Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday July 3 2007 - (813)

Tuesday July 3 2007 edition
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Editorials On Bush's Commutation Of Libby's Sentence 2007-07-03 02:13:20 Intellpuke: Following are a some editorials from various news organizations on President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis Libby's Sentence to no prison time at all for lying to a grand jury. The first editorial is from the Washington Post. That is followed by editorials by the New York Times, and that is followed by The Nation's commentary. The Washington Post: Too Much Mercy In commuting I. Lewis Libby's prison sentence yesterday, President Bush took the advice of, among others, William Otis, a former federal prosecutor who wrote on the opposite page last month that Mr. Libby should neither be pardoned nor sent to prison. We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive. But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did - to probation and a large fine - is not defensible. Mr. Libby was convicted in March on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Vice President Cheney'sformer chief of staff had told the FBI and a grand jury that he had not leaked the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame to journalists, but after hearing abundant testimony and carefully deliberating, a jury concluded that he lied. As we wrote at the time of the conviction, lying under oath is unacceptable for anyone, and particularly for a government official. As Mr. Bush said in his statement yesterday, "our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable." Read The Full Story Commentary: Britain Should Stop Doing The CBI's Bidding And It Could Be Fossil Fuel Free In 20 Years 2007-07-02 23:23:02 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, U.K. Professor George Monbiot relates his reaction to reading a paper by NASA scientists led by Dr. James Hansen. In that paper, Hansen wrote that the grim reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be absurdly optimistic. Prof. Monbiot's commentary follows: Reading a scientific paper on the train this weekend, I found, to my amazement, that my hands were shaking. This has never happened to me before, but nor have I ever read anything like it. Published by a team led by James Hansen at NASA, it suggests that the grim reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be absurdly optimistic. The IPCC predicts that sea levels could rise by as much as 59 centimeters this century. Hansen's paper argues that the slow melting of ice sheets the panel expects doesn't fit the data. The geological record suggests that ice at the poles does not melt in a gradual and linear fashion, but flips suddenly from one state to another. When temperatures increased to between two and three degrees above today's level 3.5 million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59 centimeters but by 25 meters (75 feet). The ice responded immediately to changes in temperature. We now have a pretty good idea of why ice sheets collapse. The buttresses that prevent them from sliding into the sea break up; meltwater trickles down to their base causing them suddenly to slip; and pools of water form on the surface, making the ice darker so that it absorbs more heat. These processes are already taking place in Greenland and west Antarctica. Read The Full Story Hundreds Evacuate From U.S. Plains States As Rivers Bulge 2007-07-02 23:11:52 An oil spill added to the misery caused by widespread flooding Monday as thousands of evacuees in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas waited for water to recede from their homes. Kansas got a break from the weather Monday, but more rain was scattered over Texas and eastern Oklahoma, the latest in nearly two weeks of storms. It was the 20th straight day that rain had fallen in Oklahoma City. "It's such a dynamic situation," said Parker County, Texas, spokesman Joel Kertok. "We get a break, and then it starts raining again." A pumping malfunction during the weekend allowed 42,000 gallons of crude oil to escape from the Coffeyville Resources refinery into the swollen Verdigris River in south-central Kansas, producing a floating slick that could be seen and smelled from the air. The goo coated pets, possessions and emergency workers. Read The Full Story U.K. Terror Probe Nets Iraqi, Jordanian Doctors 2007-07-02 14:16:11 Doctors from Iraq and Jordan were among the seven suspects arrested in the failed car bombings in London and at Glasgow's airport, officials said Monday. A witness said police were closing in on the terror network just before attackers rammed the Scottish terminal building. Britain's Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said at least 19 locations were searched as part of the "fast-moving investigation." Vigilance was already high less than a week before the anniversary of the deadly July 7, 2005, London transit bombing. Those were largely carried out by local Muslims, exacerbating ethnic tensions in Britain. Read The Full Story Appeals Court Tells Libby To Scoot On To Prison 2007-07-02 14:15:43 A federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak case. The unanimous decision is a dramatic setback for Libby's legal case and puts pressure on President Bush, who has been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby faces 2 1/2 years in prison on his conviction of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. The former chief of staff to Cheney, he is the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair. Libby had hoped that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would put that sentence on hold because he believed he had a good chance of overturning the conviction on appeal. The court unanimously rejected the request. Read The Full Story Mystery 'Pyramid' Room Discovered In China's Terra Cotta Tomb 2007-07-02 14:14:48 Chinese researchers say they have found a strange pyramid-shaped chamber while surveying the massive underground tomb of China's first emperor and theorize it was built as a passageway for his soul. Remote sensing equipment has revealed what appears to be a 100-foot-high room above Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb near the ancient capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday. The room has not been excavated. Diagrams of the chamber are based on data gathered over five years, starting in 2002, using radar and other remote sensing technologies, said the news agency. Archaeologist Liu Qingzhu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was quoted as saying the room is unlike any ever found in a Chinese tomb. Read The Full Story Missing California Priest, Companion Found Dead 2007-07-02 14:13:51 An Orange County priest and his female traveling companion were found dead in their car Sunday, apparently victims of a car accident in a remote Oregon logging area near where they had disappeared more than three weeks ago. David Schwartz, 52, and Cheryl Gibbs, 61, appeared to have died after the priest's 2005 Toyota Corolla ran off the road and down a 15- to 20-foot embankment on Highway 26, about 60 miles west of Portland, said Deputy Don Taylor, a spokesman for the Tillamook County Sheriff's Department, which conducted the search. "They probably died instantly in the car wreck," said Taylor. "There were no skid marks and no indication of their being intoxicated. Our best guess is that they probably fell asleep." The wreckage had not been seen earlier because it was covered by brush, he said. Read The Full Story British Authorities Rush To Break Terror Cell 2007-07-02 00:43:47 British police and the security services are still hunting for at least three members of an al-Qaeda linked terrorist cell suspected of attempting to commit mass murder using car bombs in London and Glasgow. Counter-terrorism officers believe the cell has at least eight members, linked by a controlling "Mr. Big". The hunt led police to make five arrests over the weekend and raid a number of addresses across England and Scotland, amid fears that there could be another attempted attack. Two of those arrested were said to be doctors. The Jeep attack on Saturday at Glasgow airport, a day after two failed attempts to bomb targets in central London, triggered a decision to take the U.K. to its highest state of alert. The incidents were linked after a strong forensic connection was found between the Jeep rammed into the terminal at Glasgow airport and two Mercedes car bombs found in London. The Jeep was packed with petrol and gas canisters similar to those found in the London vehicles, which also contained nails. Counter-terrorist sources indicated that the link was much broader and that the individuals suspected of involvement in the London and Glasgow terrorist acts were connected. Read The Full Story Leahy Says He May Seek Contempt Charge Against Bush 2007-07-02 00:43:13 The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday that he will attempt to cite the White House for criminal contempt of Congress if it does not turn over documents related to the firing of nine federal prosecutors. "If they don't cooperate, yes, I'd go that far," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "This is very important to the American people." Leahy's comments raise the stakes in a growing conflict between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the Bush White House, suggesting the constitutional clash may end up in a court case that could last beyond Bush's tenure as president. Read The Full Story Obama Campaign Raises $32.5 Million From April Through June 2007-07-02 00:42:26 U.S. Senator Barack Obama raised at least $32.5 million from April through June, he announced Sunday on his campaign Web site, attracting more than 258,000 contributors since entering the Democratic presidential race nearly six months ago. As candidates tabulated how much money they raised in the year’s second quarter, Obama, of Illinois, appeared to be leading contenders from either party, raising at least $31 million for the primary campaign alone. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, raised about $21 million for the primary, a spokesman confirmed Sunday, and about $27 million over all. “Together, we have built the largest grass-roots campaign in history for this stage of a presidential race,” Obama said, adding that 154,000 new donors had signed on in the last three months. “That’s the kind of movement that can change the special-interest-driven politics in Washington and transform our country. And it’s just the beginning.” Obama waited barely 12 hours after the fund-raising period closed to trumpet his success, a quarterly record for a Democratic candidate, hoping to depict widespread support for his campaign and to rebut suggestions that his candidacy is falling behind Mrs. Clinton’s. If her estimate last week that she had raised “in the range of $27 million” proves true, Obama will have outpaced Mrs. Clinton for a second consecutive quarter in money that can be spent in primaries. Read The Full Story In A Fabled City At The End Of The Earth, A Treasury Of Ancient Manuscripts 2007-07-02 00:41:45 A hot wind stirred up the desert sand. Fida ag Muhammad, a wispy man with a blue-grey turban, hurried across the street. Reaching a mud-brick building, he quickly unlocked its corrugated iron door and pushed it open. A beam of soft early-morning light pierced the darkness. On a metal table covered with a red bath towel sat half a dozen leather-bound manuscripts. Carefully untying the string around a small weathered pouch, Muhammad pulled back its flaps to reveal a sheaf of yellowed papers. Their edges had crumbled away, but the neat Arabic calligraphy was still clear. "A Qur'an," he said. "From the 1300s." For an outsider, such a remarkable find might seem extraordinary. In Timbuktu and its surrounding villages like Ber, where Muhammad lives, it is commonplace. After centuries of storage in wooden trunks, caves or boxes hidden beneath the sand, tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, covering topics as diverse as astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women's rights, are surfacing across the legendary Malian city. Their emergence has caused a stir among academics and researchers, who say they represent some of the earliest examples of written history in sub-Saharan Africa and are a window into a golden age of scholarship in west Africa. Some even believe that the fragile papers, which are now the focus of an African-led preservation effort, may reshape perceptions of the continent's past. Read The Full Story	British Officials: Terrorists Conspired In Bombs Plot, 6 Suspects Are Doctors 2007-07-02 23:23:19 British counter-terrorism officials said last night they believe British terrorists who are still at large were involved in the conspiracy to launch car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow. Details emerged as it became clear that five of the suspects under arrest are doctors working and training in the National Health Service (NHS), and one is a doctor working in Australia where he was arrested last night. (Intellpuke: You will find, at the end of this article, a separate article on reaction at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, to the arrests of the doctors.) Seven of the eight people arrested so far are foreign-born nationals, including an Iraqi doctor trained in Baghdad, a Jordanian neurosurgeon, an Indian medic, and a Lebanese man. One, Mohammed Asha, 26, who lived in Staffordshire, is currently believed by counter-terrorism investigators to have been the ringleader of the cell. A counter-terrorism official said last night that "one of the plotters is a naturalized Briton". Read The Full Story No Deal Reached By Bush, Putin On Missile Defense, Iran 2007-07-02 23:22:47 The New England summit between presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin ended Monday without a significant breakthrough on the divisive issues that have brought relations between the two to the lowest point since the cold war. The relaxed setting at the Bush family seaside retreat at Kennebunkport, Maine, failed to produce agreement on the proposed U.S. missile system in eastern Europe. Against the backdrop of the jagged Atlantic coastline, the two men claimed that the meeting, dubbed the Lobster summit by the U.S. media, had helped improve their personal relationship. Bush described Putin as "consistent, transparent and honest, and an easy man to discuss our opportunities and problems with". It was a positive description after months of over-heated U.S.-Russian rhetoric. Read The Full Story BREAKING NEWS: Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence 2007-07-02 18:57:21 President Bush Monday commuted the prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, sparing him the 30-month term to which he was sentenced last month for lying to federal investigators about his role in the White House leak of a CIA officer's identity. Bush took the action just hours after a federal appeals court ruled that Libby was not entitled to remain free while he was appealing his conviction on four felonies. "With the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision," Bush said in a statement issued by the White House early this evening. Although the president said he "respected" the jury's verdict, he added that he had "concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive." Read The Full Story U.S. Says Iran, Hezbollah Training, Organizing Iraqi Militants 2007-07-02 14:15:57 An American general Monday said Iraqi militants are being trained and organized by Iranian security forces - in cooperation with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia - to carry out bombings, kidnappings and other acts of violence against Americans and Iraqi security forces. The briefing by U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner laid out what he described as an extensive program coordinated by Iran's elite Quds Force, the militant wing of the Revolutionary Guard, to provide armor-piercing weapons, funnel up to $3 million a month to extremist groups and train Shiite militiamen in three camps near Tehran. While U.S. officials have repeatedly alleged that sophisticated Iranian-made weapons are killing Americans in Iraq,  and that the Quds force is complicit in the violence, Monday's briefing offered the most specific accusations to date of direct Iranian involvement in specific attacks against U.S. forces. Read The Full Story Europe Skeptical On Missile Shield 2007-07-02 14:15:24 For months, the Bush administration has courted Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to gain assent for its plans to build a long-range missile defense system in Eastern Europe, but the focus on Moscow may be misplaced. In the three capitals where legislatures must approve the system before ground is broken - Washington, Prague and Warsaw - support is thin and fading. This growing opposition, detailed in interviews with current and former officials in the three countries, reflects what politicians and analysts view as the administration's mishandling of the issue and President Bush's rapidly declining influence both on Capitol Hill and among once-stalwart allies in what his administration has called "new Europe." "The U.S. clearly mismanaged this rollout," said Bruce P. Jackson, a former Pentagon official and administration ally who has worked closely with the new democracies of Eastern Europe. "There weren't clear talking points, there was no interagency discussion about this, and we blindsided ourselves and also blindsided the governments in question. It's embarrassing." Read The Full Story Campaign Money Woes Cause McCain To Let 50 Or More Staffers Go 2007-07-02 14:14:19 John McCain's campaign, trailing top Republican rivals in money and polls, is undergoing a significant reorganization with staff cuts in every department, officials with knowledge of the shake-up said Monday. Some 50 staffers or more are being let go, and senior aides will be subject to pay cuts as the Arizona senator's campaign bows to the reality of six months of subpar fundraising, said these officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public. An afternoon conference call was scheduled to announce the results of second-quarter fundraising. Once considered the front-runner for the GOP nomination, McCain came in third in the money chase behind Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani,raising $13.6 million in the first three months of the year. He is struggling to reach that total in the second financial quarter, and isn't expected to match it. Read The Full Story Suicide Car Bomber Kills 8, Wounds 7 At Ancient Yemeni Temple 2007-07-02 14:13:31 A suicide car bomber blew himself up Monday at the site of an ancient temple popular with tourists, killing eight people and wounding seven, said police. Police in the province of Mareb said six of the dead were tourists, believed to be mostly from Spain. The other two were Yemenis, said police, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Witnesses said a car drove through a gate then exploded at the site of temple, which was built about 3,000 years ago at the time of the ancient Queen of Sheba. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but police in Mareb said they had received information last month about a possible al-Qaeda attack. Read The Full Story Despite Law, Labels Do Not Provide Foods' Origin 2007-07-02 00:43:33 In every American supermarket, labels tell shoppers where their seafood came from, but there are no such labels for meat, produce or nuts. Behind the contradiction is a lesson in political power in Washington, D.C., where lobbyists and members of Congress have managed to hold off the enforcement of a five-year-old law that required country-of-origin labeling on meat and produce as well as fish. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress and mounting questions about the safety of food imported from China, proponents of the labeling law say they believe that they finally have momentum on their side. After all, they say, at a time when consumers are ever more concerned about where their food is coming from, why not just tell them on the package? “No. 1, there’s a basic consumer right to know,” said Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, an advocacy group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine and supports the labeling law. “People are more and more concerned about the food they eat.” Read The Full Story Bush: A President Besieged And Isolated, Yet At Ease 2007-07-02 00:42:57 At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search. Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate? These are the questions of a president who has endured the most drastic political collapse in a generation. Not generally known for intellectual curiosity, Bush is seeking out those who are, engaging in a philosophical exploration of the currents of history that have swept up his administration. For all the setbacks, he remains unflinching, rarely expressing doubt in his direction, yet trying to understand how he got off course. These sessions, usually held in the Oval Office or the elegant living areas of the executive mansion, are never listed on the president's public schedule and remain largely unknown even to many on his staff. To some of those invited to talk, Bush seems alone, isolated by events beyond his control, with trusted advisers taking their leave and erstwhile friends turning on him. Read The Full Story 40 Years Later, Spain Revisits An American Nuclear Accident 2007-07-02 00:41:58 The year was 1966, the height of the cold war and the final years of the Franco dictatorship, when an American B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs collided with a supply plane above the village of Palomares in southeastern Spain. Two bombs landed intact, one just outside the village of 1,200 people in the province of Almeria, the other salvaged, unscathed, by a fisherman five miles offshore in the Mediterranean, at a depth of 760 meters (2,500 feet). The third and fourth bombs were damaged by a chemical explosion on impact, releasing about 20 kilograms (44 lbs.) of plutonium into the center of Palomares and surrounding hills. Nobody died or is known to have developed cancer, but Spain's worst nuclear accident took three months and the work of 1,600 U.S. specialists to clean up before it was promptly forgotten outside of Spain. The amnesia was helped along with a now legendary stunt by the former minister of tourism under Franco, Manuel Fraga, who took a much-photographed swim in the Mediterranean with the American ambassador to prove the waters - and budding tourist industry - were safe. More than 40 years later, the Spanish nuclear regulatory agency and a national research center on the environment, energy and technology, CIEMAT, have concluded the first large-scale study of the extent of radioactive contamination around the village, now perched in the middle of the nationwide building frenzy. It found that the area of soil contaminated with americium, a radioactive metal derived from plutonium, is more than three times larger than was previously thought: 300,000 square meters. Read The Full Story Japan Polls: Prime Minister Abe's Support Falls Below 30 Percent 2007-07-02 00:41:20 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced to reprimand his defense minister over a gaffe on Monday, as his cabinet's support rates slid below the critical 30 percent level in a poll weeks before an upper house election. Government mismanagement of pension records and voter concern about political corruption have left Abe struggling to win back support ahead of the July 29 election. He was dealt a fresh blow on Saturday when Defense Minister Kyuma sparked public anger by saying he thought the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World World Two "could not be helped." Kyuma apologized on Sunday, but opposition lawmakers called for his resignation after the latest in a series of gaffes. Read The Full Story
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