Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday July 29 2007 - (813)

Sunday July 29 2007 edition
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U.S. House Members Say They Will Try To Block Sale Of U.S. Arms To Saudis 2007-07-29 02:27:52 The Bush administration's plan to sell $20 billion in advanced weaponry toSaudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf  countries is running into congressional opposition and criticism from human rights and arms control groups. Members of Congress vowed Saturday to oppose any deal to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom has been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable at fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an "illegitimate occupation," and the Saudis have been either unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say. Human rights groups warned that new U.S. arms meant to contain Iran's rising influence could backfire, allowing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rally greater support for his hard-line faction in the run-up to parliamentary elections next spring. Arms control groups said Bush's strategy would accelerate an already-dangerous trend that could increase tensions rather than generate a greater sense of security. Read The Full Story Former Rendition Victim Reveals MI5's Role In 'Torture Flight' Hell 2007-07-29 02:27:10 An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider's account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal "torture flight" under the program known as extraordinary rendition. In a remarkable interview for The Observer, British resident Bisher al-Rawi has told how he was betrayed by the security service despite having helped keep track of Abu Qatada, the Muslim cleric accused of being Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe". He was abducted and stripped naked by U.S. agents, clad in nappies (diapers), a tracksuit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear ear mufflers, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a CIA "black site" jail near Kabul in Afghanistan. He was taken on to the jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being released last March and returned to Britain after four years' detention without charge. "All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming," said al-Rawi. "At last we landed, I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't - it was just a refuelling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go .. My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back. Once, I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden." Read The Full Story Editorial: Mr. Gonzales' Never-Ending Story 2007-07-29 02:26:26 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Sunday, July 29, 2007. President Bush often insists he has to be the decider - ignoring Congress and the public when it comes to the tough matters on war, terrorism and torture, even deciding whether an ordinary man in Florida should be allowed to let his wife die with dignity. Apparently that burden does not apply to the functioning of one of the most vital government agencies, the Justice Department. Americans have been waiting months for Mr. Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can’t tell the truth. Mr. Bush refused to fire him after it was clear Mr. Gonzales lied about his role in the political purge of nine federal prosecutors. And he is still refusing to do so - even after testimony by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, that suggests that Mr. Gonzales either lied to Congress about Mr. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation or at the very least twisted the truth so badly that it amounts to the same thing. Mr. Gonzales has now told Congress twice that there was no dissent in the government about Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mails without obtaining the legally required warrant. Mr. Mueller and James Comey, a former deputy attorney general, say that is not true. Not only was there disagreement, but they also say that they almost resigned over the dispute. Read The Full Story Taliban Spokesman: No More Talks On S. Korean Hostages 2007-07-29 02:25:27 Taliban rebels on Sunday ruled out more talks with the Afghan government over their remaining 22 South Korean hostages and pressed for the release of militant prisoners as the only way out of the crisis. An Afghan team that was supposed to have held more negotiations with the Taliban on Saturday could not reach the group because of security concerns in Ghazni province, said provincial sources. The team hoped to persuade the insurgents to free without condition the Christian volunteers they kidnapped from a bus 10 days ago in Ghazni, south of Kabul. A deputy interior minister on Saturday told Reuters that force might be used if talks fail. Read The Full Story New Space Probe To Measure Earth's Gravity With 'Unprecedented Accuracy' 2007-07-29 02:23:26 Scientists unveiled a new weapon in the battle against global warming last week: a 16ft torpedo-shaped probe that will swoop over the atmosphere to measure Earth's gravity with unprecedented accuracy. The Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, has been dubbed the "Ferrari" of space probes because of its elegant design and will be launched early next year on a Russian SS-19 missile. Scientists say its data on Earth's gravitational field will be vital in understanding how ocean currents react to the heating of our planet over the next few decades. "Gravity is the force that drives the circulation of the oceans," said Dr. Mark Drinkwater, GOCE's project scientist. "Until we understand its exact role we cannot predict how the seas - and planet - will behave as the climate gets warmer. That is why GOCE is being launched." Read The Full Story Florida's Everglades Park Rangers Battle Invasion Of Giant Pythons 2007-07-29 02:22:55 The Everglades stretch for hundreds of swampy miles across south Florida, home to hordes of snakes, alligators and assorted creepy-crawlies. But now an invasion by deadly giant pythons is threatening the eco-system of the famous park. The pythons, thought to have been released into the wild by careless pet owners, are no ordinary snakes. They are Burmese pythons, native to South Asia, which can grow 6 meters (18 feet) long, weigh 100 kilograms (220 lbs.)  and live for 20 years or more. The pythons have established breeding pairs in the swamps and are racing to the top of the food chain, even ousting alligators that were the Everglades' top predator. Two years ago a photographer snapped a picture that appeared to show a python so big it had eaten an alligator whole. Read The Full Story U.S. Intelligence Seeks Greater Surveillance Power Overseas 2007-07-28 17:41:01 Citing a "period of heightened threat" to the U.S. homeland, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell  asked Congress to "act immediately" to make changes in current law to permit the interception of messages between terrorist targets overseas, which he said now requires burdensome court orders. In a July 25 letter made public yesterday, McConnell told the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Silvestre Reyes(D-Texas), that he hopes Congress "will be able to act immediately ... to provide the legislative changes needed to protect the nation in this period of heightened threat." At issue is a package of changes that the Bush administration wants in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to facilitate the continuation of its terrorist surveillance program. Congress has delayed amending the program pending further study. Read The Full Story Taliban's South Korean Hostages 'Not In Good Condition' 2007-07-28 17:40:18 A purported Taliban spokesman warned Friday that some of the 22 remaining South Korean hostages in Afghanistan were in bad health, saying hours after the kidnappers' latest deadline passed that the captives were crying and worried about their future. Meanwhile, in eastern Afghanistan, two NATO soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in a major clash with insurgents in a high mountain area where U.S. soldiers do most of the fighting. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the kidnappers, said by phone that the Taliban still insisted on an exchange of prisoners for the captives, who could be killed if the demand was not met. Ahmadi spoke several hours after the most recent Taliban deadline passed but said the militia had not set a new one. Some of the South Koreans were "not in good condition," said Ahmadi. "I don't know if the weather is not good for them, or our food. The women hostages are crying. The men and women are worried about their future." Read The Full Story Poll: Fewer Americans See Balance In Supreme Court Decisions 2007-07-28 13:54:20 About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" in the two years since President Bush began nominating justices, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Nearly a third of the public - 31 percent - thinks the court is too far to the right, a noticeable jump since the question was last asked in July 2005. That's when Bush nominated John G. Roberts, Jr., to the court and, in the six-month period that followed, the Senate approved Roberts as chief justice and confirmed Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. The two have proved to be reliably conservative justices, and the increasingly polarized court this year moved to uphold restraints on abortion, restrict student speech rights and limit the ability of school districts to use race in student assignments, among other issues. Read The Full Story Scientists Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines In California, Elsewhere 2007-07-28 13:53:51 Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the state. The reports, the latest to raise questions about electronic voting machines, came to light on a day when House leaders announced in Washington, D.C., that they had reached an agreement on measures to revamp voting systems and increase their security. The House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts. The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, and the original sponsor of the bill, Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, said it would require hundreds of counties with paperless machines to install backup paper trails by the presidential election next year while giving most states until 2012 to upgrade their machines further. Read The Full Story Agent Orange May Cause Hypertension 2007-07-28 13:53:10 Exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam may lead to high blood pressure in some veterans, but the evidence is limited and only suggestive, the Institute of Medicine said Friday. The institute, an arm of the National Academies, has been studying the effects of the herbicide on veterans since the early 1990s and issued its seventh update. Two recent studies of Vietnam veterans who handled Agent Orange and other defoliants indicated that they have higher rates of high blood pressure, said the report. Hypertension affects more than 70 million American adults and is a major risk factor for heart attack and stroke. Read The Full Story Musharraf Holds Talks With Bhutto 2007-07-28 13:52:31 President Gen. Pervez Musharraf held secret talks with opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a government minister said Saturday. Media widely reported that the once-bitter rivals had discussed a power-sharing deal. The president, who is struggling with twin upsurges in Islamic militancy and calls for democracy, "held a successful meeting" with Bhutto in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi on Friday, said Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. He would not elaborate, but said "hopefully" Bhutto's secular, socially liberal Pakistan Peoples Party - Pakistan's largest opposition party - would decide to back Musharraf. Pakistani media reported that Musharraf and Bhutto discussed a possible power-sharing deal for nearly an hour but ended without agreement. Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, a minister in the coalition government that backs Musharraf, said it appeared the two were trying to strike a deal to secure another term for the general while paving the way for Bhutto to return as prime minister. Read The Full Story	Bush Appointee Blocked Surgeon General's Global Health Report 2007-07-29 02:27:28 A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials. The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by the Washington Post.  Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Richard H. Carmona, who commissioned the "Call to Action on Global Health" while serving as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, recently cited its suppression as an example of the Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist. At a July 10 House committee hearing, Carmona did not cite Steiger by name or detail the report's contents and its implications for American public health. Read The Full Story Amputations Bring Health Care, Social Crisis To Iraq 2007-07-29 02:26:40 Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country. In the north of Iraq, the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul have told U.S.  forces, there is a requirement for up to 3,000 replacement limbs a year. If that estimate is applied across the country, it suggests an acute and looming long-term health challenge that has been largely ignored by the world. The revelation of the scale of limb loss suffered by Iraqi civilians is not entirely surprising, even though it has gone unreported. Levels of amputations performed by military surgeons on U.S. troops in Iraq are twice as high as those recorded in previous wars: the most recently available figures suggest 6 per cent of wounded U.S. troops require an amputation, compared with 3 per cent in other conflicts. The problem is the nature of the war itself, which has involved a very high incidence of blast injuries from car bombs and suicide bombers, as well as collateral injuries caused to civilians by blasts from U.S. airstrikes, numbers of which have increased fivefold since early 2006. Read The Full Story Data Mining Prompted Fight Over NSA Warrantless Suveillance Program 2007-07-29 02:25:49 A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program. It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate, but such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues. The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation. Read The Full Story Tillman Comrade Recalls Final Moments 2007-07-29 02:24:21 As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with the Associated Press. "He said something like, 'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now.'" Tillman's intent, O'Neal said, was to "more or less put my mind straight about what was going on at the moment." "He said, 'I've got an idea to help get us out of this,'" said O'Neal, who was an 18-year-old Army Ranger in Tillman's unit when the former NFL player was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004. O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, said O'Neal. Read The Full Story Germany And Israel United To Film Movie Based On Holocaust Novel 2007-07-29 02:23:13 German and Israeli filmmakers have come together to tackle the subject of the Holocaust for the first time in an ambitious screen adaptation of a bestselling novel. Their groundbreaking collaboration over the highly sensitive topic has attracted a star-studded cast in what has been described as a "tightrope walk" of a project. "Adam Resurrected", based on a darkly comic 1969 novel by popular Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk, tells the story of Adam Stein, a Jewish-German clown who is forced to entertain inmates in a Nazi concentration camp. His life is spared only because he plays his violin for the prisoners being sent to the gas chamber. Jeff Goldblum is to play the part of Adam, while Willem Dafoe will play the concentration camp commandant who forces him to act like a dog. Goldblum has described it as "the most difficult role I have ever had to play". Directed by Paul Schrader, who is best known for his screenplay for "Taxi Driver", and produced by the Israeli Ehud Bleiberg and the German Werner Wirsing, the harrowing film has been compared to Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning Holocaust black comedy "Life is Beautiful". Read The Full Story Donations Thank You! 2007-07-28 18:42:23   I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our great readers who have made donations recently.   R.Y.  $36.00   C.S.  $3   C.C.C. $36.00   P.M.  $3   Thanks to all of you, we really appreciate it!   JW Smythe   Editor   Free Internet Press Read The Full Story Justice Dept. Lawyers Join Chorus Criticizing Gonzales 2007-07-28 17:40:43 Daniel J. Metcalfe, a lawyer who began his government career in the Nixon administration and retired from the Justice Department last winter, said morale at the department is worse under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales than during Watergate. John S. Koppel, who continues to work at the department as a civil appellate lawyer in Washington, wrote this month that he is “ashamed” of the department and that if Gonzales told the truth in recent Congressional testimony, “he has been derelict in the performance of his duties and is not up to the job.” Even though they worry that it may hinder their career prospects, a few current and former Justice Department lawyers have begun to add to the chorus of Gonzales’ critics who say that the furor over his performance as attorney general, and questions about his truthfulness under oath, could do lasting damage to the department’s work. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Set To Offer $20 Billion Arms Deal To Saudi Arabia 2007-07-28 13:54:38 The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq. The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years. Yet administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall. Read The Full Story Southern Europe Scorched As Rain Batters North, Both Bad News For Farmers 2007-07-28 13:54:07 Huge swaths of central and southern Europe were this week engulfed in record temperatures, as other areas recorded their heaviest summer rainfalls and farmers across the continent warned of impending food shortages and price rises. This summer Europe has been split by climate. Above a line roughly running from the Pyrenees to Bulgaria, three humid months have been punctuated by violent storms and enormous cloudbursts; but to the south there has been a succession of heatwaves, each more intense than the last. Tens of thousands of acres of forest are believed to have been destroyed by fire. In Hungary 500 people died from heatstroke and related problems, while in Romania 19,000 were hospitalized as temperatures reached 41 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). With wildfires raging from Italy to Albania and Bosnia to Romania, firefighters - aided by Russian water bomber planes - and soldiers have fought to bring them under control. Workers in several countries were ordered by government decree to down their tools. In Macedonia pregnant women were sent home on paid leave until further notice. Read The Full Story With Gonzales Under Fire, FBI Violation Gets More Attention 2007-07-28 13:53:34 Two weeks before President Bush won reelection in 2004, the FBI sent a rare report to its overseers: One of its agents had engaged in a willful and intentional violation of a law by improperly collecting financial records during a national security investigation. The FBI concluded that the actions of the rookie agent amounted to "intelligence activities that ... may be unlawful or contrary to executive order or presidential directive," according to a declassified memo from Oct. 21, 2004. The incident was deemed serious enough for the bureau to notify both the President's Intelligence Oversight Board and the Justice Department,and to consider punishing the agent. The violation was the only one after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI has specifically flagged as intentional. But it has attracted fresh attention because Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified six months later that no "verified case of civil liberties abuse" had occurred since the USA Patriot Act was enacted. Read The Full Story British Pullout Presages U.S. Problems In Iraq 2007-07-28 13:52:54 As American troop levels are peaking in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction as the troops prepare to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra, 300 miles to the south. The British intend to pull back to an airport headquarters miles out of town, a symbolic move widely taken by Iraqis as the beginning of the end of the British military presence in southern Iraq. The scaling down by America’s largest coalition partner foreshadows many of the political and military challenges certain to face American commanders when their troops begin withdrawing. Skepticism is widespread in Basra, as in Baghdad, about whether Iraqi forces are ready to take over. Both the British and Americans will have to assuage the fears of Iraqis that they are being abandoned to gunmen and religious extremists. And both are likely to face intensified attacks from propaganda-conscious enemies trying to claim credit for driving out the Westerners. Read The Full Story "Oh geez!" - 4 dead in new helicopter collision 2007-07-28 00:11:36 Editor:  Journalists aren't suppose to be the news.  It's very unfortunate when accidents happen.  Our deepest sympathy goes out to their families. Four men were killed in a mid-air helicopter crash in central Phoenix.   KNXV-TV Channel 15 reported that one of the choppers belonged to its station. The other chopper was from KTVK Channel 3 in Phoenix.  The news helicopters were covering a police pursuit in central Phoenix Friday afternoon. Police were pursuing someone suspected of stealing a city truck, then jumping into at least one other vehicle during the afternoon chase, a police spokesman told reporters. In the moments before the crash, the pilot from KNXV-TV (Channel 15), Craig Smith, was on the radio with the pilot from KTVK-TV (Channel 3).  According to a report from the Arizona Republic website, pilot Craig Smith is heard asking his photographer and talking to the pilot of Channel 3. “Where's 3?” “How far?” -  “3, I'm right over you. 15 on top of you.” - “I'm over the top of you.” Just before the picture broke up, Smith said, "Oh geez!" Read The Full Story
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