Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday July 12 2007 - (813)

Thursday July 12 2007 edition
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U.S. Warns Of Stronger Al-Qaeda, Better Positioned To Strike The West 2007-07-12 02:39:00 Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White Housemeeting. The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled "Al-Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West," intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network. Although the officials declined to discuss the assessment's content because it is classified, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, John A. Kringen, told a House committee yesterday that al-Qaeda appears "to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan." "We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications," said Kringen. Read The Full Story CIA Said Instability In Iraq Seemed 'Irreversible' 2007-07-12 02:38:24 Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House. For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Irq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said. Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants. "The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function." Read The Full Story Britain And Russia On Brink Of Diplomatic Crisis Over Litvinenko Investigation 2007-07-12 02:37:41 Britain is on the brink of a diplomatic crisis with Russia which could see the expulsion of several diplomats from London and tit-for-tat reprisals by Moscow. The Foreign Office and Downing Street are preparing to send a strong signal to the Kremlin following its refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB agent suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko last November. On Monday, Russian prosecutors formally announced that  Lugovoi would not be handed over to the U.K., on the grounds that Russia's constitution prevents his extradition. The government was last night considering counter-measures to show Britain's extreme displeasure at the Kremlin's decision, and the seriousness with which it takes the "terrible" murder of Litvinenko - a British citizen and fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The options include the possible expulsion of Russian diplomats from the London embassy, and the withdrawal of cooperation in several areas, including education, trade, social affairs and counter-terrorism. Wednesday a spokesman for Russia's foreign ministry, Mikhail Kamynin, warned that London was in danger of jeopardizing its relationship with Moscow. "I don't understand the position of the British government. It is prepared to sacrifice our relations in trade and education for the sake of one man," he said, adding: "Our position is clearly in line with Russia's constitution and legislation." Read The Full Story 73-Bodies Recovered At End Of Mosque Siege 2007-07-12 02:36:53 Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan's prime minister, declared victory in the fight for the Red Mosque Wednesday as commandos gained control of the compound after a 36-hour battle. "The operation is over," he said after the last rattle of gunfire echoed from the Islamabad mosque. Civilian casualties were lower than expected, he said, and no women or children had been killed. Wednesday night, the army announced that 73 bodies had been recovered, bringing the total death toll from the eight-day siege to 106, including nine soldiers. Article continues Eight of the bodies had been charred beyond recognition, apparently as a result of accidents with petrol bombs, said Major General Waheed Arshad. All would be handed to civilian authorities for burial. Within hours Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri called for revenge in a taped video recording produced by al-Qaeda's media unit as-Sahab. Read The Full Story Senate Republicans Block Longer Leave For Troops 2007-07-11 17:23:15 Legislation that would have required longer troop rests between combat deployments fell Wednesday to a Republican filibuster, but GOP fissures over President Bush's war policies continued to widen, with two more Republican senators signing on to binding troop withdrawal dates. The Senate voted 56-41 to cut off debate on an amendment to the annual defense policy bill by Sen. James Webb  (D-Virginia) that would have mandated that troops be granted home leave between deployments of at least as long as their previous combat tours. Already stretched National Guard and Reserve units would have been granted three-year breaks between assignments. The vote was short of the 60 needed to break the filibuster, but it attracted seven Republican votes, a surprising number considering a similar proposal in the House this spring had been denounced as a "slow bleed strategy." Two of the Republicans who voted for the Webb amendment, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), announced this morning they would also support Democratic legislation, soon to come to a vote, that would begin troop reductions no later than 120 days after enactment. U.S. forces would then shift their efforts to targeted missions such as counterterrorism. The process would have to be completed by April 30, 2008. Read The Full Story Thousands Evacuated As Indonesian Volcano Spews Flaming Rocks 2007-07-11 17:22:50 Indonesia's Mount Gamkonora has started spitting out flaming rocks and sending showers of sparks into the air, indicating the volcano in the east of the country is likely to erupt, an official said on Wednesday. Thousands of people living close to the volcano have been evacuated since it started sending out towering columns of ash and smoke on Saturday, with panic reported in some areas nearby. Flaming material started to appear on Tuesday evening, indicating magma was approaching the crater's surface, said Saut Simatupang, head of Indonesia's Vulcanological Survey. "The volcano spit flaming rock as high as 15 meters (50 feet) ... this indicates magma is now close to the crater's surface," Simatupang said by telephone from the town of Bandung. The official said in later comments that the volcano may be building up to an eruption. Read The Full Story Global Warming Report Warns Of Floods 2007-07-11 14:43:47 One-hundred-year floods could come as often as once every 10 years by the end of this century, Long Island lobsters could disappear and New York apples could be just a memory if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report on the impact of global warming by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report, which covers New York, New Jersey along with the entire Northeast, was released at a news conference at the New York Botanical Gardenthis morning, in the wake of an intense heat wave of the kind that scientists warned could come far more frequently if business continues as usual. Speaking at the news conference, James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University  and president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, predicted that New York City might have to swelter through a full month with temperatures over 100 degrees. The prolonged heat could dry up the Catskill Mountain waters that supply the city, and air quality could decline, worsening conditions for people with asthma and allergies. Some changes, like earlier springs, longer summers and less snowy winters are already being seen are the result of heat trapping gasses released over the last century. But scientists said things would become far worse, and much more costly, unless steps are taken now to limit the impact. Read The Full Story Giant Squid Washes Up On Australia Beach 2007-07-11 14:43:20 A squid as long as a bus and weighing 550 pounds washed up on an Australian beach, officials said Wednesday. ''It is a whopper,'' said Genefor Walker-Smith, a zoologist who studies invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum. Giant squid live in waters off southern Australia and New Zealand - where a half-ton colossus, believed to be the world's largest, was caught in February. They attract the sperm whales that feed on them. The dead squid, measuring 3 feet across at its widest point and 26 feet from the tip of its body to the end of its tentacles, was found early Wednesday by a beachcomber at Ocean Beach on the island state of Tasmania's west coast, said the museum. Read The Full Story Editorial: Overprivileged Executive 2007-07-11 01:43:48 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, July 11, 2007. It is hardly news that top officials in the current Justice Department flout the law and make false statements to Congress, but the latest instance may be the most egregious. When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wanted the USA Patriot Act renewed in the spring of 2005, he told the Senate, “There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse.” But the Washington Post reported yesterday that just six days earlier, the F.B.I. had sent Mr. Gonzales a report saying that it had obtained personal information it should not have. This is hardly the first time Mr. Gonzales has played so free and loose with the facts in his public statements and Congressional testimony. In the United States attorneys scandal - the controversy over the political purge of nine top prosecutors - Mr. Gonzales and his aides have twisted and mutilated the truth beyond recognition. Congress and the American public need to know all that has gone on at the Justice Department. But instead of aiding that search for the truth, President Bush is blocking it, invoking executive privilege this week to prevent Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, a former top aide to Karl Rove, from telling Congress what they know about the purge of federal prosecutors. Read The Full Story At Least 17 Dead In Afghan Suicide Attack, 13 Of Them School Children 2007-07-11 01:42:58 A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a marketplace filled with children Tuesday, killing 13 elementary school students and at least four other people. Eight Dutch soldiers patrolling on foot - the apparent targets - and at least 35 Afghans were wounded in the bombing in southern Uruzgan province. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest in Afghanistan this year. The bomber struck around 9 a.m., when children usually arrive at a nearby primary school for a second shift of classes. Schools in Afghanistan often serve three rotations of students. "Some of the children were walking to school while other children were selling goods in the market," said Gen. Abdul Qassim Khan, the provincial police chief. Read The Full Story Mexico Confirms Attacks On Natural Gas Pipelines 2007-07-11 01:42:20 Mexico's government on Tuesday called a series of gas pipeline explosions a threat to the nation's democratic institutions and vowed to step up security after a guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the blasts. The Interior Department said it would take measures to protect "strategic installations" across Mexico after an explosion Tuesday at a pipeline run by the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and two other blasts that rocked gas ducts on Thursday. "The Mexican government categorically condemns the attacks against Pemex facilities. This criminal conduct aims to weaken democratic institutions, the patrimony of Mexicans and the safety of their families," said the statement. While officials said investigations were continuing into the cause of the blasts, the statement by the Interior Department - responsible for domestic security - came a short time after a small guerrilla group said its members had planted explosives on the pipelines. Read The Full Story Obama Echoes Clinton On Iraq War - To A Different End 2007-07-11 01:41:19 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has long said she will not apologize for her vote to authorize the war in Iraq because there are no "do-overs" in life. Now she and her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, agree on that truism. "When I opposed this war before it began in 2002, I was about to run for the United States Senate, and I knew it wasn't the politically popular position," Obama said during a town hall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday. "But I believed then and still do that being a leader means that you'd better do what's right and leave the politics aside, because there are no do-overs on an issue as important as war," said Obama. Read The Full Story	Sting Operation Reveals Security Gap At Nuclear Regulatory Commission 2007-07-12 02:38:43 Undercover congressional investigators posing as West Virginia businessmen obtained a license with almost no scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that enabled them to buy enough radioactive material from U.S. suppliers to build a "dirty bomb," a new government report says. The investigators obtained the license within 28 days from officials at the NRC, the federal agency that in addition to regulating nuclear power plants oversees radioactive materials used in health care and industry, the report by the Government Accountability Office says. NRC officials approved the request with a minimal background check that included no face-to-face interview or visit to the purported company to ensure it existed and complied with safety rules, the report says. Using a post-office box at Mail Boxes Etc., a telephone and a fax machine, the undercover investigators from the GAO obtained the license "without ever leaving their desks," the report says. Read The Full Story White House Gives Iraq Mixed Marks In Report 2007-07-12 02:37:56 A widely anticipated White House report on Iraq, set for release Thursday, argues that the Baghdad government has made "satisfactory" progress toward nearly half of the political and military goals sought by Congress, while acknowledging that an equal number remain "not satisfactory," an administration official said Wednesday. The report, ordered by lawmakers as an interim assessment of President Bush's troop-increase strategy, identifies some positive movement in eight of the 18 congressional benchmarks, most of them related to military issues; finds insufficient improvement in eight others, mainly related to political reconciliation; and judges mixed results in the final two, said the official. The administration's assessment comes the day after U.S. intelligence experts offered an overwhelmingly negative view of military and political conditions in Iraq, saying that Iraqi forces will remain incapable of taking charge of security for years to come and that deepening sectarian political divides remain the largest impediment to progress. On Capitol Hill, where the Senate is debating Bush's Iraq strategy, an early vote on legislation designed to tie the president's hands fell victim to a Republican filibuster. But two more lawmakers, Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine and Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), joined the growing ranks of Republicans who have broken with the administration, saying they would support Democratic efforts to begin U.S. troop reductions. Read The Full Story Relatives Of Firefighters Blast Giuliani 2007-07-12 02:37:19 Relatives of firefighters killed at the World Trade Center reproached GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani in a video Wednesday, pairing footage of the falling twin towers with charges the city's former mayor was woefully unprepared for Sept. 11. The parents and siblings of some of the 343 firefighters killed in the terrorist attacks released the video with the International Association of Fire Fighters, which opposes Giuliani's candidacy. Giuliani's campaign denounced the images, saying that the former mayor had a long history of supporting firefighters' health and safety and that the international union releasing the video only supports Democratic presidential candidates. Fire union officials and family members, repeating claims they had made for months, charged Giuliani pushed for a faster cleanup of ground zero at the expense of finding remains, put an emergency center in a building that collapsed on Sept. 11 and failed to provide working radios for firefighters, making it impossible for them to learn the towers were on the verge of collapse. Read The Full Story Bush Orders Miers Not To Testify Before Congress 2007-07-11 17:23:28 President Bush ordered former Counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional subpoena and refuse to testify about the firings of federal prosecutors, even as a second former aide revealed new details Wednesday about White House involvement in the dismissals. The possibility of contempt of Congress citations against both women hung over the developments. House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers' lawyer. Across the Capitol, meanwhile, former White House political director Sara Taylor found out what Miers may already have known: It's almost impossible to answer some committee questions but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush's claim of executive privilege. Read The Full Story Study: Inaction On Global Warming Will Be Costly 2007-07-11 17:23:03 People in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, would swelter through as many as 30 days over 100 degrees each summer. The entire Northeast ski industry except western Maine would likely go out of business. And spruce and hemlock forests - as well as song birds such as the Baltimore oriole - would all but disappear from New Jersey to the Canada border. These are some of the conclusions of a two-year study by the public interest group Union of Concerned Scientists of the effects of global warming in the Northeast if current greenhouse gas emission patterns around the world continue unabated. Winters will be on average 8 to 12 degrees warmer by the end of the century, and summers 6 to 14 degrees hotter. Given those conditions, they concluded in a report released Wednesday, the environment of the Northeast would be transformed, and Boston, Atlantic City, New York and other cities would all be subject to disastrous flooding on a regular basis. "The bad news is that the character of the Northeast will change dramatically under the business-as-usual scenario," said Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the lead authors of the report. "But on the other side, we say that the worst of the damage can be mitigated if we act soon." Read The Full Story Pentagon Criticized For Armor Contracts That Put Troops At Risk 2007-07-11 14:43:59 The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on schedule, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general. The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion dollars awarded since 2000 to Force Protection, Inc., and Armor Holdings, Inc. The auditors found several contracts issued by the Marine Corps on a sole-source basis to Force Protection even though it knew there were other manufacturers that might have supplied the vehicles in a more timely fashion. The Marine Corps determined that Force Protection of Ladson, South Carolina, was the only supplier that could meet the urgent delivery schedule for the vehicles. The inspector general's report, however, concludes otherwise. It says the company "did not perform as a responsible contractor and repeatedly failed to meet contractual delivery schedules for getting the vehicles the theater." Read The Full Story Astonomers Find Water On Planet 64 Light Years From Sun 2007-07-11 14:43:32 British astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of an enormous, fiery planet that circles a distant star far beyond our own solar system. The discovery raises hopes that the substance considered most vital for life may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy and wider universe. The finding, described in the journal Nature Wednesday, proves scientists can overcome what has long been thought one of the greatest hurdles in the search for extraterrestrial life - the ability to analyze atmospheres of distant worlds for signs of living organisms. The planet, a Jupiter-like gas giant, circles a star identified by astronomers as HD189733, some 64 light years from our sun in the constellation of Vulpecula, or "little fox". It is slightly larger than Jupiter - itself more than 11 times wider than Earth - and passes so close to its parent star that surface temperatures soar from 700 degrees Celsius to 1,000 degrees Celsius when night turns to day. Read The Full Story Growing Friction On Iraq Within Republican Party 2007-07-11 01:44:05 Facing crumbling support for the war among their own members, Senate Republican leaders Tuesday sought to block bipartisan efforts to force a change in the American military mission in Iraq. The GOP leadership's use of a parliamentary tactic requiring at least 60 votes to pass any war legislation only encouraged the growing number of Republican dissenters to rally and seek new ways to force President Bush's hand. They are weighing a series of proposals that would change the troops' mission from combat to counterterrorism, border protection and the training of Iraqi security forces. "I think we should continue to ratchet up the pressure - in addition to our words - to let the White House know we are very sincere," said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who broke with the president last month. Read The Full Story 3 Killed, 18 Wounded In Mortar Attack On Baghdad's Green Zone 2007-07-11 01:43:34 More than two dozen mortar shells pounded the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing three people, including a U.S. military member, and injuring 18, among them five Americans, said U.S. officials. The dead also included an Iraqi and a person of unknown nationality. Two of the wounded Americans were service members and three were contract employees, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. The attack, around 4 p.m., was the latest in a series of mortar and rocket strikes in recent months against the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and other Western missions along with Iraqi government buildings. In April, a suicide bomber attacked inside Iraq's parliament building. A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "around 30" mortar shells had hit the Green Zone. "They got hammered," said the official. Read The Full Story New Study Shows Sun Is Not Linked To Global Warming 2007-07-11 01:42:40 It has been one of the central claims of those who challenge the idea that human activities are to blame for global warming. The planet's climate has long fluctuated, say the climate sceptics, and current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not carbon dioxide emissions. But a new analysis of data on the sun's output in the last 25 years of the 20th century has firmly put the notion to rest. The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate. The solar hypothesis was championed publicly in Britain last March by the controversial Channel 4 documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The program has been heavily criticized for distorting scientific data to fit the skeptic argument and Carl Wunsch, a professor of physical oceanography at MIT who featured in the program, later said that he was "totally misled" by the film makers and that his comments were "completely misrepresented". Read The Full Story Despite Troop Buildup, Security In Iraq Flounders 2007-07-11 01:41:49 In the Oubaidy neighborhood in the eastern part of this city, American soldiers hired a local Iraqi man to clean the Porta-Potties at their combat outpost. Before the man could start, members of the local Shiite militia threatened to kill him. Today, the Porta-Potties are roped off, and the U.S. soldiers, who could not promise to protect their sewage man, are forced to burn their waste. As part of the Bush administration's troop "surge" strategy, the U.S. unit here had moved into an abandoned potato chip factory hoping to push out the militia, protect existing jobs and provide stability for economic growth. Instead, militia members stymied development projects, cut off the water supply and brutally executed two young Iraqi women seen talking to U.S. soldiers, sending a powerful message about who really controls Oubaidy's streets. In the next few days, the administration is scheduled to release a preliminary assessment of its overall Iraq strategy. Officials may point to signs of progress scattered across the country: a reduction in death-squad killings in Baghdad, agreements with tribal leaders in Anbar province, offensives north and south of the capital. Read The Full Story Dismay And Anger As Pope Benedict Declares That Protestants Cannot Have Churches 2007-07-11 01:40:51 Protestant churches Tuesday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere "ecclesial communities" and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion. Coming just four days after the reinstatement of the Latin mass, Tuesday's document left no doubt about the Pope's eagerness to back traditional Roman Catholic practices and attitudes, even at the expense of causing offense. The view that Protestants cannot have churches was first set out by Pope Benedict seven years ago when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he headed the Vatican "ministry" for doctrine. A commentary attached to the latest text acknowledged that his 2000 document, Dominus Iesus, had caused "no little distress". But it added: "It is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant communities], given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church." Read The Full Story
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