Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday June 3 2007 - (813)

Sunday June 3 2007 edition
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Bush Told To Toe Line On Climate Change 2007-06-02 23:21:06 Britain and Germany Saturday joined forces to warn President George Bush that talks on climate change must take place within a United Nations framework and not in an ad hoc process floated last week by Bush. As violent protesters clashed with police in Rostock, Germany, ahead of next week's G8 summit, Bush was warned that Britain and Europe will not tolerate a separate process. "For me, that is non-negotiable," the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of the need to ensure that climate change negotiations take place within the existing U.N. framework. Her remarks were echoed by Hilary Benn, Britain's international development secretary. "I think it is very important that we stick with the framework we've got," Benn told British news magazine The Observer. Read The Full Story Europe Shivering In The New Cold War 2007-06-02 23:20:28 At the end of Europe Saturday afternoon, a man in a straw hat warmed up to go jogging, a father and teenage son in matching jeans and denim jackets shared a packet of cheap cigarettes, a small girl made sandcastles and two border guards strolled under the narrow single-span bridge over the swift-flowing Narva river. To their left lay Estonia, to their right, on the other bank, Russia. "We are not too worried about politics here," said one guard, fiddling with his holstered handgun. "We prefer sitting drinking beer with friends on a bench in the sun." Yet the bucolic scene and the border guard's insouciance seem increasingly out of place. For the slightly dilapidated, calm streets of Narva, Estonia's third largest city, are now at the center of geopolitical tensions not seen in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago. Some analysts are calling it "the new Cold War". Read The Full Story Where Are All The Food Queues? Asks Polish Man After 19-Year Coma 2007-06-02 23:19:43 A railwayman from Poland has awoken after a 19-year coma to discover communism has been swept away and the shops are full of food. Jan Grzebski, 65, was hit by a train in 1988 and was given only two years to live by doctors, but his wife Gertruda continued to care for him, and never lost hope that he would recover consciousness. The extraordinary real-life story resembles the plot of the popular film "Goodbye Lenin!" in which Alex Kerner, played by Daniel Brühl, tries to hide the demise of communism in East Germany to prevent his mother Christiane, (Katrin Sass), dying from shock after recovering from a coma. Read The Full Story U.S. Destroyer Fires Missiles At Fighters In Somalia 2007-06-02 23:18:54 A U.S. Navy destroyer launched an attack on fighters in a remote corner of northeastern Somalia late Friday, according to a senior U.S. official, though details of the operation remained sketchy. The bombardment was concentrated in and around the port town of Bargaal, the official said Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is classified. News media in the Puntland region reported that the strikes destroyed farms, flattened hilltops and killed or injured an unknown number of villagers, but the accounts could not be independently confirmed. It was too soon to say whether the strikes had hit their intended targets, said the U.S. official. Read The Full Story Earthquake In Southwest China Kills 2, Injures Hundreds 2007-06-02 23:18:09 A strong earthquake shook southwest China's Yunnan province early Sunday, killing two, injuring hundreds and triggering numerous aftershocks, state media reported. The quake at 5:34 a.m. was centered in the old downtown of the Hani and Yi Autonomous County of Ning'er in Pu'er City, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2. Read The Full Story Doctor Says Drug Maker Tried To Quash His Criticism Of Avandia 2007-06-02 15:25:34 When a Congressional committee holds a hearing next Wednesday, the subject will be the safety of the diabetes  drug Avandia and whether federal drug regulators have paid close enough attention to its potential risks. But for one witness who is scheduled to appear, Dr. John B. Buse, a nationally noted diabetes specialist, the hearing will take a different turn, focusing on whether he was the target of an effort by the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKlein, to silence his criticism of the drug. In a statement last night, Dr. Buse said his full story would be told at the hearing, including the account of how he was intimidated by Glaxo. But he said the company apologized and he later reported his concerns about the drug to the Food and Drug Administration. Read The Full Story Detainee Case Stirs Arguments On Boy Fighters 2007-06-02 15:24:55 The facts of Omar Ahmed Khadr’s case are grim. The shrapnel from the grenade he is accused of throwing ripped through the skull of Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer, who was 28 when he died. To American military prosecutors, Khadr is a committed al-Qaeda operative, spy and killer who must be held accountable for killing Sergeant Speer in 2002 and for other bloody acts he committed in Afghanistan. Yett there is one fact that may not fit easily into the government’s portrait of Khadr: He was 15 at the time. His age is at the center of a legal battle that is to begin tomorrow with an arraignment by a military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of Khadr, whom a range of legal experts describe as the first child fighters in decades to face war-crimes charges. It is a battle with implications as large as the growing ranks of child fighters around the world. Read The Full Story UPDATE: 4 Charged In Plot To Blow Up Kennedy Airport's Jet Fuel Tanks 2007-06-02 15:23:44 Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn yesterday charged that a retired cargo worker at Kennedy International Airport plotted with a former member of the Guyanese Parliament and two other men to blow up terminal buildings, fuel tanks and the network of fuel pipelines that run beneath the airport complex. Three of the four men, including the former airport worker and the former Parliament member, were arrested Thursday and Friday by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and police detectives, the authorities said. The fourth man was being sought, and officials said additional people may face charges. The airport worker, Russell Defreitas, 63, through the assistance of the member of Parliament, Abdul Kadir, was in the process of seeking the financial backing and blessing of a Trinidadian terrorist group, Jamaat Al Muslimeen. The group was behind a failed 1990 coup attempt in that country, said officials. Read The Full Story In Clash With Marines, Reservists Gain Ally In VFW 2007-06-02 01:02:40 The national commander of the proud, patriotic, 2.4 million strong Veterans of Foreign Wars (motto: "Honor the dead by helping the living") took one look at the mushrooming dispute between three antiwar Marine reservists and the U.S. Marine Corps, and knew where his sympathies lay: with the protesters. "What the Marine Corps is trying to do is hush up and punish these individuals who served our country," Gary Kurpius, the national commander, said in a telephone interview. "All they're doing is exercising the same democratic voice we're trying to instill over in Iraq right now." The Marines have accused the three reservists, all members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, of wearing their uniforms during political protests and making "disrespectful" or "disloyal" statements. All three were honorably discharged from active duty, but now face "other than honorable" discharges from the inactive reserve, which could affect future employment and veterans benefits. Read The Full Story Toxic Toothpaste Made In China Found In U.S. 2007-06-02 01:02:13 Consumers were advised Friday to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese-made toothpaste containing a poison used in some antifreeze in three locations: Miami, Florida, the Port of Los Angeles, California, and Puerto Rico. Although there are no reports of anyone being harmed by the toothpaste, the Food and Drug Administratrion  warned that the Chinese products had a “low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury” to children and people with kidney or liver disease. The United States is the seventh country to find tainted Chinese toothpaste within its borders in recent weeks. Read The Full Story Web Leak Puts U.S. Embassy In Iraq At Risk 2007-06-02 01:01:30 It was a short-lived but spectacular breach of security at the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The embassy, to be opened in September, is the most heavily fortified in the world, built to the highest security specifications possible. Access to the site is restricted to those with difficult-to-obtain security passes. It has to be: the embassy, inside the Green Zone, is the number one target for insurgents seeking to infiltrate or land a mortar; but the seemingly impregnable fortress has been breached even before it has opened, to the rage and embarrassment of U.S. officials. Read The Full Story Judge Halts Award Of Iraq Security Contract 2007-06-02 01:01:02 A federal judge Friday ordered the military to temporarily refrain from awarding the largest security contract in Iraq. The order followed an unusual series of events set off when a U.S. Army veteran filed a protest against the government practice of hiring what he calls mercenaries, according to sources familiar with the matter. The contract, worth about $475 million, calls for a private company to provide intelligence services to the U.S. Army and security for the Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction work in Iraq. The case, which is being heard by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, puts on trial one of the most controversial and least understood aspects of the Iraq war: the outsourcing of military security to an estimated 20,000 armed contractors who operate with little oversight. Brian X. Scott, a 53-year-old Colorado man, filed the complaint in early April. He argues that the military's use of private security contractors is "against America'score values" and violates an 1893 law that prohibits the government from hiring quasi-military forces. Read The Full Story U.S. Violent Crime Increases For Second Year 2007-06-02 01:00:12 The number of violent crimes in the United States rose for a second straight year in 2006, marking the first sustained increase in homicides, robberies and other serious offenses since the early 1990s, according to an FBI  report to be released Monday. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report will show an increase of about 1.3 percent in violent offenses last year, including a 6 percent rise in robberies and a slight rise in homicides, according to law enforcement officials, who described key findings in advance of the report's release. That follows an increase of 2.3 percent in 2005, which was the first significant increase in violent crime in 15 years. Much of the increase was concentrated in medium-size cities, including the District of Columbia, officials said. Criminologists and law enforcement officials offer varying theories for the upswing, including an increase in the juvenile population, growing numbers of released prison inmates and the rise of serious gang problems in smaller jurisdictions. Read The Full Story Swiss Raid Nazi Art Thief's Safe 2007-06-02 00:59:01 Paintings from a Swiss bank safe linked to a notorious Nazi art thief have been confiscated as part of an investigation into whether the heir of a Jewish art collector was blackmailed, authorities said Friday. The Zurich prosecutor's office said it raided the safe as part of a three-nation probe of a German art dealer accused of conspiring with an American art historian to withhold a painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro from its rightful owner unless she paid a finder's fee equal to 18 percent of its value. Prosecutor Ivo Hoppler said the safe was rented by a trust based in the neighboring principality of Liechtenstein and was accessed by Bruno Lohse, who spirited away art from all over Europe during World War II on behalf of Hermann Goering, Hitler's top aide. Read The Full Story	Before Iraq War, CIA Warned Of Negative Outcomes 2007-06-02 23:20:52 On Aug. 13, 2002, the CIA completed a classified, six-page intelligence analysis that described the worst scenarios that could arise after a U.S.-led removal of Saddam Hussein: anarchy and territorial breakup in Iraq, a  surge of global terrorism, and a deepening of Islamic antipathy toward the United States. Titled "The Perfect Storm: Planning for Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq," the paper, written seven months before the war began, also speculated about al-Qaeda operatives taking "advantage of a destabilized Iraq to establish secure safe havens from which they can continue their operations," according to a report about prewar intelligence recently released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The report said the CIA paper also cautioned about outcomes such as declining European confidence in U.S. leadership, Hussein's survival and retreat with regime loyalists, Iran working to install a friendly regime "tolerant of Iranian policies," Afghanistan tipping into civil strife because U.S. forces were not replaced by United Nations  peacekeepers and troops from other countries, and violent demonstrations in Pakistan because of its support of Washington. Read The Full Story Tens Of Thousands Of Pakistanis Rally Around Ousted Judge 2007-06-02 23:20:08 Tens of thousands of people took to the streets Saturday in one of the strongest displays of opposition yet to President Pervez Musharraf,even as the government cracked down on the media in an attempt to control a burgeoning crisis. The figure at the center of the movement against Musharraf - the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry - was mobbed by supporters along the route from the capital, Islamabad, to the northern city of Abbotabad, where he gave a speech late Saturday night. Hundreds of cars and trucks escorted the judge, and he was welcomed in each town he visited with boisterous cheers and pounding drums. Musharraf suspended Chaudhry from the Supreme Court nearly three months ago, triggering a movement that began with a call for greater independence of the judiciary but has morphed into a full-fledged campaign for an end to military rule and the restoration of democracy. Read The Full Story Insurgents Hit Bridge North Of Baghdad, Cuts Route To Northern Iraq 2007-06-02 23:19:27 Insurgents blasted a gaping hole in a major bridge on the main highway from Baghdad to northern Iraq on Saturday, part of a growing effort to target Iraq's infrastructure and immobilize its people. Ever since a large chunk of Baghdad's steel-beamed Sarafiya bridge splashed into the Tigris River in April, attackers have systematically targeted bridges in and around the capital. The tactic has further sealed off neighborhoods, blocked vital transportation links and, in some cases, worsened divisions between Sunnis and Shiites. Concern about the attacks has led the Iraqi government to prohibit oil tankers and other heavy trucks from crossing all but two of Baghdad's 13 bridges across the Tigris, worsening fuel shortages at a time when drivers must regularly wait hours for gas in lines hundreds of cars long. "We are really tired of this kind of living," said Amer Abdul Razzaq, 46, the owner of an abandoned hotel and a looted carpet shop, who was visiting a friend near the foot of the Sinak bridge in Baghdad. "We cannot work, we cannot move from one side of the river to the other. These bridges are not military targets; they are affecting the people." Read The Full Story BBC Cuts Threaten News Meltdown In Britain 2007-06-02 23:18:30 BBC News is preparing to axe hundreds of jobs as part of the plans by director-general Mark Thompson to cut the corporation's budget. Flagship shows including The 10 O'Clock News and Newsnight could be affected, according to insiders, and many of the BBC's renowned foreign bureaus are likely to be scaled down or closed. Senior executives are currently deciding which jobs will go, but one source said: "Many hundreds of jobs are under threat in news and there are serious questions over whether the quality of programs like Newsnight and The 10 O'Clock News can be maintained." Read The Full Story 146 German Police Officers Injured In Violent G8 Protests 2007-06-02 15:25:51 Masked demonstrators showered police with grapefruit-sized rocks and beer bottles, then were driven back with water cannon and tear gas during a protest march Saturday against the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Germany. The clashes left smoke from burning cars and the sting of tear gas drifting through the harborfront area in the north German port of Rostock. Some 146 police were hurt, 25 of them seriously. Radicals "are smashing everything in their way to pieces," said Karsten Wolff, a police spokesman. The officially permitted march preceded a three-day summit beginning Wednesday in the seaside resort of Heiligendamm, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts the leaders of the other G-8 nations - Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada and the United States. Read The Full Story After Sanctions, Doctors Still Paid By Drug Companies 2007-06-02 15:25:19 A decade ago the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice accused Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab of a “reckless, if not willful, disregard” for the welfare of 46 patients, 5 of whom died in his care or shortly afterward. The board suspended his license for seven months and restricted it for two years after that. Yet Dr. Abuzzahab, a Minneapolis psychiatrist, is still overseeing the testing of drugs on patients and is being paid by pharmaceutical companies for the work. At least a dozen have paid him for research or marketing since he was disciplined. Medical ethicists have long argued that doctors who give experimental medicines should be chosen with care. Indeed, the drug industry’s own guidelines for clinical trials state, “Investigators are selected based on qualifications, training, research or clinical expertise in relevant fields.” Yet Dr. Abuzzahab is far from the only doctor to have been disciplined or criticized by a medical board but later paid by drug makers. Read The Full Story News Analysis: Using Korea As Model, Bush Team Plans Long Support Role In Iraq 2007-06-02 15:24:15 For the first time, the Bush administration is beginning publicly to discuss basing American troops in Iraq for years, even decades to come, a subject so fraught with political landmines that officials are tiptoeing around the inevitable questions about what the United States’ long-term mission would be there. President Bush has long talked about the need to maintain an American military presence in the region, without saying exactly where. Several visitors to the White House say that in private, he has sounded intrigued by what he calls the “Korea model,” a reference to the large American presence in South Korea for the 54 years since the armistice that ended open hostilities between North and South. But it was not until Wednesday that Bush’s spokesman, Tony Snow, publicly reached for the Korea example in talking about Iraq - setting off an analogy war between the White House and critics who charged that the administration was again disconnected from the realities of Iraq. He said Korea was one way to think about how America’s mission could evolve into an “over-the-horizon support role,” whenever American troops are no longer patrolling the streets of Baghdad. Read The Full Story BREAKING NEWS: 4 Charged In Plot To Bomb New York's Kennedy Airport 2007-06-02 14:18:43 Federal law enforcement officials and New York City police said Saturday that four people have been charged with conspiring to bomb Kennedy International Airport. The plan, which was described by United States Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf as “one of the most chilling plots imaginable,” involved a former airport worker who is a United States citizen of Guyanese descent and a former member of the Guyanese parliament, who is also an imam. The former airport worker, Russell Defreitas, was in custody in Brooklyn and was expected to be arraigned this afternoon. The former Guyanese parliament member, Abdul Kadir, and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad, were in custody in Trinidad. A fourth man, Abdel Nur, of Guyana, was still being sought, law enforcement officials said. Read The Full Story Abuse And Incompetence In Fight Against Global Warming 2007-06-02 01:02:29 A Guardian investigation has found evidence of serious irregularities at the heart of the process the world is relying on to control global warming. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is supposed to offset greenhouse gases emitted in the developed world by selling carbon credits from elsewhere, has been contaminated by gross incompetence, rule-breaking and possible fraud by companies in the developing world, according to U.N. paperwork, an unpublished expert report and alarming feedback from projects on the ground. One senior figure suggested there may be faults with up to 20% of the carbon credits - known as certified emissions reductions - already sold. Since these are used by European governments and corporations to justify increases in emissions, the effect is that in some cases malpractice at the CDM has added to the net amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Read The Full Story Tropical Storm Barbara Strengthens 2007-06-02 01:02:00 The second named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season regained tropical storm force Friday and was expected to make landfall on Saturday near the Mexico-Guatemala border. A tropical storm watch was in force from Sipacate, Guatemala, to Barra de Tonala, Mexico, and the U.S. Hurricane Center in Miami warned that Barbara was gaining strength and could unleash life-threatening flooding and mudslides. The storm was forecast to dump up to 10 inches of rain over portions of southeastern Mexico and Guatemala, and up to 20 inches in parts. With maximum winds of near 50 mph, the storm was centered about 110 miles west-southwest of the Guatemala-Mexico border. Read The Full Story Dan Bartlett, Key Aide To Bush, To Resign Next Month 2007-06-02 01:01:17 White House counselor Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's closest and most trusted aides, said Friday that he will resign his post in July, leaving a void in an administration that has seen a string of departures as it struggles with sagging public approval ratings. Bartlett, the father of three young children, said he will seek work in the private sector so he can spend more time with his family. The announcement came on his 36th birthday. "I've had competing families. And, unfortunately, the Bush family has prevailed too many times, and it's high time for the Bartlett family to prevail," he told reporters. He has spent virtually his entire career working for Bush, starting in 1993, as Bush prepared for his first gubernatorial campaign in Texas. That relationship has allowed Bartlett to speak candidly with the president and to expand his strategic communications role into that of a policy adviser to the president with a portfolio. Read The Full Story Tensions Emerge Between Spain, U.S. 2007-06-02 01:00:26 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a lightning stop here Friday, intending to signal an end to the Bush administration's diplomatic deepfreeze of the Spanish government, but new tensions emerged over dealings with Cuba.  Spanish officials were annoyed that Rice earlier this week rapped Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos for visiting Havana without meeting dissidents. Speaking to reporters as she flew to Madrid from Berlin, Rice reiterated those comments. Cuba has "a major transition coming," she said, alluding to the illness of longtime leader Fidel Castro. "I think democratic states have an obligation to act democratically, to support opposition in Cuba, not to give the regime the idea that it is just going to be transition from one dictatorship to another." Read The Full Story 18 Dead, Dozens Wounded As Army And Militants Clash In Lebanon 2007-06-02 00:59:33 Under a hail of gunfire and mortar shells, Lebanon’s army on Friday moved closer to a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon where a group of militants has been hiding, seizing new ground in a daylong fight that left 18 dead and dozens wounded. After days of relative quiet as the army maintained its presence outside the camp, Lebanese troops fought much of the day to seize positions that had been occupied by the militants, who belong to the Fatah al Islam militia, inspired by al-Qaeda. Army artillery took aim at sniper perches on the northern and eastern edges of the camp, an army official said, striking tall buildings that sent plumes of smoke billowing from inside the camp. The army said 16 people in the camp and two soldiers had been killed, with 60 civilians and 18 soldiers wounded. It said that it could not break down the deaths between militants and civilians but that the total number of people killed since fighting began on May 20 exceeded 100, including soldiers, militants and civilians. Read The Full Story
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