Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday June 26 2007 - (813)

Tuesday June 26 2007 edition
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U.S. May Deport Ex-Councilwoman 2007-06-26 02:18:16 A former Adelanto City Council member who resigned after questions of her citizenship status were raised two years ago now faces deportation for voting in the 2004 presidential election. Cuban-born Zoila Meyer surrendered to the San Bernardino County office of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday and was arrested on charges of violating immigration laws. The arrest stems from Meyer's voting in the presidential election and pleading guilty to an unlawful voter charge last year. Meyer, a 40-year-old mother of four who has lived in the United States since she was 1, is a legal alien resident but not a U.S. citizen, according to the San Bernardino County district attorney's office. Meyer could not be reached Friday but told the Associated Press that she always assumed she was a citizen, and was unaware of her immigration status when she voted and ran for office. "It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said. "I see people writing, 'This is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government, and they decide who stays and who goes…. You think you're free; you're really not. If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody." Read The Full Story American Indian Tribes Speak Out About Climate Change 2007-06-26 01:43:05 American Indian leaders are speaking out more forcefully about the danger of climate change. Members of six tribes recently gathered near the Baker River in New Hampshire's White Mountains for a ceremony honoring ''Earth Mother.'' Talking Hawk, a Mohawk Indian who asked to be identified by his Indian name, pointed to the river's tea-colored water as proof that the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced has caused changes around the globe. ''Earth Mother is fighting back - not only from the four winds but also from underneath,'' he said. ''Scientists call it global warming. We call it Earth Mother getting angry.'' At a United Nations meeting last month, several American Indian leaders spoke at a session called ''Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change.'' Also in May, tribal representatives from Alaska and northern Canada - where pack ice has vanished earlier and earlier each spring - traveled to Washington to press their case. Read The Full Story Ex-Aides Break With Bush On 'No Child Left Behind' 2007-06-26 01:42:40 President Bush urged lawmakers Monday to renew No Child Left Behind, his landmark education initiative, but one of his biggest political liabilities in achieving that goal comes from an unlikely source: his former aides. Five years after they helped craft and implement the initiative, senior administration officials from Bush's first term are speaking out against the law with increasing boldness. The shift, combined with mounting criticism from both the political right and left in Congress, is causing supporters of the law to worry that it might not win renewal this year. Speaking in the East Room of the White House Monday, Bush repeated his plea for speedy passage of the law. "The No Child Left Behind Act is working, and Congress needs to reauthorize this good piece of legislation," he said. Read The Full Story Chinese-Made Tires Are Ordered Recalled 2007-06-26 01:41:54 Federal officials have told a small New Jersey importer to recall 450,000 radial tires for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans after the company disclosed that its Chinese manufacturer had stopped including a safety feature that prevented the tires from separating. Tread separation is the same defect that led to the recall of millions of Firestone tires in 2000. At the time, tire failure was linked to an increased risk of rollover of light trucks and S.U.V.’s. The company, Foreign Tire Sales of Union, New Jersey, had originally sought the federal government’s help with a recall, saying it did not have enough money to recall all the tires itself. Typically, importers are responsible for the cost of recalling defective foreign products. But officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it remained the responsibility of Foreign Tire Sales to pay for the costs of the recall, said Heather Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the agency wanted “a full tire recall” by the company. Read The Full Story 2 Men, 1 Teenager Die As Torrential Rains Flood Britain 2007-06-25 20:09:24 A 28-year-old man died after spending four hours trapped in a burst drain Monday as torrential rain caused flooding chaos around the country. Firefighters and divers tried to rescue him after he became stuck up to his neck in water when his foot got wedged in a manhole grate. The man, named by his employer as Mike Barnett, was thought to have been trying to clear the manhole to stop flooding. Humberside Fire and Rescue Service said the situation in the Hessle area of Hull was "horrible". Witnesses described seeing the Mr. Barnett becoming submerged as the water levels rose and losing consciousness as the emergency crews struggled to free him. He was given a tube to breathe through and emergency services were said to be on the verge of amputating his foot before the freezing temperatures became too much for him and he was pronounced dead. Read The Full Story Rich Nations Accused Of 'Green Imperialism' At Asian Economic Forum 2007-06-25 20:07:55 Asian business and government leaders have accused rich countries of hypocrisy, saying they run polluting industries with cheap labor in China and then blame the country for worsening climate change. "This is green imperialism," Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Malaysia's deputy finance minister, told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on east Asia, a two-day conference in Singapore. A Chinese aviation tycoon told the forum that the west was the original polluter, while an American businessman noted that Asia's energy consumption is relatively disproportionate to its contribution to the world economy. Read The Full Story Zoellick Confirmed As New World Bank Chief 2007-06-25 20:07:27 The World Bank's governing board Monday rubber-stamped the appointment of Robert Zoellick as its next president, clearing the way for the U.S. nominee to take up his post at the start of next week. Zoellick was the only nomination for the job as head of the world's largest development agency, and as expected he was unanimously approved by the representatives of the bank's member governments at a board meeting in Washington. "In coming to their decision, the executive directors considered that Mr. Zoellick brings to the bank presidency strong leadership and managerial qualities as well as a proven track record in international affairs and the drive required to enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the bank," the board said in a statement. Read The Full Story Israel's Olmert Proposes Release Of 250 Fatah Prisoners To Boost Support For Abbas 2007-06-25 20:06:42 Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Monday he will release 250 members of Fatah from Israeli prisons in a goodwill gesture aimed at boosting the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert made the announcement at a summit with Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, called after Abbas' organization was pushed out of Gaza by Hamas. "As a gesture of goodwill towards the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence,"  Olmert said in a speech to the gathering. Read The Full Story Existing Home Sales Hit Lowest Level In Four Years 2007-06-25 13:39:15 Reflecting further housing troubles, sales of existing homes fell in May to the lowest level in four years while the median home price dropped for a record 10th consecutive month. The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 0.3 percent to 5.99 million units in May, the slowest sales pace since June of 2003. The median price of a home sold last month dropped to $223,700, down 2.1 percent from a year ago. It marked the 10th straight price decline compared with a year ago, the longest stretch of weakness on record. Read The Full Story Commentary: They'll Break The Bad News On 9/11 2007-06-25 13:38:29 Intellpuke: The following commentary by Frank Rich was intially posted on the New York Times website on Sunday, June 24, 2007. Mr. Rich's commentary follows: By this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House's top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam's aluminum tubes. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq - the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America - had officially begun. America wasn't paying close enough attention then. We can't afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we'd be wise to heed. The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the "surge" was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we'd have "a pretty good feel" whether his policy "made sense." On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a "snapshot" of progress in Iraq. "Snapshot," of course, means "Never mind!" Read The Full Story Commentary: A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering On Lunacy 2007-06-25 13:37:42 Intellpuke: The following commentary by columnist Maureen Dowd appeared in the New York Times edition for Sunday, June 24, 2007. Ms. Dowd's commentary follows: It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month. Harry's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice's culture of invisibility. I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet - a separate entity from the White House. I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution. Read The Full Story Supreme Court Loosens Restrictions On Election Ads 2007-06-25 13:36:57 The Supreme Court loosened restrictions Monday on corporate- and union-funded television ads that air close to elections, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law. The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The law unreasonably limits speech and violates the group's First Amendment rights, the court said. The decision could lead to a bigger role for corporations, unions and other interest groups in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. Read The Full Story Hamas Releases Audio Tape Of Captured Israeli Soldier 2007-06-25 13:35:06 The captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit warned Monday that his health is deteriorating and asked the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoners to free him in an audio tape released on the first anniversary of his seizure by Hamas-affiliated militias in the Gaza Strip. Shalit, an army corporal who has turned 20 in captivity, began his 93-second message by telling his parents, siblings and fellow soldiers he was addressing them from his "jail" in Gaza and that he missed them. Speaking in Hebrew, he said he needs "prolonged hospitalization" for a condition he did not specify in what was his first public statement since his capture in a cross-border raid from Gaza on June 25, 2006. Shalit's voice, confirmed by his father, Noam, served as narrative for a video montage of Israeli military forces arresting Palestinians and carrying out other operations. Emblazoned alongside the pictures was the logo of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, which earlier this month routed forces from the rival Fatah party to take control of Gaza. Read The Full Story Commentary: Don't Privatize Our Spies 2007-06-25 02:07:32 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Patrick Radden Keefe writes that contracting out spy work is a bad idea. Mr. Keefe, a fellow at the Century Foundation, is the author of “Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping.” His commentary appears in the New York Times edition for Monday, June 25, 2007. Shortly after 9/11, Senator Bob Graham, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for “a symbiotic relationship between the intelligence community and the private sector.” They say you should be careful what you wish for. In the intervening years a huge espionage-industrial complex has developed, as government spymasters outsourced everything from designing surveillance technology to managing case officers overseas. Today less than half of the staff at the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C., are actual government employees, The Los Angeles Times reports; at the C.I.A. station in Islamabad, Pakistan, contractors sometimes outnumber employees by three to one. So just how much of the intelligence budget goes to private contracts? Because that budget is highly classified, and many intelligence contracts are allocated without oversight or competitive bidding, it seemed we would never know. Until last month, that is: a procurement executive from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence gave a PowerPoint presentation at a conference in Colorado and let slip a staggering statistic - private contracts now account for 70 percent of the intelligence budget. Read The Full Story Romney Gaining Credibility In Early Primary States 2007-06-25 02:06:57 When former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney began airing television ads in a handful of states last winter, his opponents paid little notice. Early advertising in presidential campaigns - particularly commercials broadcast almost 11 months before the first contests - seemed a classic waste of resources. Four months and more than $4 million later, Romney's ads are still running, and the GOP presidential candidate is reaping the dividends. Although he remains well behind former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, in most national polls, his standing in the states that will kick off the nominating process has risen dramatically. In New Hampshire, Romney leads both McCain, who won there in 2000, and Giuliani, who leads virtually all the national polls. In Iowa, his campaign's organizational depth recently drove Giuliani and McCain to drop out of an August GOP presidential straw poll - seen as a trial run for next year's first-in-the-nation caucuses - rather than risk a costly and embarrassing defeat at the hands of their lesser-known rival. Read The Full Story Fire Destroys 165 Homes In California 2007-06-25 02:06:26 A wind-driven wildfire destroyed at least 165 homes and other structures and scorched 750 acres just southwest of Lake Tahoe, a spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department said Sunday. Sheriff's Lt. Kevin House said the fire is less than 5 percent contained and has more than 500 homes in its path, but no injuries or deaths have been reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown. ''This thing is raging out of control, and there's no estimate as to when that may change,'' said House. The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors has issued a declaration of emergency, said House. Read The Full Story	GOP Senator Say Iraq Plan Not Working 2007-06-26 01:43:46 Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior Republican and a reliable vote for President Bush on the war, said Monday that Bush's Iraq strategy was not working and that the U.S. should downsize the military's role. The unusually blunt assessment deals a political blow to Bush, who has relied heavily on GOP support to stave off anti-war legislation. It also comes as a surprise. Most Republicans have said they were willing to wait until September to see if Bush's recently ordered troop buildup in Iraq was working. "In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved," Lugar, R-Indiana, said in a Senate floor speech. "Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term." Read The Full Story Editorial: Three Bad Rulings 2007-06-26 01:42:52 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, June 26, 2007. The Supreme Court hit the trifecta Monday: Three cases involving the First Amendment. Three dismaying decisions by Chief Justice John Roberts’ new conservative majority. Chief Justice Roberts and the four others in his ascendant bloc used the next-to-last decision day of this term to re-open the political system to a new flood of special-interest money, to weaken protection of student expression and to make it harder for citizens to challenge government violations of the separation of church and state. In the process, the reconfigured court extended its noxious habit of casting aside precedents without acknowledging it -  insincere judicial modesty scored by Justice Antonin Scalia in a concurring opinion. First, campaign finance. Four years ago, a differently constituted court upheld sensible provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act designed to prevent corporations and labor unions from circumventing the ban on their spending in federal campaigns by bankrolling phony “issue ads.” These ads purport to just educate voters about a policy issue, but are really aimed at a particular candidate. Read The Full Story Ex-EPA Chief Defends Role In 9/11 Response 2007-06-26 01:42:16 Testifying at a Congressional hearing on Monday about the government’s environmental response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Christie Whitmanstaunchly defended her statements assuring the public that the air in Lower Manhattan was safe in the days immediately after the attack. Facing some of her toughest Congressional critics, Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, repeatedly denied the critics’ assertions that there had been a deliberate attempt to play down health risks or that the White House had improperly influenced statements she made in the weeks after 9/11. She said that she was addressing residents of Lower Manhattan - not workers at ground zero - when she said a week after the attack that the air was safe to breathe. She said that the agency issued strong and repeated warnings to workers on the debris pile to wear protective equipment, but that her agency had no ability or authority to enforce that requirement. Read The Full Story Mexico Demotes Senior Police Officials In Graft Crackdown 2007-06-26 01:41:13 The heads of federal police agencies in all 32 Mexican states and 250 other high-ranking officers were demoted Monday in one of the broadest corruption crackdowns in this country's recent history. The demotions are the latest step in President Felipe Calderon's campaign to fight drug cartels, which are blamed for more than 1,000 execution-style killings this year and have been largely undeterred by Mexican military offensives against their strongholds. The demoted police chiefs and officers will undergo ethics training in hopes of bringing them up to "international standards" for professionalism, Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna said Monday at a news conference. They will remain on the payroll - under Mexican law, it is extremely difficult to fire police officers. Garcia Luna gave no details about possible crimes committed by the demoted officials or whether any of them would eventually be removed from office. Read The Full Story Staph Superbug MRSA May Be Infecting Hospital, Nursing Home Patients 2007-06-25 20:09:07 A dangerous, drug-resistant staph germ may be infecting as many as 5 percent of hospital and nursing home patients, according to a comprehensive study. At least 30,000 U.S. hospital patients may have the superbug at any given time, according to a survey released Monday by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. The estimate is about 10 times the rate that some health officials had previously estimated. Read The Full Story Venezuela's Chavez Tells Army To Be Ready For Guerrilla War Against U.S. 2007-06-25 20:07:40 President Hugo Chavez has ordered Venezuela's armed forces to prepare for a guerrilla war against the United States, saying there must be a strategy to defeat the superpower if it invades. He said it had already launched a non-military campaign using economic, psychological and political means to topple his socialist government and seize control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves. "We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti-imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war every day," the president told hundreds of soldiers assembled at Tiuna Fort, a military base in the capital Caracas, on Sunday. Read The Full Story With Bush Support, Blair Gets New Job As Envoy To Help Palestinians 2007-06-25 20:07:11 Tony Blair has landed a major diplomatic job as the international Middle East peace envoy, responsible for preparing the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. His role, to be announced Tuesday, will be largely to work with the Palestinians over security, economy and governance. Working from an office in Jerusalem, and possibly another in the West Bank, Blair will become the special representative for the Middle East quartet of the United Nations, European Union, U.S. and Russia. The announcement comes on the eve of his departure from Downing Street Wednesday and is privately welcomed by Gordon Brown. The arrangement, which has been under preparation for weeks, is due to be agreed at a meeting of the quartet Tuesday. Read The Full Story UPDATE: California Wildfire Destroys At Least 220 Homes, 1,000 People Evacuated 2007-06-25 13:39:25 More than 220 homes and other structures have been destroyed by a wind-driven blaze near Lake Tahoe today, forcing 1,000 people to flee their homes, as the tinder-dry western part of the country moved into the summer fire season. The fire produced a thick layer of smoke that inhibited firefighting operations from the air, and prompted health authorities to warn nearby residents to stay indoors with their windows closed to avoid breathing the contaminated air. Another 500 homes and vacation retreats, many of them in heavily forested areas, were said to be in danger from the flames, which continued to spread despite the work of more than 600 firefighters. They were assisted somewhat when the winds died down to about 12 miles per hour today, after gusting up to 35 m.p.h. on Sunday. Read The Full Story Experts: Repeat Deployments Hurt Care Efforts 2007-06-25 13:38:59 With troops facing extended combat tours without relief that are unprecedented in U.S. history, experts say even the expanded health care proposed by the Army will not prevent significant numbers of soldiers from suffering life-changing mental disorders. If anything, it may get worse. Deployments have already been extended from 12 months to 15 months, and the Army says it is considering extending them even more to keep maintain the present buildup of troops in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday that was "a worst case scenario." A Defense Department-appointed task force that visited posts and bases for a year and reviewed data supplied by the services recommended last week that soldiers get one month of in-theater R&R for every three months on the line. The Army rejected the proposal, saying instead it might consider two to three days in a secure location for every eight days in a high-combat zone. Read The Full Story Bombing Strikes At Iraqi Sheiks Allied To U.S. 2007-06-25 13:38:05 More than 40 people died today in a wave of suicide bombings across Iraq, including an attack on a hotel in Baghdad where a group of sheiks opposed to al-Qaeda was holding a tribal conference. The bombing at the Mansour Hotel, which is also headquarters to several news organizations, killed 12 people and wounded 18. Members of Anbar Awakening, a group of Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents opposed to al-Qaeda, were meeting at the hotel at the time of the explosion. The group has joined forces with police units backed by the United States to fight al-Qaeda, prompting a power struggle in the region. “According to initial reports, six sheiks are among the dead,” Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, told Reuters. Also among the dead were Rahim al-Maliki, a noted Iraqi poet, as well as a ministry of defense consultant. Read The Full Story Supreme Court Bars Suits On Faith Intitiative 2007-06-25 13:37:19 The Supreme Court ruled Monday that ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money. The 5-4 decision blocks a lawsuit by a group of atheists and agnostics against eight Bush administration officials including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The taxpayers' group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., objected to government conferences in which administration officials encourage religious charities to apply for federal grants. Taxpayers in the case ''set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur'' unless the court stopped the Bush administration initiative, wrote Justice Samuel Alito. ''Of course, none of these things has happened.'' Read The Full Story Number Of Blacks Joining U.S. Military Decline 2007-06-25 13:36:24 The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began. Other job prospects are soaring and relatives of potential recruits increasingly are discouraging them from joining the armed services. According to data obtained by the Associated Press, the decline covers all four military services for active duty recruits. The drop is even more dramatic when National Guard and Reserve recruiting is included. The findings reflect the growing unpopularity of the wars, particularly among family members and other adults who exert influence over high school and college students considering the military as a place to serve their country, further their education or build a career. Walking past the Army recruiting station in downtown Washington, D.C., this past week, Sean Glover said he has done all he can to talk black relatives out of joining the military. Read The Full Story Audit Of KBR Iraq Contract Faults Records For Fuel, Food 2007-06-25 02:07:43 KBR, the government contracting firm formerly under Halliburton, did not keep accurate records of gasoline distribution, put its employees in living spaces that may be larger than warranted and served meals that appeared to cost $4.5 million more than necessary under a contract to perform work in Iraq, according to an audit by a government oversight agency. The report, to be released today by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, addresses a sliver of a $22.5 billion contract that KBR won to provide services for the U.S. military. The inspector general's office focused on four services that KBR was paid to provide in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone: supplying gasoline, food services, and housing and various morale and recreation services. The inspector general faulted the U.S. government for not closely monitoring KBR. As a result, the report said, "KBR's operations may have resulted in excessive government costs and high risk that government resources could have been used improperly." Read The Full Story Drug-Resistant MRSA Strain May Be Spreading From Pigs To Humans 2007-06-25 02:07:14 Campaigners Monday called for urgent tests on the U.K.'s farm animals after the emergence of a new strain of MRSA which has spread rapidly among farmers in Europe, causing an array of serious infections. The drug-resistant bug is thought to have arisen in pigs fed antibiotics to protect them against farm-borne diseases and boost their growth. The emergence of the new strain backs up fears voiced by some experts that the heavy use of antibiotics in farm animals could lead to a drug-resistant bug capable of infecting humans. The strain of staphylococcus aureus, known as ST398, is resistant to commonly used antibiotics and has caused skin infections and rare heart and bone infections in patients in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Germany. A report published Monday by the organic farming organization, the Soil Association, says the superbug represents a new threat to human health. It urged the government to introduce immediate screening of national livestock and strict testing of imported meat products and animals from affected regions, to prevent the superbug spreading to Britain. The report reveals the swift spread of the new MRSA strain, which tested positive in 39% of pigs at nine abattoirs in the Netherlands last year. A further survey identified the strain in 13% of Dutch calves. Read The Full Story Alaska Wilfire Wreaks Havoc 2007-06-25 02:06:39 With dozens of homes and cabins already destroyed by wildfire, crews worked Sunday to protect hundreds of others tucked in the hills of the scenic Kenai Peninsula. The fire has burgeoned to 81 square miles since Tuesday, consuming 35 far-flung cabins in the Caribou Hills, state fire information officials said. Forty other structures, including sheds and outhouses, were also lost in the popular hunting and snowmobiling area about 80 miles south of Anchorage. The blaze is carving easily through wide swaths of spruce killed by beetles, and crews are finding it hard to maneuver in the warren of footpaths and gravel roads crisscrossing the hills, said fire information officer Elaine Hall. The fire threatens another 600 residences and cabins, said Hall. An evacuation order has been in effect since Friday, but fire officials said an unknown number of residents have refused to budge. Read The Full Story Video Shows Kidnapped BBC Journalist Wearing Explosives Belt 2007-06-25 02:06:10 The British Foreign Office has condemned a video of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston which shows him with a belt of explosives strapped around his waist. News of the video emerged in a speech by the deposed Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, in which he criticized the kidnapping as a threat to Palestinian interests. Haniyeh said: "In the past they showed him in an orange uniform. Today they showed him with an explosives belt round his waist." The one-minute 42-second tape, titled "Alan's Appeal", was posted by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, which has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, on a site often used by militants. Looking nervous and stressed, Johnston says: "Captors tell me that very promising negotiations were ruined when the Hamas movement and the British government decided to press for a military solution to this kidnapping. The situation now is very serious. As you can see I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there was any attempt to storm this area," he adds. Read The Full Story
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