president on July 15. The announcement of a plea bargain caused debate and expressions of anger from Israelis who said Katsav was being treated too lightly. Read The Full Story
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