Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday July 22 2007 - (813)

Sunday July 22 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Welcome To Richistan, USA - Dream Of Riches Turning Into Nightmare Of Inequality 2007-07-22 02:32:43 On the surface, Mark Cain works for a time-share company. Members pay a one-off sum to join and an annual fee. They then get to book holiday time in various destinations around the globe. But Solstice clients are not ordinary people. They are America's super-rich and a brief glance at its operations reveal the vast and still widening gulf between them and the rest of America. Solstice has only about 80 members. Platinum membership costs them $875,000 to join and then a $42,000 annual fee. In return they get access to 10 homes from London to California and a private yacht in the Caribbean, all fully staffed with cooks, cleaners and "lifestyle managers" ready to satisfy any whim from helicopter-skiing to audiences with local celebrities. As the firm's marketing manager, Cain knows what Solstice's clientele want. "We are trying to feed and manage this insatiable appetite for luxury," Cain said with pride. America's super-rich have returned to the days of the Roaring Twenties. As the rest of the country struggles to get by, a huge bubble of multi-millionaires lives almost in a parallel world. The rich now live in their own world of private education, private health care and gated mansions. They have their own schools and their own banks. They even travel apart - creating a booming industry of private jets and yachts. Their world now has a name, thanks to a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Frank which has dubbed it "Richistan". There every dream can come true. But for the American Dream itself - which promises everyone can join the elite - the emergence of Richistan is a mixed blessing. "We in America are heading towards 'developing nation' levels of inequality. We would become like Brazil. What does that say about us? What does that say about America?" said Frank. Read The Full Story U.S. Governors: States Should Take Lead On Climate Change 2007-07-22 02:32:03 States should develop creative approaches to climate change, just as they have with challenges such as health care, despite their different economic interests, governors said Saturday. "No individual state is going to solve the climate change problem, but we can do our part," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. "In the absence of national or international consensus or progress, we have the opportunity to show the way." Talks on state-level climate policy were planned for the annual National Governors Association meeting this weekend at a resort on Lake Michigan, where receding water levels have touched off debate over the effects of global warming on the Great Lakes. Stephen Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the European Union's environmental affairs counselor joined the discussion. The EPA has clashed with some states that are pushing for greater authority to regulate greenhouse gases, particularly automobile exhaust emissions. Read The Full Story City Of West Hollywood Becomes 80th U.S. Community To Vote To Impeach Bush, Cheney 2007-07-22 02:30:52 The White House is more than 2,600 miles from West Hollywood, a distance emblematic of how far left the progressive city is compared with elected leaders running the nation on Pennsylvania Avenue. Last week the distance came into focus as West Hollywood officials made their city the first in Southern California to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. West Hollywood was the 80th city or township in the nation to pass such a declaration, following similar actions in Michigan, Ohio and Vermont as well as six cities in Northern California, including Arcada and Eureka. Citing perceived abuses of power and constitutional transgressions, such as domestic wiretapping and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the City Council passed the resolution unanimously Monday. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Scales Back Diplomacy To Focus On Iraq, Middle East 2007-07-22 02:29:49 President Bush and his top Cabinet secretaries are scaling back their personal diplomacy around the world to focus more intently on Iraq and the rest of the Middle Eastas the administration concentrates its energy on top priorities for the president's last 18 months in office. In the past two weeks, Bush canceled a summit with Southeast Asian leaders in Singapore, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scrapped a trip to Africa and decided to skip a meeting in the Philippines, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates put off a swing through Latin America. The domestic debate over Iraq, which may culminate with a September progress report on the war, has made such travel untenable at the moment, said officials. The decisions underscore how much Iraq and the turmoil in the Middle East have come to consume Bush's presidency and threaten his ability to forge a lasting legacy. The canceled trips have fueled discontent in regions that have long felt snubbed by Bush, and U.S. diplomats and scholars warn of lasting damage. But as Bush's tenure wanes and Americans' patience with the Iraq war runs short, many specialists in Washington are saying the president must put aside secondary objectives. "An almost-exclusive concentration on Iraq is almost overdue," said James Dobbins, a longtime diplomat who served as Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan and now is a national security analyst at the Rand Corp. "We can't possibly stabilize Iraq unless we decide it's the most important thing we're doing." Read The Full Story Ambassador Crocker Urges Visas For Iraqis Aiding U.S. 2007-07-22 02:28:37 The American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker, has asked the Bush administration to take the unusual step of granting immigrant visas to all Iraqis employed by the U.S. government in Iraq because of growing concern that they will quit and flee the country if they cannot be assured eventual safe passage to the United States. Crocker's request comes as the administration is struggling to respond to the flood of Iraqis who have sought refuge in neighboring countries since sectarian fighting escalated early last year. The United States has admitted 133 Iraqi refugees since October, despite predicting that it would process 7,000 by the end of September. "Our [Iraqi staff members] work under extremely difficult conditions, and are targets for violence including murder and kidnapping," Crocker wrote Undersecretary of State Henrietta Holsman Fore. "Unless they know that there is some hope of an [immigrant visa] in the future, many will continue to seek asylum, leaving our Mission lacking in one of our most valuable assets." Read The Full Story Ethiopia Said To Block Food To Rebel Region - Hundreds Of Thousands Of People At Risk Of Starvation 2007-07-22 02:27:30 The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say. The Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have also been siphoning off millions of dollars in international food aid and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to their fighters, according to relief officials, former Ethiopian government administrators and a member of the Ethiopian Parliament who defected to Germany last month to protest the government’s actions. The blockade takes aim at the heart of the Ogaden region, a vast desert on the Somali border where the government is struggling against a growing rebellion and where government soldiers have been accused by human rights groups of widespread brutality. Read The Full Story Southern Britain Get Two Months Of Rain In One Day 2007-07-21 13:15:54 Some of the heaviest rainfall in living memory deluged southern Britain Friday, inundating places with up to one sixth of their entire annual rainfall in less than 24 hours. Downpours knocked out satellite communications, cut power, forced schools and homes to be evacuated, and badly disrupted roads and railways. Emergency services were severely stretched, while one wedding party was last night preparing to bed down in a church after they were surrounded by rapidly rising floodwaters. London saw its luck run out after having avoided the worst of the recent downpours, while northeast England, parts of which are still suffering from June's monsoon conditions, braced itself for more damage as the rain moved north. Read The Full Story Dow Jones Director Resigns In Protest Of Murdoch Deal 2007-07-21 13:15:20 German publishing executive Dieter von Holtzbrinck has resigned as a director of Dow Jones & Co to protest against the board's endorsement of a deal to sell the company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. In a letter to Dow Jones board members, von Holtzbrinck said he was "very worried" that Dow Jones's "unique journalistic values will long-term strongly suffer after the proposed sale". Dow Jones disclosed von Holtzbrinck's departure and included a copy of his letter in a regulatory filing on Thursday. Dow Jones's board endorsed the $US5 billion buyout offer from News Corp on Tuesday, and the proposal has now gone to the company's controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, for a decision. They are expected to meet Monday and take several days to consider the offer. Read The Full Story India Names Its First Female President 2007-07-21 13:14:52 India elected Pratibha Patil as the country's first female president Saturday in a vote seen as a victory for the hundreds of millions of Indian women who contend with widespread discrimination. Patil received 65.82 percent of the votes cast by national lawmakers and state legislators, said Election Commission head P.D.T. Achary. She had been widely expected to win. Patil, the 72-year-old candidate of the governing Congress party and its political allies, defeated incumbent Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. "I am grateful to the people of India, to all the men and women of India," Patil said in a brief statement to reporters. "This is a victory of the principles of which our Indian people uphold," she said flashing the victory sign to her supporters. Read The Full Story Commentary: An Inability To Tolerate Islam Contradicts Western Values 2007-07-21 02:18:55 Intellpuke: The following commentary by Karen Armstrong appears in the Guardian edition for Saturday, July 21, 2007. Ms. Armstrong is the author of several books on the history and teachings of the world's religions, including "The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah", "A History of God", "The Battle For God: A History of Fundamentalism" and "Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact On Today's World" among other books. Ms. Armstrong's commentary follows. In the 17th century, when some Iranian mullahs were trying to limit freedom of expression, Mulla Sadra, the great mystical philosopher of Isfahan, insisted that all Muslims were perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and that any religiosity based on intellectual repression and inquisitorial coercion was "polluted". Mulla Sadra exerted a profound influence on generations of Iranians, but it is ironic that his most famous disciple was probably Ayatollah Khomeini, author of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. This type of contradiction is becoming increasingly frequent in our polarized world, as I discovered last month, when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur to find that the Malaysian government had banned three of my books as "incompatible with peace and social harmony". This was surprising because the government had invited me to Malaysia, and sponsored two of my public lectures. Their position was absurd, because it is impossible to exert this type of censorship in the electronic age. In fact, my books seemed so popular in Malaysia that I found myself wondering if the veto was part of a Machiavellian plot to entice the public to read them. Old habits die hard. In a pre-modern economy, insufficient resources meant freedom of speech was a luxury few governments could afford, since any project that required too much capital outlay was usually shelved. To encourage a critical habit of mind that habitually called existing institutions into question in the hope of reform could lead to a frustration that jeopardized social order. It is only 50 years since Malaysia achieved independence and, although the public and press campaign vigorously against censorship, in other circles the old caution is alive and well. Read The Full Story Europe Experiencing Freak Weather 2007-07-21 02:18:27 A heat wave sweeping central and southeastern Europe killed at least 13 people this week, with soaring temperatures sparking forest fires, damaging crops and prompting calls to ban horse-drawn tourist carriages. In Romania, where temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) Friday, the Health Ministry said at least nine people had died since Monday due to heat. In Austria, where highs had hovered around 35 Celsius for days, the Health Ministry said three deaths Thursday were likely heat-related. Austrian media said at least five people had died from the heat, including an elderly woman who collapsed on a Vienna street Friday. A 56-year-old woman collapsed and died in Zagreb, Croatia, of what doctors believed was a heat-related heart attack. Temperatures in the Balkan country reached about 40 C Friday. Read The Full Story Taliban Threatens To Kill Kidnapped South Koreans 2007-07-21 02:17:38 Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill at least 18 kidnapped South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan. In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief. “They have got until tomorrow (Saturday) at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans,” Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told the Associated Press on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. “Right now they are safe and sound.” Outmatched by foreign troops, the Taliban often resort to kidnapping civilians caught traveling on treacherous roads, particularly in the country's south, where the insurgency is raging. The tactic hurts President Hamid Karzai's government by discouraging foreigners involved in reconstruction projects from venturing into remote areas where their help is most needed. Read The Full Story Bush Executive Order Governs CIA Interrogation Techniques 2007-07-21 02:17:04 President Bush Friday signed an executive order governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects by the CIA and barring torture, degrading treatment and serious acts of violence, the White House announced. The order "interprets the meaning and application" of Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions for purposes of the CIA's detention and interrogation program, which is designed to extract information from "captured al-Qaeda terrorists" about attack plans and the whereabouts of senior leaders, White House spokesman Tony Snow said in a statement. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in a separate statement that the executive order gives CIA interrogators new legal protections against claims of wrongdoing. Read The Full Story	Commentary: Bush Still Doesn't Get It 2007-07-22 02:32:23 Intellpuke: The following commentary is by Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun chairman of Islamic studies at American University and the author, most recently, of "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization." Mr.Ahmed's commentary appears in the Washington Post edition for Sunday, July 22, 2007. Here's a bit of modern-day heresy: President Bush actually has some rather sound instincts about the Muslim world. He has visited mosques more often than any of his predecessors, and he frequently talks of winning Muslim hearts and minds. So why are those hearts and minds so estranged today? What went wrong? The problem is that Bush has relied on ill-informed advisers and out-of-touch experts. By substituting their false expertise for his own sensible intuitions, he has failed to understand the Muslim world - which means he has failed to understand the arena in which the first post-9/11 presidency will be judged. Instead of seriously explaining Muslim societies that are profoundly split in complex ways, Bush's aides have offered a fatally flawed stereotype of Islam as monolithic and violent. These missteps have helped squander the potential goodwill of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan - countries that pose major threats to U.S. security, and countries that once saw themselves as U.S. friends. (When the Soviet Unioninvaded Afghanistan in 1979, I was the administrator in charge of south Waziristan, the lawless border region of Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is now said to be hiding, and I saw how appreciative Muslims were of U.S. support.) Today, rather than extending his hand to the people of Pakistan, Bush is marching in lockstep with the country's fading dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is mockingly referred to as "Busharraf." Read The Full Story Gasoline Prices Rise On Refineries' Record Failures 2007-07-22 02:31:41 Oil refineries across the country have been plagued by a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens of them to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping to drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer’s records. These mechanical breakdowns, which one analyst likened to an “invisible hurricane,” have created a bottleneck in domestic energy supplies, helping to push up gasoline prices 50 cents this year to well above $3 a gallon. A third of the country’s 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record according to analysts. There have been blazes at refineries in Louisiana, Texas, Indiana and California, some of them caused by lightning strikes. Plants have suffered power losses that disrupted operations; a midsize refinery in Kansas was flooded by torrential rains last month. American refiners are running roughly 5 percent below their normal levels at this time of the year. Read The Full Story Warming Lets Malaria Reach Kenya's Highlands 2007-07-22 02:30:22 The boy was feverish, vomiting, and wouldn't eat. His mother rushed him to a village clinic, suspecting measles, typhoid or one of the other usual childhood ailments found in Kenya's central highlands. Instead, the doctor diagnosed a disease she knew little about: malaria. Though it is Africa's biggest killer, malaria has always been a regional blight. In the secluded coffee-farming villages around Mt. Kenya, malaria was rare, something other people had to worry about, in the sun-baked west or along the steamy coast. "When I was growing up, we never heard of malaria," said Charity Njuki, 31, whose 2-year-old son, Eric, recently contracted the mosquito-borne parasite that causes the disease. Her older children, ages 14 and 10, hadn't had it. "I was really surprised." Read The Full Story Georgia Meat Processor Expands Recalled Products List Over Botulism 2007-07-22 02:29:04 A Georgia meat processor on Saturday expanded its recall of canned meat products that may be connected to a botulism outbreak. Castleberry's Food Co. of Augusta, Georgia, recalled more than 80 brands of canned chili, beef stew, corned beef hash and other meat products in addition to the 10 brands it had recalled Thursday. Cans of chili sauce made at the Castleberry's plant were found in the homes of an Indiana couple and two children in Texas who had been hospitalized with botulism. All four are expected to survive. Castleberry's, which is owned by Bumble Bee Seafoods LLC and based in San Diego, California, voluntarily expanded the recall. Brand names of the recalled products include Austex, Best Yet, Big Y, Black Rock, Bryan, Bunker Hill, Castle, Castleberry's, Cattle Drive, Firefighter, Food Club, Georgia, Goldstar, Great Value, Kroger, Lowes, Meijer, Morton House, Paramount, Piggly Wiggly, Prudence, Southern Home, Steak N Shake, Thrifty Maid, Triple Bar and Value Time. The recall also includes four varieties of Natural Balance dog food. Read The Full Story Key Aide To Iraq's Top Shiite Cleric Fatally Stabbed 2007-07-22 02:28:11 A top aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was stabbed to death in what Sistani's supporters believe was a warning to Iraq's senior Shiite cleric, authorities said Saturday. Abdullah Falaq was killed Friday in his office, which is adjacent to Sistani's home in the Shiite holy city of Najaf,  about 100 miles south of Baghdad, according to an aide to the cleric. Sistani is considered one of the most influential Shiite leaders in Iraq, and Falaq was his chief adviser on matters of Islamic law. Police said they had taken four suspects into custody. An officer said he could not comment on whether the men were part of any insurgent group. In January, an attempt to assassinate Sistani was foiled during a battle between U.S. and Iraqi military forces and insurgents near Najaf. A representative from Sistani's office expressed concern that an armed attacker had gained entrance to the heavily guarded compound and said he suspected that one of the cleric's bodyguards aided the killer. He said officials close to Sistani interpreted the attack as a threat to the ayatollah and are considering moving him out of Najaf. Read The Full Story Report: 152 Killed By Record Storm In China 2007-07-22 02:26:50 Record rainfall this week triggered floods, landslides and mud flows that killed 152 people in China and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands, state media reported Sunday. Since the start of the annual rainy season in June, floods have hit nearly half of China's regions and killed at least 400 people, said the official Xinhua News Agency. Worst-hit this week was southern China's Yunnan province, where rain triggered floods and landslides from Wednesday to Saturday. More than 4,000 houses were destroyed and 386,000 people evacuated, said Xinhua. It cited the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying that 59 people were killed in Yunnan, most of them caught in violent mud flows on Thursday. Eastern China's Shandong province and the southwestern city of Chongqing were also badly hit, with rain inflicting severe damage to infrastructure, transportation and telecommunications, said Xinhua. Read The Full Story Death Of RAF Men Illustrates Rising Threat To British Base In Basra 2007-07-21 13:15:38 The main British base in southern Iraq, erected around the old airport buildings on the outskirts of Basra, looked pretty safe. Squaddies talked and washed and played music in their blocks, or lines as the army likes to call them, naming them after famous generals. The paths in between were named after well-known London streets and landmarks; Bond Street, or Trafalgar Square. There were special barriers designed to protect the troops and deflect any incoming rocket or mortar. Everyone was supposed to have a helmet close by. Soldiers were being shot at down town but, surrounded by flat and empty ground, everything in the base seemed pretty relaxed and secure. That was last year. On Thursday three RAF personnel were killed, and a number of troops injured, in a sustained mortar attack on the base. They are expected to be named Saturday. Two of those killed were from 1 Squadron, RAF Regiment, based at Honington near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. The third was from 504 Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, based at Cottesmore in Rutland. The next of kin have been informed. The attack seems ominous. It showed that insurgents, Shia militia, rogue militia criminal gangs - whoever the attackers were - could reach what, under present plans, will soon be the British army's only base in southern Iraq. British troops are handing over all bases in central Basra to Iraqi forces. Des Browne, Britain's defense secretary, told Parliament members on Thursday that the number of troops in Iraq will be cut by a further 500, to total of 5,000. More cuts are on the way. Read The Full Story Environmentalist Beaten To Death In Russia 2007-07-21 13:15:05 A Russian environmentalist was beaten to death and seven others wounded on Saturday when a group armed with iron bars and baseball bats attacked their camp near a nuclear waste processing plant in Siberia. Russian media reported up to 15 people shouting fascist slogans attacked the environmentalists, who were living in the camp to protest against nuclear processing in the city of Angarsk near Lake Baikal, 5,000 kilometers east of Moscow. "One of the injured died in intensive care as a result of the attack," Ekho Moskvy radio station quoted one of the environmental activists, Olga Kozlova, as saying. Another resident of the camp, Marina Popova, said the attackers shouted slogans against anti-fascists. Read The Full Story Federal Court Orders Government To Turn Over Files On Detainees 2007-07-21 02:19:09 A federal appeals court yesterday ordered the government to turn over virtually all its information on Guantanamo  detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over its justification for holding the men indefinitely. The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and to lawyers for detainees. Read The Full Story Wildfire Burns Campground, Motel In Utah 2007-07-21 02:18:43 A wildfire that may have been started by sparks from a flat tire raced across thousands of acres toward a small town Friday, a day after burning through a campground and motel and forcing rescues. With a highly skilled team on its way from Florida, 150 area firefighters were battling the 24-square-mile fire against a backdrop of extraordinary heat and drought, with no immediate relief predicted. "It only takes a cigarette or a match and this stuff will explode," said Fred Burns, owner of Burns Brothers Ranch RV Resort in Fountain Green, which was nearby but not affected. The fire was burning toward the tiny community of Indianola, and residents in at least two dozen homes were advised to be ready to leave. Read The Full Story British Army Chief: We're Running Out Of Troops 2007-07-21 02:18:11 The head of the British Army has warned that Britain is almost running out of troops to defend the country or fight in military operations abroad. The warning by General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, to fellow defense chiefs comes at a time when the army is asking for a big increase in reservists to be deployed in Afghanistan, reflecting a crisis in Britain's armed forces. In a secret memorandum he says: "We now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected." Reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan are "now almost non-existent". He adds: "The enduring nature and scale of current operations continues to stretch people". Gen. Dannatt warns the army had to "augment" 2,500 troops from other units for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring up the total force to the 13,000 needed there. This remained "far higher than we ever assumed", he says. Read The Full Story Jordan's King Abdallah To Discuss Middle East With Bush On Tuesday 2007-07-21 02:17:21 Jordan’s King Abdallah is to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Tuesday for talks on latest moves aimed at relaunching the Arab-Israeli peace talks, the Jordanian royal court announced Friday. “The discussions will tackle the Middle East peace process and the US and international efforts aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state,” a court statement said. “The talks will also focus on means for building up on the U.S. president’s call on Monday for convening an international peace conference for spurring the peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis,” it added. The king has welcomed Bush’s proposal, describing it “a positive step in the right direction.” Abdallah’s new visit to Washington will coincide with a trip to Israel by the Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib and his Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, as emissaries of the Arab League to relay to the Israeli government the text of the Arab peace initiative. According to the Jordanian ambassador to Israel, Ali Al-Ayed, Khatib and Aboul Gheit will meet with the Israeli President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and other Cabinet ministers and parliamentary leaders. Read The Full Story Bush To Have Colonoscopy, Briefly Hand Power To Cheney 2007-07-21 02:16:24 Vice President Cheney acting basis Saturday when President Bush undergoes general anesthesia for a routine colon examination, the White House said Friday. Bush will transfer powers under the 25th Amendment, which permits the president to voluntarily hand over authority when he is unable to perform his duties. The White House said Cheney will probably be in charge for about 2 1/2 hours while Bush recovers from the effects of the sedative. This will be the second time Cheney has become acting president, and under almost identical circumstances to the first. Bush underwent sedation for a colonoscopy on June 29, 2002, and Cheney was the commander in chief for two hours and 15 minutes. That test found no signs of cancer and doctors said then that Bush would need another test in five years. A spokesman said Bush has experienced no symptoms. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php