Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday August 31 2007 - (813)

Friday August 31 2007 edition
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U.S. Says Companies Bribed U.S. Officers To Win Contracts In Iraq 2007-08-31 03:24:39 An American-owned company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to American contracting officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts, the government says in court documents. The Army last month suspended the company, Lee Dynamics International, from doing business with the government, and the case now appears to be at the center of a contracting fraud scandal that prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to dispatch the Pentagon inspector general to Iraq to investigate. Court documents filed in the case say the Army took action because the company was suspected of paying hundreds of thousands in bribes to Army officers to secure contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq that stored weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other materiel for Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005. A lawyer for the company denied the accusations. Read The Full Story Bush To Offer Proposals To Ease Mortgage Crisis 2007-08-31 03:24:07 The Bush administration Friday will propose a set of policies meant to help ease the wave of mortgage defaults, according to senior administration officials. It is the administration's first broad effort to deal with the rising number of home foreclosures, which are widely forecast to increase in the next year. President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., will propose changes to the Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance program that would allow more people to refinance with FHA insurance if they fall behind on adjustable-rate mortgages, which offer low introductory rates that can later rise, sometimes doubling a monthly payment. People who have missed mortgage payments are now ineligible for FHA insurance. In the president's plan, they would be eligible if they fall behind only because the amount they are required to pay each month increases, as is now happening with many mortgages issued from 2004 to 2006. The officials said the administration can make the change without congressional approval, but other details will require legislation. Read The Full Story Gonzales' Testimony To Congress Being Investigated By Justice Department 2007-08-30 21:18:11 The Justice Department is investigating whether departing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales gave false or misleading testimony to Congress on a broad range of issues, including the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program and the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year, the lead investigator said Thursday. The disclosure by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine shows that internal investigations that began with the prosecutor firings have widened substantially to include a focus on Gonzales' actions and statements. Gonzales announced Monday that he was quitting the Justice Department after seven months of sustained conflict with Congress over the prosecutor dismissals and other issues. He told aides that he had decided his credibility with lawmakers had been too severely damaged to continue in the job. Read The Full Story Britain's Ministry Of Defense Denies Prisoner-Release Deal Over Withdrawal From Basra, Iraq 2007-08-30 21:17:40 British forces have released more than two dozen Iraqi prisoners over the last three months in the run-up to their now imminent withdrawal from the U.K. base at Saddam's Hussein's former palace compound in Basra, though the government denies doing a deal with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army to stave off last-minute attacks. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) Thursday would say only that 26 unnamed men had been routinely released into Iraq state custody since May "because a significant criminal case was built against them". What happened to them subsequently was "a matter for the Iraq authorities". Some of the 26 have been released on bail, some freed due to insufficient evidence and some are still in custody pending trial. "The way in which these cases have been handled is about due legal process, and these 26 cases are not related to a deal with the Mahdi army," said the MoD. "There is nothing new about us releasing detainees/internees and we have been completely open about how many we hold and how many have been released." In the three months from February to April, 28 prisoners were freed. A senior Iraqi security official told a U.S. newspaper that the transfer of Mahdi army prisoners had been agreed between the British and Iraqi authorities to buy peace as U.K. forces finally withdrew. According to one Basra prisoner in contact with a British lawyer, six of those freed by mid-August under a deal approved by Major General Jonathan Shaw, commander of U.K. forces, were "grade A terrorists". Read The Full Story Audio Of Sen. Craig's Police Interview Released 2007-08-30 21:16:07 A combative Sen. Larry Craig denied that he was soliciting sex in an airport men's room but told the undercover officer who arrested him "I don't want to be in court" to fight the charges, according to a police interview with Craig released Thursday. The Idaho Republican explained he was "a fairly wide guy" as he sought to explain why his shoe touched the shoe of an undercover officer in the stall next to him, which Craig described as an innocent bump. Craig denied placing his left hand under the stall divider on his right, despite the officer's insistence that he saw Craig's wedding ring on his left hand, which he said was palm up, according to the transcript and an audiotape of the interview. "I am not gay, I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Officer Dave Karsnia, who argued several times with the senator during the interview. Karsnia cut the interview off abruptly after a little more than eight minutes, telling Craig that his denials were "embarrassing" and added that because of politicians like him "we're going down the tubes." Read The Full Story Plane Carrying Congressmen Comes Under Fire In Iraq 2007-08-30 21:15:03 A military cargo plane carrying three senators and a House member was forced to take evasive maneuvers and dispatch flares to avoid ground fire after taking off from Baghdad on Thursday night. The lawmakers said their plane, a C-130, was under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes as they left for Amman, Jordan. "It was a scary moment," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. "Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares." Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, and James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, as well as Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Alabama, were also on the plane. "We were jostled around pretty good," said Cramer, Read The Full Story U.S. Commander: Military Alone Can't Defeat Taliban 2007-08-30 14:36:59 Military force alone is unlikely to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, a top U.S. commander said Thursday, noting that most insurgencies end with a political solution. Maj. Gen. Robert Cone, who is in charge of equipping and training Afghan security forces to take over from international troops, said the local units were making good progress, but declined to say when they would be strong enough to allow foreign forces to go home. Meanwhile, a senior Taliban leader was killed in a clash with Afghan and foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, said an Afghan army officer. Violence is soaring in Afghanistan despite years of counterinsurgency operations by international troops and millions of dollars spent in equipping the country's army and police units. Read The Full Story Editorial: Abu Ghraib Swept Under The Carpet 2007-08-30 14:36:31 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Thursday, August 30, 2007. We would have been hard pressed to think of a more sadly suitable coda to the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Abu Ghraib nightmare than Tuesday’s verdict in the court-martial of the only officer to be tried for the abuse, sexual assault and torture of prisoners that occurred there in 2003. The verdict was a remix of the denial of reality and avoidance of accountability that the government has used all along to avoid the bitter truth behind Abu Ghraib: The abuses grew out of President Bush’s decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions and American law in handling prisoners after Sept. 11, 2001. The man on trial, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, was not a career officer. He was one of a multitude of reservists pressed into Iraq duty, many of them for jobs beyond their experience or abilities. A military jury of nine colonels and a brigadier general decided that he was not to blame for the failure to train or supervise the Abu Ghraib jailers and acquitted him on all charges related to the abuse. He was convicted only of disobeying an order to keep silent about Abu Ghraib. Even that drew only a reprimand, from an organization that Colonel Jordan presumably has no further interest in serving. Our purpose is not to second-guess the verdict. Rather, we fear that this and the other Abu Ghraib trials have served no larger purpose than punishing 11 low-ranking soldiers who committed despicable acts. Not one officer has been punished beyond a reprimand, and there has been even less accountability at higher levels. Read The Full Story Bernanke Opposes Loosening Regulatory Constraints On Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae 2007-08-30 14:36:05 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't need a loosening of regulatory constraints to help borrowers threatened with foreclosure. The government-sponsored mortgage funding companies have said they could help ease the crunch in the mortgage markets if they were allowed to buy more mortgages and mortgage-backed securities and help borrowers refinance on more manageable terms. Democratic lawmakers have joined housing industry groups and Wall Street investment firms in calling for a relaxation of the limits, but President Bush and federal regulators have rejected the proposals. Read The Full Story GAO: Iraq Has Met Only 3 Of 18 Congressionally Mandated Benchmarks 2007-08-30 03:27:46 Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White Houselast month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration. The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.  They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq. The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved." Read The Full Story Republican Leaders Strip Sen. Craig Of Committee Assignments 2007-08-30 03:27:12 U.S. Sen. Larry Craig went on vacation with his wife Wednesday, according to aides, as calls for his resignation intensified, Republican leaders stripped him of his committee assignments, and support in his home state appeared to be eroding. On the day after Craig dismissed having pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in an airport restroom as an overreaction to a mistaken arrest, and insisted that he is not gay, even longtime supporters expressed disappointment. "I voted for him before, but I wouldn't vote for him again, because I don't believe him," said beautician Linda Anderson, 45. In Washington, D.C., two Republican senators said their colleague should resign. "My opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve," Sen. John McCain (Arizona) told CNN. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) agreed and announced that he will give to a charity $2,500 in campaign funds his office had received from Craig. Read The Full Story Climate Warming Raises Long-Term Flood Fears In U.K. 2007-08-30 03:26:43 A study finds that plans to protect Britain do not heed the risk of rising river levels caused by global warming. Scientists have urged the British government to consider the full impact of global warming when drawing up plans to protect Britain from flooding. A study from the Met Office's Hadley Center predicts that river levels will rise higher than anticipated because existing computer models do not take into account the effects of climate change on plant life. In a warmer world, say scientists, less water will be drawn up by plants, causing greater flows into rivers like the Thames and the Severn, which burst their banks last month bringing chaos to large parts of England. The study results, published Thursday in the journal Nature, show that, if carbon dioxide emissions go unchecked, climate change and its effect on plants will have increased river flow by 13% in Europe over the course of 300 years. Read The Full Story Clinton Donor Under A Cloud In Fraud Case 2007-08-30 03:25:55 U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that it would give to charity $23,000 it had received from a prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised, after learning that the authorities in California had a warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 fraud case. The donor, Norman Hsu, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates since 2003, and was slated to be co-host next month for a Clinton gala featuring the entertainer Quincy Jones. The event would not have been unusual for Hsu, a businessman from Hong Kong who moves in circles of power and influence, serving on the board of a university in New York and helping to bankroll Democratic campaigns. What was not widely known was that Hsu, who is in the apparel business in New York, has been considered a fugitive since he failed to show up in a San Mateo County courtroom about 15 years ago to be sentenced for his role in a scheme to defraud investors, according to the California attorney general’s office. Read The Full Story	California State Senate Blocks Madatory I.D. Implants In Employees 2007-08-31 03:24:24 The bill would prevent employers in California from requiring workings to the devices implanted beneath their skin. Tackling a dilemma right out of a science fiction novel, the California State Senate passed legislation Thursday that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin. State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans. The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person. "RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses," said Simitian. "But we shouldn't condone forced 'tagging' of humans. It's the ultimate invasion of privacy." Read The Full Story Foreign-Born Widows Face Deportation 2007-08-31 03:23:47 Jacqueline Coats' husband drowned after he dove into a fierce Pacific Ocean riptide to rescue two boys. Now the immigrant from Kenya might be forced to leave the United States because he died before filing her residency application. She is among more than 80 foreign-born widows across the nation who face possible deportation because their husbands died before immigration paperwork was approved. Some attorneys want to challenge the government's policy of rejecting green card requests if an immigrant's American spouse dies before the application is processed. At least one lawyer plans to file a class-action lawsuit. ''This is a wrong that definitely has to be righted,'' said immigration attorney Ralph Pineda of Orlando, Florida. A group of California congressional lawmakers filed a bill in January asking the Congress to grant Coats legal status, but similar measures for other immigrants have seldom passed. Read The Full Story Barclay's Admits Borrowing Hundreds Of Million At Banks' Emergency Rate 2007-08-30 21:17:59 "Technical breakdown" in clearing system blamed. British pound falls as news swirls around money markets. Barclays has been forced to borrow hundreds of millions of pounds from the Bank of England's emergency lending facility for the second time in a fortnight (two weeks), it was revealed Thursday night. In a hurried and emotive statement after London's markets had closed, Barclays attempted to calm fears that it faces a cash crisis. Rumors had circulated all day that Barclays was forced to go to the Bank of England after the central bank said it had lent £1.6 billion ($3.2 billion) at its penal rate of 6.75%. It is thought that Barclays borrowed the entire amount. Barclays said: "There are no liquidity issues in the U.K. markets. Barclays itself is flush with liquidity. In these challenging times the dramatization of such situations is of no help to markets, their members or their customers." The high street bank, which also has a huge investment banking division, said it needed cash only because of a "technical breakdown" in the U.K. clearing system, through which all the major banks settle their books at the end of the day. Its shares fell 2.5 pounds to 597.5 pounds, raising questions over its £45 billion ($90 billion) bid to take over the Dutch bank ABN Amro. In its statement, Barclays said: "The Bank of England sterling standby facility is there to facilitate market operations in such circumstances. Had there not been a technical breakdown, this situation would not have occurred." Read The Full Story Commentary: The Jinx Of The North 2007-08-30 21:16:44 Intellpuke: The following commentry was written by Sarah Churchwell and appears in the Guardian edition for Friday, August 31, 2007. Ms. Churchwell is a senior lecturer in American Literature and culture at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. She writes that Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barrack Obama are doomed to failure in the 2008 presidential race because they are not from the U.S. south. Her commentary follows: As an American who yields to none in her loathing of the incumbent president, I am frequently invited to enthuse over the presumptive 2008 Democratic contenders. But I'm unconvinced that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is electable. Perhaps it's time to consider the dark horse. U.S. papers report that John Edwards has gone on the attack; one of his advisers just opined that a Clinton nomination would lose blue states. A recent poll agreed: more than half of Americans would never vote for Clinton, which shouldn't surprise anyone who remembers the first Clinton presidency. Obama presents a similar problem. I'm a fan, and from his home state, but I don't think he can win the presidency yet. Moreover, the dark horse has an overlooked advantage, and given that none of the nominees has offered anything so divisive as actual ideas to help us choose among them, Democratic strategists might consider Edwards for one reason alone: history. The election of the first Republican president, in 1860, precipitated the U.S. civil war. His name was Abraham Lincoln, and his new party represented the urban north, federalism, and abolition. The party of the rural south, the Democrats, supported agrarianism, states' rights, and slavery. After Lincoln's election, southern Democrats seceded from the union, formed the Confederate States of America, and declared war on Republicans. Read The Full Story As Measles Outbreak Spreads, U.K. Health Officials Plea With Parents To Have Children Vaccinated 2007-08-30 21:15:32 Childhood infections have tripled in the last 11 weeks. Britain's public health officials Thursday night issued an appeal for parents to vaccinate their children against measles, amid fears of an outbreak during the new school term. The move follows a surge in children diagnosed with the disease over the summer, with cases more than tripling in the past 11 weeks. There have been 480 confirmed cases of measles in the U.K. so far this year, compared with 756 cases during all of 2006 (the most recorded in a single year), according to the Health Protection Agency. The agency said there had been nearly 350 cases confirmed over the summer, when infections were usually at their lowest. The outbreaks were in the geographical areas with the lowest use of the MMR jab, which vaccinates against measles, mumps and rubella. Public confidence in the jab had fallen over concerns about its safety. Read The Full Story Google, Microsoft-backed group ready to Defend Fair Use 2007-08-30 17:33:44 Earlier this month, the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed a complaint with the FTC alleging that professional sports leagues, Hollywood studios, and book publishers were all using copyright notices that misrepresented the law. Now, the group has launched a web site called Defend Fair Use that shows they are serious about making the complaint stick. The site is basically used as a way to disseminate the group's FTC complaint and drum up signatures for a petition that will be delivered to the agency later this year. For those interested in seeing examples of the allegedly abusive copyright notices that prompted the complain, the CCIA has helpfully published several on the site. In contrast to copyright notices that take no account of fair use and claim control over "all accounts and descriptions" of a game, the CCIA offers a different copyright notice of its own. "We recognize that copyright law guarantees that you, as a member of the public, have certain legal rights," is says. "You may copy, distribute, prepare derivative works, reproduce, introduce into an electronic retrieval system, perform, and transmit portions of this publication provided that such use constitutes 'fair use' under copyright law, or is otherwise permitted by applicable law." Such a statement arguably represents US copyright law better than "no part of this publication may be reproduced... by any means... without prior written permission" (Penguin Books). Fair use does allow for many kinds of copies to be made for a variety of different reasons, and the CCIA wants the FTC to go after media companies and sports leagues on the grounds that they are committing deceptive trade practices. Read The Full Story Taliban Militants Free Last Remaining South Korean Hostages 2007-08-30 14:36:45 Taliban militants released the last of 21 South Korean hostages in central Afghanistan Thursday, bringing to an end a six-week drama that saw two captives executed, said witnesses. Seven hostages were handed over in two groups to officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross on a road in Ghazni province today, said an Associated Press reporter at the scene. The final three, two women and one man, were covered in dust as they emerged from the desert, accompanied by three armed men, and were turned over to waiting ICRC officials. Read The Full Story Ouch! Freddie Mac Profit Down 45 Percent 2007-08-30 14:36:19 Freddie Mac, the nation’s second-largest buyer of home mortgages, said Thursday its second-quarter profit fell 45 percent, partly as a result of larger provisions for bad loans. The government-sponsored company said it earned $764 million, or $1.02 a share, for the three months ended June 30. That contrasted with profit of $1.4 billion, or $1.93 a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 4.8 percent, to $2.26 billion from $2.15 billion. Freddie Mac makes money from interest payments on mortgages it holds on its books and earns fees from insuring mortgages sold to investors. The company, which is based in McLean, Virginia, said it recorded a $320 million provision for credit losses in the second quarter as a result of problems with loans originated this year and last year, amid a deepening mortgage crisis nationwide. Read The Full Story Sharif Says He'll Return To Pakistan To Challenge Musharraf In Election 2007-08-30 14:35:48 Former Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif said Thursday he would return home from exile on Sept. 10 to challenge President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's plans to extend his rule. The announcement came a day after Benazir Bhutto, another exiled former premier and Sharif's rival, said she was progressing toward an agreement with Musharraf that could see them share power. Bhutto claimed Musharraf had agreed to step down as head of the army, ending military rule eight years after the general ousted Sharif in a bloodless coup. However, a Pakistani government spokesman said Thursday that although Musharraf was discussing the issue, no decision had been made. Sharif immediately challenged any agreement between Musharraf and Bhutto. Read The Full Story U.S. Weapons, Given To Iraqis, Move To Turkey 2007-08-30 03:27:30 Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, said the officials. Pentagon officials said they did not yet have evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish officials were selling or giving the weapons to Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have contended. It was possible, they said, that the weapons had been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive black market for firearms. Officials gave widely varied estimates - from dozens to hundreds - of how many American-supplied weapons had been found in Turkey. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Great Global Coal Rush Puts Us On The Fast Track To Irreversible Disaster 2007-08-30 03:26:59 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by John Harris and appears in the Guardian edition for Thursday, August 30, 2007. Mr. Harris' commentary follows: With that briefly infamous field in Middlesex now restored to suburban anonymity and the cadres of the Camp for Climate Action presumably considering their next move, the airwaves and news wires once again carry a depressingly familiar sound. Last week, the actress and alleged green convert Sienna Miller did the radio and television rounds, refusing to countenance the idea of reducing her air travel but advising the public to turn down their central heating. We now learn that the BBC has been planning Planet Relief, an eco-telethon set to feature tireless environmental campaigners such as Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross. Meanwhile, David Cameron is apparently preparing to add to the noise by returning to his own eternally confused kind of greenery. If any credible environmentalist should be speaking the hardened language of priorities, one much-overlooked story surely deserves a lot more attention: what may soon be known as the new coal rush, and developments so at odds with the imperatives of climate change that they suggest a fast track towards irreversible disaster. The ubiquitous reduction of green politics to ethical consumerism means we'd probably rather carry on talking about cars, thermostats and lightbulbs. Faced with a resurgence that spans most of the planet, even the most righteous green activist could be forgiven for feeling powerless. No matter; what with skyrocketing gas prices and the fractious state of geopolitics, the stuff responsible for a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions is on a roll, which surely represents our biggest environmental headache of all. China, that rapidly advancing dystopia where rivers run black and miners are killed at the rate of 5,000 a year (witness this month's coverage of the 180 trapped and probably killed in Shandong province, and the two brothers who dug their way out of a collapsed shaft near Beijing), is building an average of two coal-fired power stations a week, and in six years has doubled its annual coal production. India will construct more than 100 coal-fired plants over the next decade. Panicked by the possible policy repercussions of George Bush's departure, U.S. power corporations are desperately pushing ahead with plans for about 150 coal-fired stations and leaning hard on presidential candidates - as evidenced by Rudy Giuliani's recent suggestion that the U.S. should "increase our reliance on coal". Read The Full Story Chileans Take Streets In Anger At Regime 2007-08-30 03:26:05 Hundreds arrested in clashes with police. Economic inequality at heart of protest in capital. Thousands of Chileans took to the streets Wednesday in a burgeoning middle class revolt against the 17 years of coalition government that has ruled since the fall of Augusto Pinochet in 1990. Hundreds of Chileans were arrested as they approached the presidential palace. Squares in and around the palace became a chaotic mix of mounted police, riot troops and teargas. As water cannons blasted protesters, waves of students counterattacked with rocks. Burning barricades almost closed central Santiago. Television images showed senator Alejandro Navarro, of President Michelle Bachelet's Socialist party, bleeding from the back of his head after apparently being clubbed by a police officer. The deputy interior minister, Felipe Harboe, said the incident would be investigated. Navarro, who was treated in a hospital, supported the protest. Read The Full Story Pakistan's Musharraf, Bhutto Reach Deal 2007-08-30 03:25:34 Musharraf to step down as head of military. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has agreed to step down as army chief as part of a broad and once-unthinkable agreement being finalized with his chief political rival, Benazir Bhutto, officials on both sides said Wednesday. The agreement, if completed, would probably permit Musharraf to continue as president and allow Bhutto to return to Pakistan after eight years of exile to try to win back her old job as prime minister, said officials. More broadly, the deal would fundamentally alter the political landscape in Pakistan, a top U.S. ally on counterterrorism but also a haven for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. A top aide to Musharraf confirmed that the issue of the president's military status had been settled and that he would be making an announcement soon. "It's solved," said Sheik Rashid Ahmed, a federal minister. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday August 30 2007 - (813)

Thursday August 30 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
GAO: Iraq Has Met Only 3 Of 18 Congressionally Mandated Benchmarks 2007-08-30 03:27:46 Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White Houselast month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration. The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.  They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq. The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved." Read The Full Story Republican Leaders Strip Sen. Craig Of Committee Assignments 2007-08-30 03:27:12 U.S. Sen. Larry Craig went on vacation with his wife Wednesday, according to aides, as calls for his resignation intensified, Republican leaders stripped him of his committee assignments, and support in his home state appeared to be eroding. On the day after Craig dismissed having pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct in an airport restroom as an overreaction to a mistaken arrest, and insisted that he is not gay, even longtime supporters expressed disappointment. "I voted for him before, but I wouldn't vote for him again, because I don't believe him," said beautician Linda Anderson, 45. In Washington, D.C., two Republican senators said their colleague should resign. "My opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve," Sen. John McCain (Arizona) told CNN. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) agreed and announced that he will give to a charity $2,500 in campaign funds his office had received from Craig. Read The Full Story Climate Warming Raises Long-Term Flood Fears In U.K. 2007-08-30 03:26:43 A study finds that plans to protect Britain do not heed the risk of rising river levels caused by global warming. Scientists have urged the British government to consider the full impact of global warming when drawing up plans to protect Britain from flooding. A study from the Met Office's Hadley Center predicts that river levels will rise higher than anticipated because existing computer models do not take into account the effects of climate change on plant life. In a warmer world, say scientists, less water will be drawn up by plants, causing greater flows into rivers like the Thames and the Severn, which burst their banks last month bringing chaos to large parts of England. The study results, published Thursday in the journal Nature, show that, if carbon dioxide emissions go unchecked, climate change and its effect on plants will have increased river flow by 13% in Europe over the course of 300 years. Read The Full Story Clinton Donor Under A Cloud In Fraud Case 2007-08-30 03:25:55 U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that it would give to charity $23,000 it had received from a prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised, after learning that the authorities in California had a warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 fraud case. The donor, Norman Hsu, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates since 2003, and was slated to be co-host next month for a Clinton gala featuring the entertainer Quincy Jones. The event would not have been unusual for Hsu, a businessman from Hong Kong who moves in circles of power and influence, serving on the board of a university in New York and helping to bankroll Democratic campaigns. What was not widely known was that Hsu, who is in the apparel business in New York, has been considered a fugitive since he failed to show up in a San Mateo County courtroom about 15 years ago to be sentenced for his role in a scheme to defraud investors, according to the California attorney general’s office. Read The Full Story UFO Spotted Near Kaitaia, Over Tasman Sea, Baffles Experts 2007-08-29 17:35:13 A mysterious object seen in skies over the Tasman Sea near Kaitaia is baffling UFO experts. Last month, The Northern News reported that UFO Focus New Zealand (UFOCUS NZ) and world UFO expert Dr. Bruce Maccabee were studying a series of unusual photographs taken at Ahipara on April 28. The digital photos, taken of the sky and sea at 5:42 p.m., showed a bright object which did not look like a cloud and had the appearance of a craft. The story attracted intense interest and remained one of the most viewed stories on the Northland page of New Zealand's Stuff news website three weeks after publication. Last week, UFOCUS released its report on the sighting and Stuff has now posted the photos. Read The Full Story Japan's Faster, Cheaper Warpspeed Internet Connections Paying Off In Innovation 2007-08-29 13:59:10 Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it. Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States - and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show. Accelerating broadband speed in this country - as well as in South Korea and much of Europe - is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States. The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure. Ultra-high-speed applications are being rolled out for low-cost, high-definition teleconferencing, for telemedicine - which allows urban doctors to diagnose diseases from a distance - and for advanced telecommuting to help Japan meet its goal of doubling the number of people who work from home by 2010. Read The Full Story Commentary: These Countries That Are Buying Up The Planet 2007-08-29 13:58:31 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Frederic Lemaitre and appears in the Le Monde edition for Tuesday, August 28, 2007. July 2005: French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin preached "economic patriotism." From London to Brussels, the condemnations were unanimous. August 2007: German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces a proposed law to "preserve national interests in the face of problematic foreign investments." Nobody is offended by it. Why the difference? Because in two years the perception of globalization has changed. For two decades, globalization has rhymed with liberalization and privatization. That's over, or very nearly so. Tomorrow, by a strange reversal of the situation, globalization will rhyme more and more with nationalizations. With one important new detail: companies will no longer be the property of the State in which they were created, but will belong to the planet's new bankers: notably China, Russia, Norway and the Gulf States. In fact, thanks to the rise in raw material prices or their trade surpluses, these countries have money. Lots of money. For a long time, they were content to manage it paternally, especially by buying U.S. Treasury Bonds. Then, observing that the stock market offered a better return over the long run, a number of these countries acquired stocks, taking shares here and there in private companies. They went from being lenders to becoming owners. But, often minority shareholders: they did not interfere in management and settled for collecting their dividends. In this way, the Norwegian government pension fund, which manages a trifling 300 billion dollar (219.5 billion Euros) portfolio, is a shareholder in about 90 French companies, but never holds more than about 1 percent of the shares of any of them. That could become the exception. The Dubai investment fund just acquired 9.5 percent of MGM Mirage, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's company, which owns a third of the casinos and half the hotel rooms in Las Vegas. Through its different subsidiaries, the same investment fund owns 3.12 percent of EADS. It does not hesitate to oppose the Swedish authorities in order to buy up OMX, one of Northern Europe's stock exchanges. The Qatar fund, for its part, is ready to spend 24 billion dollars to acquire the British supermarket chain Sainsbury. Read The Full Story Antibacterial Soaps No Better At Protecting Agains Infections Than Plain Soap 2007-08-29 13:57:55 Antibacterial soaps that contain triclosan as the main active ingredient are no better at preventing infections than plain soaps, say University of Michigan researchers who reviewed 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006 to reach their conclusion. The team also concluded that these antibacterial soaps could actually pose a health risk, because they may reduce the effectiveness of some common antibiotics, such as amoxicillin. That's because - unlike antibacterial soaps used in hospitals and other clinical settings - the antibacterial soaps sold to the public don't contain high enough concentrations of triclosan to kill bacteria such as E. coli. "What we are saying is that these E. coli could survive in the concentrations that we use in our [consumer-formulated] antibacterial soaps," researcher Allison Aiello, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement. Read The Full Story The Looming Food Crisis 2007-08-29 03:07:55 Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming - but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries. Add in water shortages, natural disasters and an ever-rising population, and what you have is a recipe for disaster. The mile upon mile of tall maize waving to the horizon around the small Nebraskan town of Carleton looks perfect to farmers such as Mark Jagels. He and his father farm 2,500 acres (10,000 square kilometers), the price of maize - what the Americans call corn - has never been higher, and the future has seldom seemed rosier. Carleton (town motto: "The center of it all") is booming, with $200 million of Californian money put up for a new biofuel factory and, after years in the doldrums, there is new full-time, well-paid work for 50 people. But there is a catch. The same fields that surround Jagels' house on the great plains may be bringing new money to rural America, but they are also helping to push up the price of bread in Manchester, England, tortillas in Mexico City and beer in Madrid. As a direct result of what is happening in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana and Oklahoma, food aid for the poorest people in southern Africa, pork in China and beef in Britain are all more expensive. Challenged by President George Bush to produce 35 billion gallons of non-fossil transport fuels by 2017 to reduce U.S. dependency on imported oil, the Jagels family and thousands of farmers like them are patriotically turning the corn belt of America from the bread basket of the world into an enormous fuel tank. Only a year ago, their maize mostly went to cattle feed or was exported as food aid. Come harvest time in September, almost all will end up at the new plant at Carleton, where it will be fermented to make ethanol, a clear, colorless alcohol consumed, not by people, but by cars. Read The Full Story Bush Wants $50 Billion More For Iraq War 2007-08-29 03:07:19 President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said Tuesday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces. The request - which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crockerwill assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year. The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said. Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress. Read The Full Story	U.S. Weapons, Given To Iraqis, Move To Turkey 2007-08-30 03:27:30 Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, said the officials. Pentagon officials said they did not yet have evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish officials were selling or giving the weapons to Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have contended. It was possible, they said, that the weapons had been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive black market for firearms. Officials gave widely varied estimates - from dozens to hundreds - of how many American-supplied weapons had been found in Turkey. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Great Global Coal Rush Puts Us On The Fast Track To Irreversible Disaster 2007-08-30 03:26:59 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by John Harris and appears in the Guardian edition for Thursday, August 30, 2007. Mr. Harris' commentary follows: With that briefly infamous field in Middlesex now restored to suburban anonymity and the cadres of the Camp for Climate Action presumably considering their next move, the airwaves and news wires once again carry a depressingly familiar sound. Last week, the actress and alleged green convert Sienna Miller did the radio and television rounds, refusing to countenance the idea of reducing her air travel but advising the public to turn down their central heating. We now learn that the BBC has been planning Planet Relief, an eco-telethon set to feature tireless environmental campaigners such as Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross. Meanwhile, David Cameron is apparently preparing to add to the noise by returning to his own eternally confused kind of greenery. If any credible environmentalist should be speaking the hardened language of priorities, one much-overlooked story surely deserves a lot more attention: what may soon be known as the new coal rush, and developments so at odds with the imperatives of climate change that they suggest a fast track towards irreversible disaster. The ubiquitous reduction of green politics to ethical consumerism means we'd probably rather carry on talking about cars, thermostats and lightbulbs. Faced with a resurgence that spans most of the planet, even the most righteous green activist could be forgiven for feeling powerless. No matter; what with skyrocketing gas prices and the fractious state of geopolitics, the stuff responsible for a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions is on a roll, which surely represents our biggest environmental headache of all. China, that rapidly advancing dystopia where rivers run black and miners are killed at the rate of 5,000 a year (witness this month's coverage of the 180 trapped and probably killed in Shandong province, and the two brothers who dug their way out of a collapsed shaft near Beijing), is building an average of two coal-fired power stations a week, and in six years has doubled its annual coal production. India will construct more than 100 coal-fired plants over the next decade. Panicked by the possible policy repercussions of George Bush's departure, U.S. power corporations are desperately pushing ahead with plans for about 150 coal-fired stations and leaning hard on presidential candidates - as evidenced by Rudy Giuliani's recent suggestion that the U.S. should "increase our reliance on coal". Read The Full Story Chileans Take Streets In Anger At Regime 2007-08-30 03:26:05 Hundreds arrested in clashes with police. Economic inequality at heart of protest in capital. Thousands of Chileans took to the streets Wednesday in a burgeoning middle class revolt against the 17 years of coalition government that has ruled since the fall of Augusto Pinochet in 1990. Hundreds of Chileans were arrested as they approached the presidential palace. Squares in and around the palace became a chaotic mix of mounted police, riot troops and teargas. As water cannons blasted protesters, waves of students counterattacked with rocks. Burning barricades almost closed central Santiago. Television images showed senator Alejandro Navarro, of President Michelle Bachelet's Socialist party, bleeding from the back of his head after apparently being clubbed by a police officer. The deputy interior minister, Felipe Harboe, said the incident would be investigated. Navarro, who was treated in a hospital, supported the protest. Read The Full Story Pakistan's Musharraf, Bhutto Reach Deal 2007-08-30 03:25:34 Musharraf to step down as head of military. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has agreed to step down as army chief as part of a broad and once-unthinkable agreement being finalized with his chief political rival, Benazir Bhutto, officials on both sides said Wednesday. The agreement, if completed, would probably permit Musharraf to continue as president and allow Bhutto to return to Pakistan after eight years of exile to try to win back her old job as prime minister, said officials. More broadly, the deal would fundamentally alter the political landscape in Pakistan, a top U.S. ally on counterterrorism but also a haven for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. A top aide to Musharraf confirmed that the issue of the president's military status had been settled and that he would be making an announcement soon. "It's solved," said Sheik Rashid Ahmed, a federal minister. Read The Full Story Al Sadr Orders Six-Month Suspension Of Mahdi Army 2007-08-29 13:59:27 Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr Wednesday ordered a six-month shutdown of his militia in what his aides described as an attempt to reform the organization, a development that came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki imposed a curfew in the southern holy city of Karbala to contain the deadly fighting there. The fighting in Karbala during a religious festival was blamed by some on Sadr's Mahdi Army. In a statement read on Iraqi state television, Hazim al Arraji, an aide to the powerful cleric, announced that Sadr was "freezing the Mahdi Army, without exception in order to have it restructured in a way that would retain for this ideological body its prestige for a period of a maximum of six months." He also called for a day of mourning to condemn the recent clashes in Karbala, which left at least 49 dead during one of the Shiite faith's chief holidays. "I advise all sides to investigate what had happened." Read The Full Story Commentary: CheneyBush's 'Mercenary' Legions 2007-08-29 13:58:49 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Bernard Weiner, co-editor of The Crisis Papers website. Mr. Weiner's commentary appeared on that site on Tuesday, August 28, 2007. Mr. Weiner, Ph.D. in government and international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, and worked for two decades as a writer/editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. His commentary follows: "Outsourcing" jobs overseas is only the tip of the iceberg. How about the CheneyBush administration "outsourcing" our military, our intelligence-gathering, our nation's soul? Taking private enterprise way beyond what is reasonable, or desirable, or safe, the CheneyBush administration has turned over a huge raft of national-security functions to those not adequately trained, not accountable to the public or the law, not showing up on the political radar. In short, CheneyBush have created what amounts to their own private legions - soldiers, intelligence analysts, security guards, construction experts, supply specialists, et al. - in effect, a "mercenary" force bought and paid for by the American taxpayer. That's why there will probably be no draft: There is no guarantee of loyalty from those dragooned into service. Besides, many draftees have politically-connected constituencies. But when one's mercenary "volunteer" forces are totally beholden to the paymaster for their livelihood and under-the-table payoffs, they will dance with them that brung 'em. These are no small numbers. It's estimated that in addition to the 160,000 regular troops in the field in Iraq, CheneyBush control anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 private assets ("independent contractors"). Nobody's even sure under what "rules of engagement" these guys - many in security and reconstruction fields - operate, or whether they are accountable to anyone other than their corporate bosses' and the financial "bottom line." History shows us the dangers involved when leaders have large extra-institutional forces at their command, such as the Praetorian Guards and Legions of ancient Roman Caesars, Hitler's Brownshirts, Saddam's Republican Guards, the private militias of political and religious leaders today in Iraq, Blackwater forces in control of New Orleans after Katrina, etc. By and large, these mercenaries swear allegiance to their employer, not to the rule of law, not to any constitution. The catastrophic damage done to democracy by the existence, and power, of these private forces can't be overstated. Read The Full Story Taliban Free 12 South Korean Hostages In Afghanistan 2007-08-29 13:58:13 Twelve South Korean church volunteers were freed Wednesday after six weeks in Taliban captivity, said officials in Afghanistan, and the release of the remaining seven seemed imminent, apparently ending a hostage crisis that has gripped both nations. According to the agreement struck on Tuesday, South Korea pledged to withdraw its 200 noncombat troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year - a move it had previously said it would take - and ban missionary work by Korean Christians in Afghanistan. An official with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which helped facilitate the negotiations, said Taliban officials were living up to their end of the bargain. "So far everything is going exactly to plan. We see no reason it should not continue that way," said Greg Muller, a Red Cross delegate in the central Afghan province of Ghazni. Three women were freed Wednesday morning, followed by four women and one man around noon, said Muller. As dusk approached, four more hostages were freed, the Associated Press reported. The hostages were to be taken from Ghazni to Kabul by Red Cross officials, then handed over to South Korean authorities. Read The Full Story Bhutto: Musharraf To Step Down As Head Of Pakistan Military 2007-08-29 13:57:40 Pakistan's exiled former prime minister said Wednesday that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had agreed to step down as military chief in a move she expected before the next presidential election. Benazir Bhutto also said that corruption charges would be dropped against her and dozens of other lawmakers as part of ongoing negotiations to restore civilian rule. Bhutto, a two-time prime minister who left Pakistan in 1999 to avoid a government collapse, has been in negotiations with Musharraf. In a telephone interview with the Associated Press from London, she confirmed reports that Musharraf had agreed to step down as military chief as a key part of political negotiations in a power-sharing agreement. Read The Full Story Wall Street Shaken As U.S. Home Price Index Drops To 20-Year Low 2007-08-29 03:07:30 Effects of credit crisis are felt across global markets. Fed Reserve hints that further interest rate cut may be necessary. Global stock markets endured a fresh burst of volatility Tuesday as new evidence emerged over the depth of America's sub-prime mortgage crisis, prompting nervousness over interest rates and economic stability. The FTSE 100 index fell 117 points to 6,102, pushed downwards by a dive in banking shares. Markets across Europe experienced similar drops and in New York the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 279 points to 13,042. Newly published minutes from the Federal Reserve's August meeting revealed that the U.S. central bank felt obliged to keep a close eye on the situation and hinted at a possible change to interest rates if conditions worsen. "A further deterioration in financial conditions could not be ruled out and, to the extent that such a development could have an adverse effect on growth prospects, might require a policy response," said the Fed. "Policymakers would need to watch the situation carefully." The gloom was reinforced by the Standard & Poor's housing index which revealed a 3.2% fall in U.S. home prices - the worst quarterly drop since the measure began in 1987. There was a particularly sharp fall in home prices in Boston, Washington and Detroit. Of 20 cities included in the survey, 15 saw a year-on-year fall. The S&P index's committee chairman, David Blitzer, said: "We still don't see anything that looks like a clear bottom ... We're still headed down." Read The Full Story GOP Leaders Want Craig Inquiry 2007-08-29 03:07:01 Idaho Senator Asserts "I have never been gay." U.S. Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics investigation of Sen. Larry E. Craid (R-Idaho) Tuesday as he dug in for a legal and political fight to save his congressional career after acknowledging that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly-conduct charges stemming from an incident with an undercover police officer in an airport men's room. Craig denied doing anything wrong and said he had "overreacted" in pleading guilty after his June 11 arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.He said that he is "not gay" and vowed to continue to serve in the Senate. "While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in the hope of making it go away," Craig, 62, told reporters in Boise, Idaho. He said that he has retained a lawyer to review his guilty plea, though earlier this month he signed court papers declaring that he had read the police report of the incident and understood the nature of the crime and he paid a $500 fine. Legal experts said that would make any challenge difficult. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday August 29 2007 - (813)

Wednesday August 29 2007 edition
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The Looming Food Crisis 2007-08-29 03:07:55 Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming - but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries. Add in water shortages, natural disasters and an ever-rising population, and what you have is a recipe for disaster. The mile upon mile of tall maize waving to the horizon around the small Nebraskan town of Carleton looks perfect to farmers such as Mark Jagels. He and his father farm 2,500 acres (10,000 square kilometers), the price of maize - what the Americans call corn - has never been higher, and the future has seldom seemed rosier. Carleton (town motto: "The center of it all") is booming, with $200 million of Californian money put up for a new biofuel factory and, after years in the doldrums, there is new full-time, well-paid work for 50 people. But there is a catch. The same fields that surround Jagels' house on the great plains may be bringing new money to rural America, but they are also helping to push up the price of bread in Manchester, England, tortillas in Mexico City and beer in Madrid. As a direct result of what is happening in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana and Oklahoma, food aid for the poorest people in southern Africa, pork in China and beef in Britain are all more expensive. Challenged by President George Bush to produce 35 billion gallons of non-fossil transport fuels by 2017 to reduce U.S. dependency on imported oil, the Jagels family and thousands of farmers like them are patriotically turning the corn belt of America from the bread basket of the world into an enormous fuel tank. Only a year ago, their maize mostly went to cattle feed or was exported as food aid. Come harvest time in September, almost all will end up at the new plant at Carleton, where it will be fermented to make ethanol, a clear, colorless alcohol consumed, not by people, but by cars. Read The Full Story Bush Wants $50 Billion More For Iraq War 2007-08-29 03:07:19 President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said Tuesday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces. The request - which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crockerwill assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year. The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said. Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress. Read The Full Story Bush Accuses Iran Of Threatening To Put Middle East Under Shadow Of Nuclear Holocaust 2007-08-28 18:43:41 George Bush Tuesday ramped up the war of words between the U.S. and Iran, accusing the Iranian regime of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorized U.S. military commanders in Iraq to "confront Tehran's murderous activities". In a speech designed to shore up American public opinion behind his increasingly unpopular strategy in Iraq, the president reserved his strongest words for the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he accused of openly supporting violent forces within Iraq. Iran, he said, was responsible for training extremist Shia factions in the country which it supplied with arms and weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs. He referred specifically to 240mm rockets that he said had been made in Iran this year and smuggled into Iraq by Iranian agents. "Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." Read The Full Story Northwest Passage Now Plain Sailing 2007-08-28 18:43:12 The Northwest Passage - the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice - is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began. "Since August 21 the Northwest Passage is open to navigation. This is the first time that it happens," Nalan Koc, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's climate change program, told reporters in Longyearbyen, a town in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. "The Arctic ice sheet currently extends on 4.9 million square kilometers. In September 2005 it measured 5.3 million  square kilometers." Koc was quoting research from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, where scientists monitor the surface of the Arctic ice sheet at regular intervals. Last week they noted "the imminent opening" of the Northwest Passage. Read The Full Story Yahoo! Sued Over Disclosure Of Chinese Citizens' Identities 2007-08-28 18:42:42 China arrested dissidents whose identities were revealed. The internet company Yahoo! has become embroiled in a legal battle with a human rights group over a decision to disclose the identity of Chinese citizens, leading to their arrests. Yahoo! is being sued by the World Organization for Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Wang Xiaoning and his wife, Yu Ling. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for advocating democratic reform in articles circulated on the internet. The group is also suing Yahoo! on behalf of Shi Tao, a journalist serving a 10-year sentence for sending an email summarizing a Chinese government communique on how reporters should handle the 15th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Read The Full Story Anger At Greek Government's Wildfires Response 2007-08-28 18:40:37 The Greek president Tuesday declared the wildfires raging across the country a "national catastrophe" as the death toll reached 64. The most devastating fires in Greece's history have also led to bitter political attacks, with the socialist opposition accusing the government of being "totally incompetent" in its response. However, in thinly-veiled criticism of the warring politicians, President Karolos Papoulias called on Greeks to show "maturity". Tuesday the body of a shepherd, found near Zaharo in the western Peloponnese, became the latest victim of the fires, which the government has suggested have been the result of arson. Read The Full Story Men's Room Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator's Future 2007-08-28 13:34:00 A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) Tuesday after Craig said he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's room. The conservative three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate ethics committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct. Craig, who has voted against gay marriage, finds his political future in doubt in the wake of the charges, which have drawn national attention. Read The Full Story Number Of Americans Without Health Insurance Hits Record High 2007-08-28 13:33:24 The nation's poverty rate declined for the first time this decade, but the number of Americans without health insurance rose to a record high of 47 million in 2006, according to Census figures released Tuesday. The statistics offered a mixed picture of the economy's ongoing recovery from the recession of 2000-2001. While median household income rose for the second consecutive year in 2006, the increase appeared to be driven by a jump in the number of people in each household taking on full-time jobs, rather than a rise in wages. The addition of 2.2 million people to the roster of the uninsured was attributed largely to continuing declines in employer-sponsored insurance coverage. In all, 15.8 percent of Americans lacked coverage last year, up from 15.3 percent in 2005, according to new figures from the Current Population Survey. That tied 1998 as the year with the highest percentage of uninsured people over the last two decades. Read The Full Story Abdullah Gul, Devout Muslim, Wins Vote For Turkey's Presidency 2007-08-28 13:32:46 A devout Muslim with a background in political Islam won the Turkish presidency on Tuesday, in a major triumph for the Islamic-rooted government after months of confrontation with the secular establishment. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul received a majority of 339 votes in a parliamentary ballot and took the oath of office, pledging impartiality and loyalty to Turkey's historic separation of religion and politics. ''Secularism - one of the main principles of our republic - is a precondition for social peace as much as it is a liberating model for different lifestyles,'' said Gul. ''As long as I am in office, I will embrace all our citizens without any bias. I will preserve my impartiality with the greatest of care.'' Gul's victory took place a day after the military, which has ousted four governments since 1960, issued a stern warning about the threat to secularism. Gul's initial bid for president was blocked over fears that he planned to dilute secular traditions. Read The Full Story Iraq Weapons Are Focus Of Federal Criminal Investigations 2007-08-28 01:52:25 Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other materiel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict in Iraq. The inquiry has already led to several indictments of Americans, with more expected, said the officials. One of the investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David H. Petreaus in setting up the logistics operation to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials said Monday. There is no indication that investigators have uncovered any wrongdoing by General Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, who, through a spokesman, declined comment on any legal proceedings. This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen federal investigators, Congressional, law enforcement and military officials, and specialists in contracting and logistics, in Iraq and Washington, who have direct knowledge of the inquiries. Many spoke on condition of anonymity because there are continuing criminal investigations. Read The Full Story U.S. House To Hold Hearings On Two New Reports On Iraq 2007-08-28 01:51:45 The U.S. House of Representatives will hold hearings next week on two key reports assessing political and military conditions in Iraq,jump-starting the debate over President Bush's strategy even before long-awaited testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, due the following week. A completed 70-page report by the Government Accountability Office, to be delivered to Congress next Tuesday, paints a bleak picture of prospects for Iraqi political reconciliation, according to administration officials who have seen it. The second report, by an independent commission of military experts, is being drafted, but a scorecard on the Iraqi security forces released Monday by an adviser to the group concluded that the Iraqis are years away from taking over significant responsibility from U.S. combat forces. The two reports - and hearings on them in the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees - will set a largely negative backdrop for Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, who are expected to testify together in a joint hearing before the two House committees and in a separate session in the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has objected to a Pentagon proposal that they appear on Sept. 11, a Pelosi spokesman said, and the exact date remains under negotiation. Read The Full Story FAA Orders Checks Of Boeing's Airplanes After Fire 2007-08-28 01:50:55 Federal regulators ordered airlines to inspect the wings of more than 700 Boeing jets in response to a fire that destroyed a plane after it landed in Japan last week, officials said Monday. The inspections will affect more than 780 next-generation Boeing 737s operated by U.S. carriers, including AirTran  and American, Southwest and Continental airlines. The Federal Aviation Administration order focuses on the planes' slats, which are attached to the front edge of both wings and are deployed during takeoffs and landings to increase lift. The order was prompted by an accident involving a China Airlines 737, which erupted in a fireball after landing on the Japanese island of Okinawa on Aug. 20, FAA officials said. All 165 people on board escaped uninjured. Read The Full Story	Wall Street Shaken As U.S. Home Price Index Drops To 20-Year Low 2007-08-29 03:07:30 Effects of credit crisis are felt across global markets. Fed Reserve hints that further interest rate cut may be necessary. Global stock markets endured a fresh burst of volatility Tuesday as new evidence emerged over the depth of America's sub-prime mortgage crisis, prompting nervousness over interest rates and economic stability. The FTSE 100 index fell 117 points to 6,102, pushed downwards by a dive in banking shares. Markets across Europe experienced similar drops and in New York the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 279 points to 13,042. Newly published minutes from the Federal Reserve's August meeting revealed that the U.S. central bank felt obliged to keep a close eye on the situation and hinted at a possible change to interest rates if conditions worsen. "A further deterioration in financial conditions could not be ruled out and, to the extent that such a development could have an adverse effect on growth prospects, might require a policy response," said the Fed. "Policymakers would need to watch the situation carefully." The gloom was reinforced by the Standard & Poor's housing index which revealed a 3.2% fall in U.S. home prices - the worst quarterly drop since the measure began in 1987. There was a particularly sharp fall in home prices in Boston, Washington and Detroit. Of 20 cities included in the survey, 15 saw a year-on-year fall. The S&P index's committee chairman, David Blitzer, said: "We still don't see anything that looks like a clear bottom ... We're still headed down." Read The Full Story GOP Leaders Want Craig Inquiry 2007-08-29 03:07:01 Idaho Senator Asserts "I have never been gay." U.S. Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics investigation of Sen. Larry E. Craid (R-Idaho) Tuesday as he dug in for a legal and political fight to save his congressional career after acknowledging that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly-conduct charges stemming from an incident with an undercover police officer in an airport men's room. Craig denied doing anything wrong and said he had "overreacted" in pleading guilty after his June 11 arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.He said that he is "not gay" and vowed to continue to serve in the Senate. "While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in the hope of making it go away," Craig, 62, told reporters in Boise, Idaho. He said that he has retained a lawyer to review his guilty plea, though earlier this month he signed court papers declaring that he had read the police report of the incident and understood the nature of the crime and he paid a $500 fine. Legal experts said that would make any challenge difficult. Read The Full Story Huge Saudi Force To Defend Oil Fields Against Al-Qaeda 2007-08-28 18:43:27 Anxieties about al-Qaeda attacks and a U.S.-led war against Iran have prompted Saudi Arabia to establish a special force - being trained by an American defense contractor - to protect its oilfields. Saudi authorities have already recruited 5,000 members of the Facilities Security Force and plan to raise the number to 8,000-10,000 over the next two years, in a project being run by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, officials confirmed. Nervousness has been growing recently about the impact of attacks by al-Qaeda-related groups and possible retaliation by Iran in the event of U.S. or Israeli strikes on its nuclear installations. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and home to 25% of its proven reserves. It has more than 80 oil and gas fields and 11,000 miles of pipeline. The plan to set up a force that will eventually number 35,000 to guard oil and other installations was announced in July by the country's interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz. The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported: "The scale of the latest security initiative is immense and several years are likely to elapse until the new force is fully capable." The total cost was likely to reach $5 billion (£2.48 billion), it said. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Reportedly Detain Iranians 2007-08-28 18:42:57 American troops raided a Baghdad hotel Tuesday night and took away a group of about 10 people that a U.S.-funded radio station said included six members of an Iranian delegation here to negotiate contracts with Iraq's government. The Iranian Embassy did not confirm the report, but it said seven Iranians - an embassy employee and six members of a delegation from Iran's Electricity Ministry - were staying at the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel, which was the one raided by U.S. soldiers. An arrest of Iranian officials would add to tensions between Washington and Tehran already strained by the detention of each other's citizens as well as U.S. accusations of Iranian involvement in Iraq's violence and alleged Iranian efforts to develop nuclear bombs. Videotape shot Tuesday night by Associated Press Television News showed U.S. troops leading about 10 blindfolded and handcuffed men out of the hotel in central Baghdad. Other soldiers carried out what appeared to be luggage and at least one briefcase and a laptop computer bag. Read The Full Story Man Cleared By DNA Test After 18 Years In Prison 2007-08-28 18:40:54 A man wrongly jailed for 18 years in a child rape case was released from prison Tuesday after new DNA testing cleared him of the crime. Dwayne Allen Dail, now 39, hugged his attorney as Wayne County Superior Court Judge Jack Hooks, Jr., set aside his conviction. District Attorney Branny Vickory had asked the judge to dismiss the original charges against Dail because of the new test results. The tests showed that DNA found on the 12-year-old victim's nightgown matched that of another man already in prison. The results also excluded Dail as the rapist. "I'm a blessed man," said Dail, hugging his mother as other crying family members stood nearby. He said he never thought the conviction would be set aside. Read The Full Story Ex-Astronaut Nowak Planning Temporary Insanity Defense 2007-08-28 18:39:44 Former astronaut Lisa Nowak is pursuing a temporary insanity defense on charges that she assaulted and tried to kidnap a romantic rival, according to a court document released Tuesday. Nowak suffered from major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia and "brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors", defense attorney Donald Lykkebak wrote in his notice of intent to rely on the insanity defense. He also noted that the already petite Nowak recently lost 15 percent of her body weight and struggled with "marital separation". "Even the most naive observer should recognize that Lisa Nowak's behavior on February 5 was uncharacteristic and unpredicted for such an accomplished person with no criminal record or history of violence," Lykkebak said in a separate public statement. Read The Full Story Wall Street - Stocks Retreat Ahead Of Federal Reserve Minutes 2007-08-28 13:33:37 Wall Street extended its retreat Tuesday as investors cautiously awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting that could provide insight into whether it may cut interest rates. The Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 140 points. There was little news to affect trading, but the market's overall difficult mood since the turbulence of earlier this month coupled with light volume helped skew price swings - especially ahead of the Fed report. ''There's no real reason why we've dropped as steeply as we have, you're seeing incredibly light volume amid continuing credit and housing concerns,'' said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader with Voyageur Asset Management. ''You're not seeing enough buyers around to support these levels, and stocks are just going to trickle to the downside.'' He and other analysts said the market is waiting to hear what came out of the central bank's Aug. 7 meeting, when policymakers held rates steady and said that although tight credit and the housing market may drag on the economy, inflation remains its predominant concern. The market has since tumbled further from record levels of mid-July and the Fed, raising worries about the market turmoil's effect on the economy, lowered the discount rate, the interest it charges banks. Read The Full Story Iraqi Police Order 1 Million Pilgrims To Leave Karbala After 2 Days Of Violence 2007-08-28 13:33:08 Iraqi police ordered a curfew Tuesday in Shiite holy city of Karbala and told more than 1 million pilgrims to leave after two days of violence claimed at least 27 lives during a religious festival. More than 100 people were wounded. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, gave the toll of dead and wounded, and said the ''entrances and exits to Karbala have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces.'' Another official in the ministry accused the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr of attacking government security forces in the center of Karbala, site of two Shiite shrines under the control of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. Al-Sadr's forces are battling SIIC for power in regions south of Baghdad. Read The Full Story Reports: Taliban May Release South Korean Hostages 2007-08-28 13:32:30 Representatives of the Taliban and the South Korean government said they had concluded face-to-face negotiations today over the fates of 19 South Korean church volunteers the Taliban has held captive in Afghanistan since mid-July. It was not immediately clear whether reports in Seoul and elsewhere that the Taliban had agreed to release the 19 hostages were accurate. In Afghanistan, Qari Yusaf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed that the talks in the central Afghan town of Ghazni had concluded, but he declined to give further information. He said he was not yet aware of how the talks had ended. Separately, the Associated Press quoted Ahmadi as saying an agreement had been reached, but giving no further details. Read The Full Story Police Feel Wartime Pinch On Ammunition 2007-08-28 01:52:02 Target practice cut to conserve bullets. The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve rounds by cutting back on weapons training, said police officials. To varying degrees, said officials in Montgomery, Loudoun and Anne Arundel counties [in the Washington, D.C., area], they have begun rationing or making other adjustments to accommodate delivery schedules that have changed markedly since the military campaigns began in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Before the war, lag time from order to delivery was three to four months; now it's six months to a year," said James Gutshall, property supervisor for the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. "I purchased as much as I could this year because I was worried it would be a problem." Montgomery police began limiting the amount of ammunition available to officers on the practice range a little more than year ago, said Lucille Baur, a county police spokeswoman. The number of cases a group of officers can use in a training session has been cut from 10 to three. Read The Full Story French President Sarkozy Raise Possibility Of Force Against Iran 2007-08-28 01:51:11 In his first major foreign policy speech, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not live up to its international obligations to curb its nuclear program. Addressing France’s ambassadorial corps, Sarkozy stressed that such an outcome would be a disaster. He did not say France would ever participate in military action against Iran or even tacitly support such an approach. Yet the mere fact that he raised the specter of the use of force is likely to be perceived both by Iran as a warning of the consequences if it continues its course of action, and by the Bush administration as acceptance of its line that no option, including the use of force, can be excluded. Read The Full Story
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