Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday July 11 2007 - (813)

Wednesday July 11 2007 edition
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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 Cleric, At Least 60 Others Killed In Red Mosque Raid, Fighting Continues 2007-07-10 14:16:19 The pro-Taliban cleric who led an eight-day anti-government standoff at the Red Mosque was found dead in the compound's basement on Tuesday, Pakistani officials said, hours after elite commando troops stormed the compound determined to end the siege. Although military leaders said before the raid that they would subdue the militants quickly, battles were still raging - and dozens were dead - after 15 hours of intense combat. At 9 a.m. local time, military officials said 70 percent of the mosque had been cleared. Nine hours later, they had taken control of only another 10 percent of the complex, with the remaining 20 percent still to go and militants continuing to offer stiff resistance. Fierce battles were being fought underground, as militants exploited an intricate network of subterranean tunnels to catch commandos off guard. The militants used the tunnels to move from the madrassa, or religious school, to the mosque and up into one of the minarets. Read The Full Story Former Bush Surgeon General Says He Was Muzzled 2007-07-10 14:13:28 Dr. Richard Carmona, the first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush, accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research. "Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee. "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party," added Carmona. Read The Full Story U.S.-China Trade Gap Hits New Record In June 2007-07-10 14:12:37 The politically sensitive Chinese trade surplus surged to a record $26.9 billion in June, potentially heightening tensions with the United States and increasing pressure on Beijing to allow its currency to appreciate. The figures suggested that Beijing’s incremental adjustments to the value of its currency, the yuan, have so far done little to alter a trade picture that has alarmed American lawmakers and some business interest groups in Washington, D.C. Some of the increase in its surplus may have resulted from a push by major Chinese exporters to ship goods before the expiration of government export tax rebates on July 1, a step Beijing has taken to reduce incentives for domestic companies to produce energy-intensive goods for the global economy. The hefty surplus, which increased 27 percent compared to June 2006, also reflected the slowing pace of growth in imports. Imports in June expanded at a relatively anemic 14 percent compared to the year before. Read The Full Story GOP Dissent Spurs Change In Bush's Message, But Not The Course 2007-07-10 02:28:25 President Bush, facing a growing Republican revolt against his Iraq policy, has rejected calls to change course but will launch a campaign emphasizing his intent to draw down U.S. forces next year and move toward a more limited mission if security conditions improve, senior officials said Monday. Top administration officials have begun talking with key Senate Republicans to walk them through his view of the next phase in the war, beyond the troop increase he announced six months ago today. Bush plans to lay out what an aide called "his vision for the post-surge" starting in Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday to assure the nation that he, too, wants to begin bringing troops home eventually. The White House devised the political strategy after days of intense internal discussions about how to respond to several prominent Republican senators who have broken with Bush's war policy recently. Bush decided against heeding their proposal to begin redeploying U.S. troops as early as this summer, but he and his team concluded that he needed to shift his message to show that he shares the goals of his increasingly restless Republican caucus and the broader public. Read The Full Story Gonzales Was Told Of FBI Violations But Told Congress The Opposite 2007-07-10 02:27:34 As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005. Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated. The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March. Read The Full Story Police Believe Body Found Is That Of Missing Wisconsin Student 2007-07-10 02:26:33 Investigators believe a body found in a field Monday is that of a college student who vanished last month in Madison, where the woman was last seen after a night out at the bars. Police searching an area about 10 miles south of Madison found the body on private property in a wooded area dotted with homes. Dane County Coroner John Stanley said it was tentatively identified as 22-year-old Kelly Nolan, and Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said the case is being investigated as a homicide. Formal identification may not come until Tuesday or Wednesday. Investigators have yet to get a ''detailed, up-close'' look at the body, which was covered up in a densely wooded area, but preliminary evidence suggests it is Nolan, said Stanley. Police spokesman Joel DeSpain declined to describe the condition of the body but said it was obvious to detectives that the person had been killed. Read The Full Story China's Ex-Food And Drug Chief Executed 2007-07-10 02:25:51 China on Tuesday executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog who had become a symbol of the country's wide-ranging problems on product safety. Zheng Xiaoyu's execution was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency. "The few corrupt officials of the (State Food and Drug Administration) are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," SFDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangyang said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety. "We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said about Zheng and a separate case involving Cao Wenzhuang, the administration's former pharmaceutical registration department director. Read The Full Story Hearst Mansion, Nation's Most Expensive Residence, On Sale For $165 Million 2007-07-10 02:25:06 The rich are getting richer, and their properties are getting pricier. The 1920s-era Beverly Hills mansion of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies was put on the market Monday for $165 million, making it the nation's most expensive residential listing. The pink stucco, H-shaped estate, dubbed "Beverly House" by the late newspaper magnate, is spread across 6.5 acres north of Sunset Boulevard. It has just about everything a billionaire could want - including three pools, 29 bedrooms, a state-of-the-art movie theater and even a disco. The compound boasts six residences - four houses, an apartment and a cottage for the security staff. 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 Abusing Iraqi Civilians 2007-07-10 20:25:36 Intellpuke: There are two articles here. The first is by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who writes about an article in The Nation on abuses, some including killings, of Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. Army soldiers and Marines. The second is The Nation's article by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian which goes into those abuses in detail. This article is based on interviews with U.S. Army soldiers and Marines talking about the things they have done or witnessed being done to Iraqi civilians during the Iraq War and occupation. Bob Herbert's column follows: With no end yet in sight for the long dark night of the Iraq war, The Nation magazine is coming out this week with an article that goes into great and disturbing detail about the brutal treatment of Iraqi civilians by some U.S. soldiers and marines. The article does not focus on the handful of atrocities that have gotten substantial press coverage, like the massacre in Haditha in November 2005. Instead, based on interviews conducted on the record with dozens of American combat veterans of the war, the authors address what they describe as frequent acts of violence in which U.S. forces have abused or killed Iraqi civilians - men, women and children - with impunity. The combination of recklessness, wantonly destructive behavior born of panic and deliberate acts of cold-blooded violence by G.I.'s are believed to have cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the article says. The soldiers interviewed said they believed that only a minority of U.S. troops engaged in objectionable behavior, but the toll of their actions has been huge. The article describes soldiers and marines frustrated and fearful in an alien environment in which the enemy hides among civilians and uses acts of terror as the primary tactic. "The mounting frustration of fighting an elusive enemy and the devastating effects of roadside bombs, with their steady toll of American dead and wounded, led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis," said the authors, Chris Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, and Laila al-Arian. Read The Full Story Top Aides Quit McCain's Struggling Campaign 2007-07-10 14:16:07 Republican presidential candidate John McCain accepted the resignations of two of his top aides Tuesday in a stunning shakeup of a campaign that has been roiled by financial and political problems. Campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver issued terse statements announcing their departures from the McCain camp, which reportedly came after the candidate erupted after concluding that his top-level advisers had mismanaged the operation. An angry McCain reportedly confronted Weaver and Nelson about the campaign's operations, particularly the amount of money that was being spent even when it was clear funds were tight. The final confrontation, coming after McCain returned from a visit to Iraq over the weekend, ultimately led to their departures, according to sources. Read The Full Story At Least 5 Killed As Small Plane Crashes Into Homes In Sanford, Florida 2007-07-10 14:13:11 A small plane carrying the husband of a NASCAR executive crashed into a Sanford, Florida, neighborhood while trying to make an emergency landing Tuesday, killing five people and starting two house fires that seriously burned three other people, authorities said. NASCAR confirmed that Dr. Bruce Kennedy, a Daytona Beach plastic surgeon and husband of International Speedway Corporation President Lesa France Kennedy, and NASCAR Aviation pilot Michael Klemm were among the dead. The identities of the victims on the ground were not immediately released. Authorities said an adult and two children died in the homes that were quickly gutted by the fire after the airplane crashed in the suburban Orlando neighborhood around 8:40 a.m. Read The Full Story Al-Qaeda Threatens Britain Over Rushdie Honor 2007-07-10 14:11:48 Al-Qaeda's No. 2 issued a new audiotape on Tuesday threatening to retaliate against Britain for having honored the novelist Salman Rushdie, said a U.S.-based monitoring group. Ayman al-Zawahri's 20 minute speech was entitled "Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves." It was produced by as-Sahab, the multimedia wing of al-Qaeda, to be distributed to extremist Web sites, said the U.S.-based SITE, which monitors al-Qaeda messages. The authenticity of the tape, also reported by Alexandria, Virginia-based IntelCenter, could not be independently confirmed. Osama bin Laden's deputy lashed out at Britain for having awarded a knighthood to Rushdie last month, saying it was defying the Islamic world by granting the honor to the author of "The Satanic Verses," deemed to insult Islam. Read The Full Story Pakistani Troops Storm "Red Mosque" 2007-07-10 02:28:13 Pakistani security forces stormed into the radical Red Mosque in central Islamabad early this morning in an operation to end a bloody week-long siege. Gunfire and explosions echoed across the city from 4 a.m. local time when special forces breached the mosque walls, hours after last-ditch peace negotiations collapsed. Islamist militants holed up inside a basement bunker were offering "stiff resistance", fighting with guns, grenades and gasoline bombs, said army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad. Article continues "Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed," he said. Twenty children trapped inside the compound rushed towards the soldiers and were freed but the fate of hundreds more believed to be inside remained unknown. Read The Full Story International Energy Agency: Beware Of Energy Nationalism 2007-07-10 02:27:15 A growing trend towards nationalism over resources in Russia and even Britain could backfire by cutting expenditure on oil and gas worldwide at a time when demand is likely to rise faster than expected over the next five years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned Monday. At the same time, Shell signed a strategic agreement with Kremlin-controlled oil company Rosneft, weeks after BP agreed a similar deal with government-owned gas group, Gazprom. Both companies appear to be signalling that they need the influence of local operators in order to be involved in big developments in Russia. The IEA criticized governments of energy-producing countries for using a period of high oil prices - currently $76 per barrel for Brent crude - to tighten their control over production. This comes as the IEA has adjusted its oil demand growth forecast from 2% per year over the next five years to 2.2% on the back of booming consumption in the U.S. and China. "It is little wonder that consumers focus on supply diversity, both geographically and by fuel form. This can create a vicious circle for investment," said the IEA, the Paris-based adviser to 26 industrialized nations including Britain, in its medium-term oil market report. Read The Full Story U.S. Senator's Number On 'D.C. Madam' Phone List 2007-07-10 02:26:18 U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) apologized Monday night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case. The statement containing Vitter's apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004. The service's proprietor, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 51, faces federal charges of racketeering for allegedly running a prostitution ring out of homes and hotel rooms in the Washington, D.C., area. Authorities say the business netted more than $2 million over 13 years beginning in 1993. Palfrey contends that her escort service was a legitimate business. "This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter, 46, said in a statement, which his spokesman, Joel DiGrado, confirmed to the Associated Press. Read The Full Story Class-Action Attorney's Plea Could Help U.S. Snag Bigger Fish 2007-07-10 02:25:28 A former senior partner of a pioneering law firm that won billions for clients in securities fraud cases pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy, giving prosecutors ammunition to go after the lawyer widely regarded as the master of shareholder class actions. The plea agreement by Milberg Weiss ex-partner David Bershad in what the government has described as a kickback scheme ratchets up the pressure on William S. Lerach, another former partner of the firm, as well as firm co-founder Melvyn Weiss. The New York-based firm made its name launching shareholder suits against major corporations and recovered more than $45 billion for investors in such cases. Read The Full Story
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