Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday June 6 2007 - (813)

Wednesday June 6 2007 edition
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World Health Organization Warns Of Spread In Drug-Resistent TB 2007-06-06 01:32:19 Tuberculosis may reach the point where most new cases in some countries are resistant to many drugs unless far greater efforts are made now to stop the spread of the infection, World Health Organization officials said Tuesday. That chilling forecast is based in part on the organization’s analyses showing that on average, a patient infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis in 2004 was resistant to more drugs than a similar patient with that diagnosis in 1994, Dr. Paul P. Nunn, a TB expert for the organization, said at a news conference. The case of Andrew Speaker, the Atlanta, Georgia, man with extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis who took commercial flights for his wedding in Greece and honeymoon in Europe and set off an international health scare, has focused attention on the disease, and prompted the news conference. Read The Full Story Editorial - Gitmo: A National Disgrace 2007-06-06 01:31:48 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, June 6, 2007. Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again. The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants. On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions. Read The Full Story Sea Lions In California Hit By High Levels Of Acid Poison 2007-06-06 01:31:13 A distressed, possibly pregnant sea lion was wheeled recently into the Marine Mammal Care Center here, just as two other lions were herded into cages in preparation for their return to the ocean. “That’s just the way it is,” said Lauren Palmer, the chief veterinarian at the center. “Two go out and more come in.” Peter Wallerstein of the Whale Rescue Team, a private group authorized by Los Angeles to rescue whales and other marine mammals, said he had found the sea lion on the sand in nearby Manhattan Beach. Wallerstein said he feared she could have been poisoned by domoic acid, a toxin released by large blooms of algae that causes seizures in sea lions. Read The Full Story Bush Invites Russian Generals To Inspect Missile Defense Project 2007-06-05 20:31:21 George Bush intervened Tuesday in the worst dispute between Russia and the west since the end of the cold war, offering to cooperate with Vladimir Putin on the Pentagon's missile defense project. With the row over the "Son of Star Wars" project threatening to derail the G8 summit, Bush appealed to the Russian leader to relent in his fierce criticism of the missile shield. "The cold war is over, it ended. Russia is not the enemy," Bush told journalists at Prague castle in the Czech Republic after discussing the Pentagon's plans with the Czech president and prime minister, Vaclav Klaus and Mirek Topolanek. Bush arrived in central Europe, where the Pentagon wants to station parts of the shield, days after the Russian leader accused Washington of initiating an arms race in Europe reminiscent of the 1980s. Read The Full Story Up To 900 Bird Species At Risk From Climate Change 2007-06-05 20:30:53 A combination of climate change and habitat destruction will significantly threaten 400 to 900 bird species by 2050, according to researchers who have carried out a global analysis of the effects of human activities on land-dwelling birds. By the end of the century, the list will be roughly twice as long. The birds at risk are those which the researchers predict will lose at least half of their habitat range. They say that although the effects of climate change are significant, they are dwarfed by damage to the birds' habitat due to, for example, logging to convert forest to farmland. The analysis uses data from the United Nation's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a five-year project begun in 2001 involving more than 1,300 experts worldwide which aimed to provide a state-of-the-art appraisal of the world's ecosystems, the services they provide and how to conserve them. Read The Full Story Green Vatican Embraces Solar Power 2007-06-05 16:29:41 Some of the Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's worry about squandering the Earth's resources, a Vatican engineer says. The roof of the Paul VI auditorium will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said Tuesday. The 6,300-seat auditorium is used for the pontiff's general audiences on Wednesdays in winter and in bad weather during the rest of the year. Concerts in honor of pontiffs are also occasionally staged in the hall, with its sweeping stage. The cells will produce enough electricity to illuminate, heat or cool the hall, said Cuscianna. Read The Full Story Essay: The Universe, Expanding Beyond All Understanding 2007-06-05 16:28:53 When Albert Einstein was starting out on his cosmological quest 100 years ago, the universe was apparently a pretty simple and static place. Common wisdom had it that all creation consisted of an island of stars and nebulae known as the Milky Way surrounded by infinite darkness. We like to think we’re smarter than that now. We know space is sprinkled from now to forever with galaxies rushing away from one another under the impetus of the Big Bang. Bask in your knowledge while you can. Our successors, whoever and wherever they are, may have no way of finding out about the Big Bang and the expanding universe, according to one of the more depressing scientific papers I have ever read. If things keep going the way they are, Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and Robert J. Scherrer of Vanderbilt Universitycalculate, in 100 billion years the only galaxies left visible in the sky will be the half-dozen or so bound together gravitationally into what is known as the Local Group, which is not expanding and in fact will probably merge into one starry ball. Read The Full Story 6 Believed Dead In Medical Plane Crash In Lake Michigan 2007-06-05 13:01:07 No one was believed to have survived the crash of a small plane that was carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs, authorities said Tuesday. Searchers found human remains during a search in Lake Michigan, about six miles northeast of Milwaukee, a Coast Guard official said Tuesday. The team's lifesaving mission - carrying unspecified organs from Milwaukee for transplant to a patient in Michigan - was cut short Monday when the Cessna Citation went down in 57-degree water shortly after the pilot signaled an emergency. Those on board were two surgeons and two donor specialists from the University of Michigan Health System and two pilots who regularly fly their transplant missions. Read The Full Story Drug Giant Pfizer Sued Over Child Deaths 2007-06-05 12:54:25 Nigeria filed new charges against Pfizer Monday, seeking $6.95 billion in damages over the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. The suit came after a separate court delayed until July two cases in which Pfizer is accused by the northern state of Kano of harming Nigerian children by testing them with the antibiotic Trovan in 1996. Although the Kano state government case has been running for more than two years, Monday was the first time the federal government filed its own charges. Read The Full Story Poll: Americans Discontent Over Iraq And With U.S. Congress Grows 2007-06-05 01:24:15 Growing frustration with the performance of the Democratic Congress, combined with widespread public pessimism over President Bush's temporary troop buildup in Iraq, has left satisfaction with the overall direction of the country at its lowest point in more than a decade, according to a new Washington Post-ABC Newspoll. Almost six in 10 Americans said they do not think the additional troops sent to Iraq since the beginning of the year will help restore civil order there, and 53 percent - a new high in Post-ABC News polls - said they do not believe that the war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States. Disapproval of Bush's performance in office remains high, but the poll highlighted growing disapproval of the new Democratic majority in Congress. Just 39 percent said they approve of the job Congress is doing, down from 44 percent in April, when the new Congress was about 100 days into its term. More significant, approval of congressional Democrats dropped 10 percentage points over that same period, from 54 percent to 44 percent. Read The Full Story Massacres In The Biofuel Revolution 2007-06-05 01:23:31 Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy. Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo. Several companies were collaborating by falsifying deeds to claim ownership of the land, said Andres Castro, the general secretary of Fedepalma, the national federation of palm oil producers. Read The Full Story UPDATE: Guantanamo Trials In Chaos As Military Judge Throws Out 2 Cases 2007-06-05 01:22:39 The Bush administration's plans to bring detainees at Guantanamo Bay to trial were thrown into chaos Monday when military judges threw out all charges against a detainee held there since he was 15 and dismissed charges against another detainee who chauffeured Osama bin Laden. In back-to-back arraignments for the Canadian Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national, the U.S. military's cases against the alleged al-Qaeda figures were dismissed because, the judges said, the government had failed to establish jurisdiction. Monday's decision by Colonel Peter Brownback to dismiss all charges against Khadr on technical grounds has broad implications for the Bush administration's system of military tribunals because the technicality appears to apply to all 385 prisoners held at Guantanamo. The dismissal of the case also undermines the administration's efforts to show that the military tribunals are based on sound legal practice and can provide detainees with a fair hearing, said detainee lawyers. Read The Full Story	Doctors Warn That Avandia Still Has Heart Risks 2007-06-06 01:32:06 A medical study intended to demonstrate the heart safety of a well-known diabetes treatment seems, instead, to have added to the controversy over the drug. Its manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, says preliminary results of the clinical trial provide reassurance that the drug, Avandia, an oral medication for Type 2 diabetes that has been used by an estimated seven million people worldwide, does not raise the risk of a heart attack or death from cardiovascular disease. Influential doctors said that the data published online Tuesday in a major medical journal did nothing to ease their concerns about the heart risks. The doctors raised their concerns in three editorials accompanying the Avandia study in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Read The Full Story Hundreds Of Opposition Workers Arrested In Pakistan 2007-06-06 01:31:31 A government-led crackdown against the news media and the political opposition intensified in Pakistan Tuesday, with hundreds of party workers arrested and television stations bracing for raids. The crackdown came as Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf moved to limit the political fallout from his decision three months ago to suspend the nation's chief justice. Critics have accused the president of authoritarianism and said his tactics are an indication of his slipping grip on power. The arrests were made early Tuesday, with police hauling away opposition party workers across Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab, said opposition leaders. Read The Full Story McCain, Brownback Didn't Read Intelligence Estimate On Iraq 2007-06-05 20:31:35 Sens. John McCain, of Arizona, and Sam Brownback, of Kansas, both admitted Tuesday night they voted to authorize the U.S. military invasion of Iraq without reading the formal National Intelligence Estimate in advance. The confession drew a jab from former Gov. Jim Gilmore, of Virginia, in the opening moments of a presidential campaign debate. Members of Congress "ought to read at least that kind of material," he said. Rep. Duncan Hunter, of California, said he had, the only member of Congress on the debate stage to make the claim. The war dominated the opening moments of the debate, two nights after Democratic presidential hopefuls stood on the same stage at St. Anselm College in the nation's first primary state. Read The Full Story Senator's Death Sees Both Parties Eye Wyoming 2007-06-05 20:31:06 The death Tuesday of Republican U.S. Senator Craig Thomas opens a new opportunity for the Democratic party, even if it does little to change the political landscape in Washington, D.C., in the short term. With Democrats holding only a razor-thin majority in the Senate, thanks to the support of two independent senators, the loss of the 74-year-old, who represented Wyoming, creates a headache for Republicans. Already facing a tough challenge to hold onto Wyoming's only House of Representatives seat and the other Senate seat next year, the Republican party will now also have to compete in a special election at the same time to fill the rest of Thomas's term until 2012. Read The Full Story U.S. Doubles Air Attacks In Iraq 2007-06-05 16:30:05 Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago. The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its surroundings - an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven with sectarian violence. It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties. In the first 4 1/2 months of 2007, American aircraft dropped 237 bombs and missiles in support of ground forces in Iraq, already surpassing the 229 expended in all of 2006, according to U.S. Air Force figures obtained by the Associated Press. Read The Full Story Suspect In JFK Terror Plot Surrenders 2007-06-05 16:29:15 The fourth suspect in a terrorist plot to ignite jet fuel tanks at Kennedy International Airport in Queens surrendered this morning, police officials in Trinidad said Tuesday. The suspect, Abdel Nur, 57, turned himself in at the West End regional police station in Trinidad and was transferred to the police headquarters in Port-of-Spain, the capital, where he is being questioned by police investigators and F.B.I. agents, said the police. He is expected to make his first appearance in court Tuesday or Wednesday. Read The Full Story Category 3 Cyclone Closes On Oil-Rich Persian Gulf 2007-06-05 13:01:24 A cyclone with Category Three hurricane winds churned toward the oil-rich Persian Gulf on Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents of Oman's coastal towns to flee their homes. The storm was expected to lose strength before hitting the most important installations in the Persian Gulf off of Saudi Arabia and southern Iran, but oil analysts said it could delay the loading of tankers in the Gulf - something that could cause a spike in oil prices. With winds of 120 miles per hour and gusts of 150 miles per hour - the equivalent of a Category Three hurricane - Cyclone Gonu headed northwest through the Indian Ocean toward Oman's east coast, with rain from its outer edges already reaching some areas. Read The Full Story Libby Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison, $250,000 Fine 2007-06-05 13:00:55 I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 for lying to investigators about his role in leaking the identity of an undercover CIA officer. "Evidence in this case overwhelmingly indicated Mr. Libby's culpability," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said moments before he handed out the sentence. The judge said he was sentencing Libby "with a sense of sadness. I have the highest respect for people who take positions in our government and appreciate tremendously efforts they bring to bear to protect this country." At the same time, Walton said, "I also think it is important we expect and demand a lot from people who put themselves in those positions. Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course." Read The Full Story Bush Administration Drastically Cuts Back Global Warming Checks From Space 2007-06-05 01:24:37 The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases. A confidential report to the White House, obtained by the Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago. Because of technology glitches and a near-doubling in the original $6.5 billion cost, the Defense Department has decided to downsize and launch four satellites paired into two orbits, instead of six satellites and three orbits. The satellites were intended to gather weather and climate data, replacing existing satellites as they come to the end of their useful lifetimes beginning in the next couple of years. Read The Full Story Global Warming 'Is Three Times Faster Than Worst Predictions' 2007-06-05 01:23:51 Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed. They have found that emissions of carbon dioxide have been rising at three times the rate in the 1990s. The Arctic ice cap is melting three times as fast - and the seas are rising twice as rapidly - as had been predicted. News of the studies - which are bound to lead to calls for even tougher anti-pollution measures than have yet been contemplated - comes as the leaders of the world's most powerful nations prepare for the most crucial meeting yet on tackling climate change. Read The Full Story Commentary: Don't Listen To Listen To What The Rich World's Leaders Say - Look At What They Do 2007-06-05 01:23:08 Intellpuke:  The following commentary by Professor George Monbiot appears in the Guardian edition for Tuesday, June 5, 2007. In it, Prof. Monbiot urges people to pay less attention to what the world's rich leaders say and pay much more attention to what they actually do. As an example, he writes that  thousands of Filipino children who die every year courtesy of the formula milk corporations, backed by U.S. lobbying. Prof. Monbiot's column follows: It is time once again for that touching annual ritual, in which the world's most powerful people move themselves to tears. At Heiligendamm they will emote with the wretched of the earth. They will beat their breasts and say many worthy and necessary things - about climate change, Africa, poverty, trade - but one word will not leave their lips. Power. Amid the patrician goodwill, there will be no acknowledgement that the power they wield over other nations destroys everything they claim to stand for. The leaders of the G8 nations present themselves as a force for unmitigated good. Sometimes they fail, but they seek only to make the world a kinder place. Bob Geldof and Bono give oxygen to this deception, speaking of the good works the leaders might perform, or of the good works they have failed to perform - but not mentioning the active harm. They refuse to acknowledge that what the rich nations give with one finger they take with both hands. Look at what is happening, right now, in the Philippines. This country has many problems, but one stands out: just 16% of children between four and five months old are exclusively breastfed. This is one of the lowest documented rates on earth, and it has fallen by a third since 1998. As 70% of Filipinos have inadequate access to clean water, the result is a public health disaster. Every year, according to the World Health Organization, some 16,000 Filipino children die as a result of "inappropriate feeding practices". Read The Full Story U.S. Court Questions FCC's Right To Police Airwaves For Language 2007-06-05 01:22:24 A federal appeals court tossed out an indecency ruling against Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network Monday and broadly questioned whether the Federal Communications Commission has the right to police the airwaves for offensive language. In a 2 to 1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York ruled that the FCC went too far in issuing a 2006 decision against Fox Broadcasting for separate incidents in 2002 and 2003 after singer Cher and celebrity Nicole Richie each uttered an expletive on live television. The ruling is a rebuke to the FCC and a victory for television networks, which in recent years have pushed back against the FCC's crackdown on indecency. In 2004, the agency reversed years of policy and effectively branded even "fleeting," or one-time, use of an expletive off-limits on broadcast television and radio, angering Hollywood,  which warned of a chilling effect on programming. Read The Full Story
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