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

Friday August 31 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
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
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php