Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday July 24 2007 - (813)

Tuesday July 24 2007 edition
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U.S. House To Move On Contempt Action Against White House Aides Bolten and Miers 2007-07-24 01:32:20 The House Judiciary Committee said Monday that it would move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings against President Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas pertaining to the investigation of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. The committee's chairman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said the committee would vote Wednesday on a resolution to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt for refusing to turn over documents and testimony sought by the panel. The decision ratchets up a battle between Congress and the White House in which the Bush administration has sought to invoke executive privilege to keep documents about the firings under wraps. The resolution would go to the House floor for a vote if, as expected, the committee approves it. Only twice since the Watergate investigations of the mid-1970s has the full House voted to hold an administration official in contempt of Congress. Read The Full Story Injured Iraq War Veterans Sue V.A. Secretary Nicholson 2007-07-24 01:31:43 Frustrated by delays in health care, injured Iraq war veterans accused Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson in a lawsuit of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment. The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, California,seeks broad changes in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the V.A. has failed warriors on numerous fronts. It contends the V.A. failed to provide prompt disability benefits, failed to add staff to reduce wait times for medical care and failed to boost services for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The lawsuit also accuses the V.A. of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying benefits. The V.A. and Pentagon have generally denied such charges. Read The Full Story Water Levels Still Rising As Thousands Hit By Worst Floods In Modern British History 2007-07-24 01:31:08 Intellpuke: There are several articles here in the flooding in Britain. The first article, by Guardian newspaper staff writers, follows: The British government was accused Monday night of failing to act on its own advice to overhaul U.K. flood defenses and drainage systems which first highlighted deep-seated problems three years ago. As large tracts of central and southern England remained under water, leaving tens of thousands of homes without power or drinking water, the environment minister, Hilary Benn, announced an independent review into what is being billed as the worst episode of flooding in modern British history. It emerged Monday night that the government was warned in two separate reports that the plans in place to tackle flood risks were "complex, confusing and distressing for the public". In July 2004 the government said it needed to improve co-ordination between water companies, councils and the Environment Agency; then in 2005, the government also agreed to "work towards giving" the agency "an overarching strategic overview across all flooding and coastal erosion risks". Ministers promised to transfer this responsibility by 2006. Read The Full Story 100 People, Including 4 U.S. Troops, Dies In Clashes In Pakistan, Afghanistan 2007-07-24 01:30:21 Nearly 100 people, including four U.S. troops, died in clashes in Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, military spokesmen said, as security forces battled Talibanfighters in a war that has been gaining intensity on both sides of the border. The vast majority of those reported killed Monday were suspected insurgents. In Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition reported that its troops, along with Afghan National Army soldiers, killed about 50 Taliban fighters in the southern province of Helmand. The battle began Sunday night when insurgents ambushed an Afghan army patrol with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and continued into Monday. U.S.-led forces dropped four bombs on suspected Taliban positions, said the coalition. Later, NATO forces reported that they had used air power to attack a meeting of Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan. NATO did not provide casualty figures. Read The Full Story Democrats Press U.S. House To Expand Health Care Bill 2007-07-23 02:17:22 After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate to expand insurance coverage for low-income children, House Democrats have drafted an even broader plan that also calls for major changes in Medicare and promises to intensify the battle with the White House over health care. President Bush has threatened to veto what he sees as a huge expansion of the children’s health care program, which he describes as a step “down the path to government-run health care for every American.” The House measure calls for changes that the administration will probably find even more distasteful, including cuts in Medicare payments to private health plans. Like the bill approved last week 17 to 4 in the Senate Finance Committee, the House bill would increase tobacco taxes to help finance expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. House Democrats hope to portray the issue as a fight pitting the interests of children and older Americans against tobacco and insurance companies. The White House says the Democratic proposals would distort the original intent of the children’s program, cause a big increase in federal spending and adversely affect older Americans who are happy with the extra benefits they receive from private health plans. Read The Full Story U.S. Agriculture Dept. Pays Deceased Farmers 2007-07-23 02:16:59 The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion over seven years to the estates or companies of deceased farmers and routinely failed to conduct reviews required to ensure that the payments were properly made, according to a government report. In a selection of 181 cases from 1999 to 2005, the Government Accountability Office found that officials approved payments without any review 40 percent of the time. The report cited a 1,900-acre soybean and corn farm in Illinois that collected $400,000 on behalf of an owner who lived in Florida before his death in 1995. The company did not notify the government of the death but certified each year that the dead shareholder, who owned 40 percent of the company, was "actively engaged" in managing the farm. Most estates are allowed to collect farm payments for up to two years after an owner's death, giving heirs time to restructure their businesses and probate the will. After that, local USDA officials must certify every year that the estate is still farming and has remained open for reasons other than simply collecting subsidies. Read The Full Story Turkey's Secular Parties Get Clobbered At Polls 2007-07-23 02:16:24 Voters Sunday handed Turkey's Islamist-influenced ruling party a decisive victory in parliamentary elections, rewarding it for stewardship of the country's robust economy but raising the specter of bitter new quarrels over the feared erosion of Turkey's secular traditions. With more than two-thirds of the votes counted, the Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, garnered about 48% of the vote, according to unofficial results - a substantial increase over the 34% it received in elections five years ago when it came to power. The vote could have far-reaching consequences for Turkey's engagement with the West, including its drive to become the first Muslim-dominated country to join the European Union. Though secularist parties have been cool to that idea, the AKP has vowed to press ahead with the bid despite early rebuffs. "With this vote, Turkey said no to insularity, no to closing in on itself," said Cengiz Candar, a prominent political columnist. Read The Full Story	Commentary: A War The Pentagon Can't Win 2007-07-24 01:32:00 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon and appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, July 24, 2007. Daniel Benjamin is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Steven Simon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Both were members of the U.S. National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999. Their commentary follows:   As the National Intelligence Estimate issued last week confirms, a terrorist haven has emerged in Pakistan’s tribal belt. And as recent revelations about an aborted 2005 operation in the region demonstrate, our Defense Department is chronically unable to conduct the sort of missions that would disrupt terrorist activity there and in similarly ungoverned places. These are perhaps the most important kind of counterterrorism missions. Because the Pentagon has shown that it cannot carry them out, the Central Intelligence Agency should be given the chance to perform them. The story of the scrubbed 2005 operation illustrates why the Pentagon is incapable of doing what needs to be done. The preparations for the mission to capture or kill al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, appear to have unfolded like others before it. Intelligence was received about a high-level al-Qaeda meeting. A small snatch or kill operation was to be carried out by Special Operations. But military brass added large numbers of troops to conduct additional intelligence, force protection, communications and extraction work. At that point, as one senior intelligence official told this newspaper, “The whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan,” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pulled the plug. Read The Full Story We Hacked Into Apple's iPhone Claim Security Researchers 2007-07-24 01:31:21 It arrived in a blaze of publicity and had frenzied gadget fans queuing for days before its launch last month but, just weeks after Apple's iPhone was unleashed on American shoppers, researchers say they have discovered how to hack into it and steal personal information. Experts at Independent Security Evaluators, a computer protection consultancy, claim to have found a way to gain complete access to the phone, billed by its creators, Apple, as the mobile phone of the future. Researchers discovered the flaw after examining the way the iPhone connects to the internet. They say it is possible to hack in using the iPhone's wireless internet system, allowing full control of the phone, and accessing private information at will. Charlie Miller, lead analyst at ISE, said it meant the handset was open to abuse. "Within two weeks of part-time work we had successfully discovered a vulnerability," said a notice on the company's website. "The compromised iPhone sent personal data including SMS text messages, contact information, call history and voicemail information over this connection ... we can get any file we want." Read The Full Story Poll: Democrats Favored On War Issue 2007-07-24 01:30:37 Most Americans see President Bush as intransigent on Iraq and prefer that the Democratic-controlled Congress make decisions about a possible withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News  poll. As the president and Congress spar over war policy, both receive negative marks from the public for their handling of the situation in Iraq. By a large margin, Americans trust Democrats rather than the president to find a solution to a conflict that remains enormously unpopular. And more than six in 10 in the new poll said Congress should have the final say on when to bring the troops home. The president has steadfastly asserted his power as commander in chief to make decisions about the war, but his posture is now viewed by majorities of Democrats, independents and even Republicans as too inflexible. Asked whether Bush is willing enough to change policies on Iraq, nearly eight in 10 Americans said no. Since December, the percentage seeing Bush as too rigid has increased 12 points, with the most significant change among Republicans. Just after the 2006 midterm elections and the release of the 79-point plan from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, 55 percent of Republicans thought Bush was willing enough to change course in Iraq; in this poll, 55 percent of Republicans said he is not. Read The Full Story Medics Who Were Jailed Depart Libya 2007-07-24 01:29:49 Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly contaminating children with the AIDS virus left Tripoli Tuesday on board a plane with the French president's wife, said officials at France's presidential palace. The delegation, which had arrived in Tripoli on Sunday to negotiate their release, included the European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant. The plane was heading to Bulgaria, said officials at the Elysee Palace. France had been seeking the return home of the six - in jail for the past eight years - in a final goodwill gesture by Libya after it commuted their death sentences in favor of life in prison. Bulgaria made an official request Thursday for Tripoli to repatriate the medics to serve their sentences in Bulgaria. It granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, last month. Read The Full Story Idaho Fire Nears Homes, Military Range 2007-07-23 02:17:08 A wildfire grew by an estimated 200 square miles in 24 hours, blackening grazing land Sunday as it threatened thousands of southern Idaho homes and facilities at an Air Force training range, fire officials said Sunday. Two large wildfires along the Nevada line combined Saturday to create the more than 880-square-mile blaze, which burned grass and brush and was less than a mile from a training range of Mountain Home Air Force Base. No one has been seriously hurt, but the homes of about 7,500 people in the sparsely populated region were threatened, said Chuck Dickson, a fire information officer. The fire was only about 15 percent contained, fire spokeswoman Pam Bierce said, and mandatory evacuations remained in effect for the town of Jarbidge, Nev. Evacuation warnings were lifted for residents of Murphy Hot Springs, Idaho. Read The Full Story Deadline Extended For 23 South Korean Hostages 2007-07-23 02:16:41 A purported Taliban spokesman said Sunday that the hard-line militia had extended by 24 hours the deadline for the Afghan government to trade captured militants for 23 South Korean hostages. Afghan elders leading the hostage negotiations met with the kidnappers and reported that the Koreans were healthy, said Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi, the police chief of Qarabagh district in Ghazni district, where the Koreans were kidnapped Thursday. He said the delegation made progress in their talks, but the Afghan military said Afghan and U.S. troops had "surrounded" the region in case the government decides the military should move in. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the militants were giving the Afghan and South Korean governments until 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday to respond to their demand that 23 Taliban prisoners be freed in exchange for the Koreans. Read The Full Story
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