Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday August 17 2007 - (813)

Friday August 17 2007 edition
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FBI Director's Notes Show Ashcroft Kept In Dark On Spying 2007-08-17 03:07:53 Notes from FBI Director Robert Mueller, released Thursday by Congress, revealed that Bush administration officials may have prevented Attorney General John Ashcroft from conducting a review of a spying program, while at the same time attempting to gain Ashcroft's approval of the program. Former Counsel to the House of Representatives Stanley Brand said it is "unbelievable" that "the Attorney General of the United States was barred from getting information on a decision that the law required him to make." Brand said, "This notion that the President can seal himself off from his own Attorney General is ludicrous." In May, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told Congressional investigators that in March 2004 a standoff between the White House and the Justice Department ensued because Comey would not authorize a continuation of a warrantless wiretapping program instituted by the Bush administration. According to Comey's testimony, his refusal to reauthorize the spy program resulted in a street race between himself and two White House officials to the hospital, where then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and President Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to coerce a barely conscious Ashcroft to approve the controversial eavesdropping program. Read The Full Story Commentary: Guns For Hire - Secrecy, Torture, Religious Zeal Distinguish Mercenaries 2007-08-17 03:07:25 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Paul J. Nyden, a staff writer for the West Virginia Gazette. It appeared in that newspaper's edition for Sunday, August 12, 2007. Iraq and Afghanistan dominated our news headlines. But our media continue to overlook the growing privatization of military operations - a major historical development. George W. Bush vigorously backs privatization and frequently awards huge contracts to companies owned by political contributors, such as Halliburton and Blackwater. During his years in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton also embraced the emerging military privatization. Today, our government pays mercenaries billions of dollars to fight and kill "enemies," protect government officials and deliver food. American taxpayers pay the bill. But few know much about the growth of private military companies, or PMCs. Two new books - Jeremy Scahill's "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" and Robert Young Pelton's "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror" - tell that story. Read The Full Story 3 Rescuers Die, 6 Others Injured At Utah Mine 2007-08-17 03:06:59 A cave-in Thursday night killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach six trapped miners, said authorities. Mining officials were considering whether to suspend the rescue effort. It was a major setback on the 11th day of the effort to find miners who have been confined at least 1,500 feet below ground at the Crandall Canyon mine. It is unknown if the six are alive or dead. Six of the injured rescuers were taken to Castleview Hospital in Price, Utah. One died there, one was airlifted to a Salt Lake City hospital, one was released and three were being treated, said Jeff Manley, Castleview's chief executive. The workers suffered injuries to the head and chest, as well as cuts and scrapes, said Rich Kulczewski, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor.Two of the injured are federal mine safety workers, he said. Read The Full Story Remnants Of Storm Erin Deluge Houston, Texas 2007-08-17 03:06:22 The tropical weather season revved up Thursday as the Atlantic's first hurricane formed and quickly strengthened, and as Tropical Storm Erin's remnants soaked rain-weary Texas, snarling rush-hour traffic and killing at least two people. Even as they fetched dozens of stranded drivers, authorities in Houston and San Antonio looked over their shoulders at Hurricane Dean, a Category 2 storm building in the Atlantic as it neared islands in the eastern Caribbean. Hurricane warnings were issued for some islands, and a tropical storm warning was issued for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The thunderstorms from Erin brought 7 inches of rain to parts of San Antonio and Houston, where one person died and another was injured when the waterlogged roof of a storage unit outside a grocery store collapsed, Fire Chief Omero Longoria said. The National Hurricane Center said 10 inches of rain was possible in some areas. In San Antonio, Texas, a man was swept away after apparently getting out of his vehicle in floodwater, said a police spokeswoman. Three people died in a head-on collision on a rainy highway in Comal County, but Department of Public Safety Trooper Rick Alvarez said the cause of the crash was still under investigation. Read The Full Story Britain's Pension Funds Lose $30 Billion In Market Turmoil 2007-08-16 21:26:47 Britain's pension funds were Thursday night plunged into a £15 billion ($30 billion) deficit after the biggest fall in London share prices since the eve of the Iraq war in 2003 cut the value of the stock market by £60 billion in a single day's frenetic trading. After years of building up the value of funds following the dotcom collapse at the start of the decade, funds are now facing the prospect of new black holes after seeing a £12 billion ($24 billion) surplus eradicated by the market turmoil of the past month. Last month, Britain's top 100 companies celebrated stock market gains that pushed their pension schemes into surplus for the first time since 2000. Now the surplus has become a £15 billion ($30 billion) deficit, with £10 billion ($20 billion) of the losses coming in the past week alone. Pension experts said further falls in the stock market could force some companies to raid their reserves and top up their occupational schemes. However, employers facing their own difficulties borrowing money, and without reserves to draw on, may refuse to help out. Read The Full Story Jury Finds Padilla Guilty On All Counts 2007-08-16 15:10:42 Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born former street gang member arrested five years ago as a suspected terrorist, was convicted Thursday by a federal jury in Miami, Florida, along with two co-defendants of supporting al-Qaeda and other violent Muslim extremist groups. After a day-and-a-half of deliberations following a three-month trial, the jury found that Padilla, 36, joined a cell to provide money and recruits to terrorist groups. Also convicted in the case were Adham Amin Hassoun, 45, a Lebanese-born Palestinian who worked in the United States as a computer programmer, and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, also 45, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan who ran a purported relief organization that prosecutors said provided support to terrorist groups. They were found guilty on all three counts against them: conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap as part of a terrorist campaign overseas, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and providing material support for terrorism. The three face life in prison for their conviction on the first count and 15 years for each of the other two counts. Read The Full Story Stock Market Opens Lower After Losses Overseas 2007-08-16 12:16:37 Intellpuke: There are two articles on Thursday's stock market activities here. The first is from the New York Times and, below it, is the article from the Washington Post. Stocks opened sharply lower on Wall Street Thursday after a sell-off in Asia and heavy losses in Europe, the latest reverberations of the crunch in the American credit market. In the first five minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was off 100 points, and the losses only got worse. Shortly after 11 a.m., the Dow had fallen 135 points, or about 1 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq composite were down by comparable amounts. The losses came a day after stocks plunged in the final hour of trading, with the Dow closing off 167 points and the S.& P. 500 erasing its gains for the year. That set the tone for a wild ride in foreign financial markets overnight. The main stock indexes in nearly every developed nation around the world closed lower or were headed toward finishing the day in the red. Read The Full Story Republican U.S. Rep. Pryce Won't Seek 9th Term 2007-08-16 12:15:55 U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, once the most powerful Republican woman in Congress but nearly a casualty of the 2006 Democratic surge, said Thursday she would not seek a ninth term. The announcement set off a scramble by both parties to replace Pryce in one of the most competitive districts in the country. ''I've been honored and humbled to serve as the representative of Ohio's 15th District for almost 15 years,'' Pryce said in a news release. ''It has truly been a labor of love.'' Pryce said she has two elderly parents and a daughter who starts kindergarten next week. Read The Full Story Asian Market Continue Slump In Thursday Trading 2007-08-16 03:06:59 Asian stocks tumbled on Thursday, heading for their biggest daily fall since the attacks on the United States in September 2001, as persistent fears about a global credit squeeze sapped investor appetite for risky assets. The yen jumped to five-month highs as currency carry trades were unwound, while emerging market bonds, stocks and currencies were dumped in favor of safe-haven government bonds amid worries about spreading U.S. subprime mortgage problems. "The subprime issue will probably take months to play out so trading is going to be very nervous for a while," said Eric Betts, equities strategist at Nomura Australia. "Anyone who has a financial interest, like a bank or a fund, may have some unexploded mines waiting to go off, so people are bailing out ahead of time." Read The Full Story Approved Home Loans No Longer A Done Deal 2007-08-16 03:06:27 Joy Siegel, a Bethesda, Maryland, lawyer who handles home-sale closings, uses a spreadsheet to track which mortgage lenders are filing for bankruptcy protection these days. "It's getting incredibly nerve-wracking for us," said Siegel, president of Settlement Pros. "There are banks I haven't even heard of, pages and pages of them, who have stopped making loans." Investors were rattled Wednesday after a stock analyst predicted that the nation's largest mortgage lender might soon do the same. Shares in Countrywide Financial fell 13 percent after a Merrill Lynch report raised the possibility that the lender could be approaching bankruptcy. The stocks of other financial firms with investments in mortgages, including KKR Financial Holdings and Scottish Re Group, were also battered because of fears that the mortgage problem is metastasizing. These problems are unfolding in an extremely fragmented industry, which is why it has become difficult for people who are buying or selling homes, and the professionals working with them, to figure out which lenders they can depend on to close a deal. Read The Full Story Strong Quake Kills At Least 17 In Peru 2007-08-16 03:05:35 A powerful earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, toppling some buildings and killing at least 17  people. Authorities said the quake generated a tsunami but it wasn't destructive. Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said there were 17 confirmed deaths in southern Peru, but Civil Defense put the death toll at 22 without providing details. Peru's highly respected Cable news station Canal N reported that the 7.9 magnitude quake had caused a church to collapse in the city of Ica south of Lima, killing 17 people and injuring 70. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at a depth of about 25 miles. Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterward. Read The Full Story FDA Warns Parents On Cold Medicines 2007-08-16 03:04:57 Hoping to halt the growing number of injuries to infants and toddlers, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory Wednesday warning parents never to give cough and cold medicines to children under the age of 2 unless instructed to do so by a doctor. The warning is part of a broad reassessment by the agency of the safety of the popular medicines, which have been blamed for hundreds of adverse reactions and a handful of deaths in children under the age of 2. The F.D.A. will convene a panel of independent experts on Oct. 18 to discuss whether more prohibitions or warnings are warranted. Such meetings often signal that the agency is seriously concerned about the safety of the drugs under review. The drugs’ labels currently advise parents to see a doctor before giving the medicines if their child is under the age of 2, but too many parents are failing to heed this advice, said the agency. Read The Full Story	FBI Probes Contracts To Company With Ties To Sen. Stevens 2007-08-17 03:07:41 The FBI is investigating the National Science Foundation's award of $170 million in contracts to the oil field services company that oversaw renovations on U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' home, McClatchy Newspapers has learned. The firm, Veco Corp., captured a lucrative five-year NSF contract in 1999 to provide logistics and support for polar research, although it had no previous experience in that field. During the same time period, Veco's top executive managed renovations that doubled the size of the longtime Republican senator's Girdwood, Alaska, home - the scene of a July 30 FBI raid. NSF spokesman Dana Cruikshank told McClatchy Newspapers that the FBI has made inquiries into the 1999 award, worth up to $70 million, and a 2004 follow-up contract for as many as seven years that the company values at up to $100 million. Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra and spokeswoman Debra Weierman of the FBI's Washington field office, which is leading the investigation, declined comment on the NSF contracts. Veco's founder and CEO, Bill Allen, pleaded guilty this spring to making $400,000 in illegal payments to Alaska lawmakers, including Stevens' son, Ben, who was then president of the Alaska Senate. Allen is cooperating in a sweeping FBI corruption investigation that also has led to the conviction of a second Veco executive, a lobbyist, and a former Alaska state representative. Read The Full Story NASA Decides No Shuttle Repairs Needed 2007-08-17 03:07:10 NASA decided Thursday that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour's belly and that the space shuttle is safe to fly home. Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty - both in orbit and on Earth. Endeavour's relieved commander, Scott Kelly, thanked everyone on the ground for their hard work. Mission Control replied, "It's great we finally have a decision and we can press forward." After meeting for five hours, mission managers opted Thursday night against any risky spacewalk repairs based on the overwhelming - but not unanimous - recommendations of hundreds of engineers. The massive amount of data indicated Endeavour would suffer no serious structural damage during next week's re-entry. Their worry was not that Endeavour might be destroyed and its seven astronauts killed in a replay of the Columbia disaster; the gouge is too small to be catastrophic. They were concerned that the heat of re-entry could weaken the shuttle's aluminum frame at the damaged spot and result in lengthy postflight repairs. Read The Full Story Even Musharraf's Allies Question His Re-Election Goal 2007-08-17 03:06:35 As Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf begins his campaign this week for re-election to another five-year term, senior figures in the governing party have warned that the Supreme Court will almost certainly block his nomination for president and declare it unconstitutional. American efforts to prod General Musharraf into a power-sharing arrangement with the exiled opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, as a way for him to continue as president would run into the same difficulty, said the politicians. The Supreme Court has a new-found independence since Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry fought off an attempt by General Musharraf this year to dismiss him and won reinstatement on July 20, said the legislators. The chief justice has made clear his determination to uphold the Constitution and see an end to autocratic government, and he now represents the biggest obstacle for General Musharraf’s efforts to stay on as president. Read The Full Story Stock Market Recovers After Huge Losses Earlier In Day 2007-08-16 21:27:02 The U.S. stock market rallied in the final hour of trading to finish the day little changed, overcoming the latest reports that a major mortgage lender was having further problems and comments from two high-ranking officials that seemed to discount the chance the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates anytime soon. Investors sold off broadly throughout the morning, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 300 points after Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, said it had to tap $11.5 billion from an existing credit line because other sources of money have dried up. The early sell-off caused all major indexes to fall 10 percent from their recent highs, a psychologically important point. "It's just everything is for sale right now," Bart Barnett, head of equity trading at Morgan Keegan & Co., said around 1 p.m. "Here we are at 10 percent which is a 'normal' correction for a bull market. We'll see if we can rally from here ... or is there going to be more selling to come? I think it's a coin flip." Read The Full Story Journalists To Sue Hewlett-Packard Over Spying Claims 2007-08-16 21:26:26 Four U.S. journalists have filed a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard (HP) claiming they suffered mental anguish and emotional distress because the computer company illegally spied on them last year. Reporters from the Associated Press and from the technology website CNET say they suffered a "serious invasion of privacy" when private investigators hired by HP assumed false identities to obtain their personal phone records. The plaintiffs are among a dozen people targeted in an investigation ordered by HP's then chairman, Patricia Dunn, into the source of boardroom leaks. The affair cost Dunn her job and prompted charges against the firm brought by California's attorney general, which HP settled for $14.5 million (£7.3 million). Charges against Dunn were dismissed in March. Although damages are not quantified, lawyers for the journalists say HP's actions stifled their ability to do their jobs. Describing HP's actions as "illegal and reprehensible conduct", the lawsuits assert that the plaintiffs have "lost, and will continue to lose, income, interest and benefits". Read The Full Story Three Federal Judges Seem Skeptical As U.S. Defends Surveillance Program 2007-08-16 12:16:48 Three federal appeals court judges hearing challenges to the National Security Agency's surveillance programs appeared skeptical of, and sometimes hostile to, the Bush administration’s central argument Wednesday: that national security concerns require that the lawsuits be dismissed. “Is it the government’s position that when our country is engaged in a war that the power of the executive when it comes to wiretapping is unchecked?” Judge Harry Pregerson asked a government lawyer. His tone was one of incredulity and frustration. Gregory G. Garre, a deputy solicitor general representing the administration, replied that the courts had a role, though a limited one, in assessing the government’s assertion of the so-called state secrets privilege, which can require the dismissal of suits that could endanger national security. Judges, he said, must give executive branch determinations “utmost deference”. “Litigating this action could result in exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States,” said Garre, referring to the assessment of intelligence officials. Read The Full Story Update: Peru Earthquake Death Toll Rises To At Least 337 2007-08-16 12:16:15 A powerful earthquake shook Peru Wednesday night, killing at least 337 people, Civil Defense authorities said Thursday. Another 1,350 were injured, according to Peru’s Health Ministry Most of the reported dead were in the region near Ica, south of the capital, which emergency workers said appeared to be the area that was hardest hit. The earthquake, whose magnitude was estimated at 7.9, was centered off Peru’s Pacific shore near Ica. Many people were killed in the rubble of their homes, and some 300 people were in a cathedral when it collapsed. Emergency workers said the overall death toll might be even greater. Ica was blacked out, as were smaller towns along the coast south of Lima. Rescue workers reported difficulty getting to Ica because of cracks in the highway and downed power lines. A cathedral in the hard-hit port city of Pisco was destroyed, according to local media reports, which said some 300 people were inside the structure during a mass at the time of the earthquake. Read The Full Story As Tropical Storm Erwin Arrives, Texas Braces For Floods 2007-08-16 12:15:41 Tropical Storm Erin was downgraded to a tropical depression as it made landfall Thursday morning on the Gulf Coast, but flood-weary Texas was still bracing for torrential downpours and flash flooding. Erin came ashore at about 7 a.m. at Copano Bay, about 25 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. "We're very fortunate. We're always prepared for the worst and we pray that we're wrong," said Corpus Christi Fire Department Deputy Chief Michael Hernandez. "For the most part it looks like we dodged a bullet." Meanwhile, Hurricane Dean was strengthening in the open Atlantic, and early Thursday became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. Read The Full Story Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites To Grow, Other Tech Tools To Grow 2007-08-16 03:06:45 Law Enforcement Getting New Access To Secret Imagery The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers. A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security  will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance. Administration officials say the program will give domestic security and emergency preparedness agencies new capabilities in dealing with a range of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires, but the program, described Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement. Read The Full Story Early Clash Over Progress Report On Iraq War - Specifics Are At Issue 2007-08-16 03:06:05 Senior congressional aides said Wednesday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense. White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. "The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions Wednesday. The skirmishing is an indication of the rising anxiety on all sides in the remaining few weeks before the presentation of what is widely considered a make-or-break assessment of Bush's war strategy, and one that will come amid rising calls for a drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq. Read The Full Story As U.S. Steps Up Pressure On Iran, Allies Worry About The Aftereffects 2007-08-16 03:05:20 America's allies are increasingly concerned about the Bush administration's plans to unilaterally escalate pressure on Iran, fearing that an evolving strategy may also set in motion a process that could lead to military action if Iran does not back down, according to diplomats and officials of foreign countries. Although they share deep concern about Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, European and Arab governments are particularly alarmed about new U.S. moves, including plans to cite Iran's entire Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "specially designated global terrorist." The move would block the elite unit's assets and pressure foreign companies doing business with its vast commercial network. Allies are less concerned about that step than they are about the new momentum behind it, and the potential for spillover in a region reeling with multiple conflicts. "If the region is strewn with crises, then there's potential for real disaster. There's a fear that they will all merge into a super-emergency bigger than any one country can deal with," a leading Arab envoy said. Read The Full Story
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