Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday August 20 2007 - (813)

Monday August 20 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Hurricane Dean Punishes Jamaica, Takes Aim At Yucatan 2007-08-20 03:13:24 Hurricane Dean's massive eye skidded just south of Jamaica on Sunday, but its ferocious outer bands still socked the island with 145 mph winds that shredded roofs, shattered windows and toppled trees. Kingston lay in eerie darkness after the national power company shut off electricity in hopes of averting fires, while mudslides were reported in several areas of the country. A curfew was imposed to discourage looting. The hurricane is now taking aim at Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where tourists slept on airport floors hoping to catch the last flights out of Cancun. Dean, the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, could grow as it crosses the Caribbean's warm, deep waters, reaching Category 5 strength with winds topping 155 mph, before its expected landfall on Mexico's Gulf Coast on Monday night or Tuesday morning, according to U.S. National Hurricane Center projections. Read The Full Story Asian Markets Rise Sharply After U.S. Rebound 2007-08-20 03:12:59 Asian stocks were on track for their biggest rally in more than three years on Monday after the U.S. Federal Reserve slashed a key U.S. bank lending rate, helping soothe jitters about a worldwide credit shortage. The yen remained shaky after falling from a 14-month high against the dollar, while safe-haven government bonds retreated as market confidence made a tentative comeback. In a surprise move that sparked a rebound on Wall Street last Friday, the U.S. central bank cut its discount rate by a half-percentage point to 5.75 percent. It left its benchmark federal funds rate steady at 5.25 percent. The Fed also said "downside risks to growth have increased appreciably," dropping its views about inflation being a major concern and signalling a willingness to take more dramatic action to cushion the economy from tightening credit. Read The Full Story Commentary: Bush Is Now The Embarrassing Uncle The Republicans Just Can't Hide 2007-08-20 03:12:16 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by journalist Gary Younge and appears in the Guardian edition for Monday, August 20, 2007. Mr. Younge writes that, with the departure of Karl Rove, the stench of failure hangs over the president - and his party wants to ignore the smell. Mr. Younge's commentary follows: George Bush likes his sleep. While campaigning for the presidency in 2000 his prize possession was a feather pillow. On the night that Saddam Hussein was executed he went to bed at 9pm with strict orders not to be woken. When the then CIA director, George Tenet, tried to alert him to news of the first night's bombing of Iraq he was sent away. "He is the type of person who sleeps at 9:30 p.m. after watching the domestic news," Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah told Okaz, a Saudi newspaper. But one can't help wondering if Karl Rove's resignation might not disturb his slumber for his remaining months in the White House. Rove, Bush's consigliere for the past 30 years, left last week in much the same manner as he had stayed: misleading the public. He told the nation that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Maybe he should have checked with his family first. His only son leaves for college in just a few days. Rove is leaving because there is nothing more for him to do; Bush is letting him go because he no longer has any use for him. His departure effectively marks the end of the Bush presidency - from here on Bush's tenure is about keeping the troops in Iraq and as many of his administration out of handcuffs as possible. Last week Fox News asked the neocon commentator Charles Krauthammer how much time Bush had to promote his agenda. "None," said Krauthammer. "It's over. There is no agenda." Read The Full Story Evacuations Urged As Southern California Wildfire Grows 2007-08-20 03:11:38 A massive fire in the Los Padres National Forest grew an additional 11,500 acres Sunday, making it one of the largest wildfires in modern California history, said officials. Authorities closed a highway and encouraged residents of about two dozen rural Ventura County homes to evacuate while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Ventura County. The move clears the way for state government assistance with costs related to the fire. "It's growing, and it may become the granddaddy of them all before this is over with," Maeton Freel, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service told the Ventura County Star. The fire had burned 199,588 acres of wilderness, or 312 square miles. It was 75 percent contained, with more than 3,000 personnel working on it. Read The Full Story Alaska Vulcanolgists Keeping An Close Watch On Pavlof Volcano 2007-08-19 03:06:31 The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) reported Saturday that it is keeping a close watch on the Pavlof Volcano located on the Alaska Peninsula. The AVO reported steady earthquake activity and lava flow events continue at Pavlof Volcano, and several discrete explosion earthquakes continue to be recorded. "An AVO field party conducted an overflight of the volcano Saturday and report that a vigorous eruption of lava at the volcano continues. While a primary hazard from this eruption is airborne ash, explosions producing ash do not seem to be significant at this time and any ash produced is likely staying below 15,000 ft above sea level. AVO is maintaining aviation color code Orange and volcanic activity alert level WATCH at this time," the AVO reported on its Web site. "If activity continues to increase in intensity, larger ash clouds that could affect aircraft may be produced. The most immediate ground hazard in the vicinity of the volcano includes light ash fall on nearby communities," according to the Observatory report. Read The Full Story	Analysis: Bush's Sweeping Push For Democracy Is Sinking 2007-08-20 03:13:15 By the time he arrived in Prague in June for a democracy conference, President Bush was frustrated. He had committed his presidency to working toward the goal of "ending tyranny in our world," yet the march of freedom seemed stalled. Just as aggravating was the sense that his own government was not committed to his vision. As he sat down with opposition leaders from authoritarian societies around the world, he gave voice to his exasperation. "You're not the only dissident," Bush told Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leader in the resistance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them." If he needed more evidence, he would soon get it. In his speech that day, Bush vowed to order U.S. ambassadors in unfree nations to meet with dissidents and boasted that he had created a fund to help embattled human rights defenders. The State Department did not send out the cable directing ambassadors to sit down with dissidents until two months later and, to this day, not a nickel has been transferred to the fund he touted. Read The Full Story Businesses Pinched As More U.S. Firms Denied Credit 2007-08-20 03:12:47 Time-tested practice of borrowing to make money at risk as business loans fall to '90s recession levels. U.S. corporations for years operated by the maxim that you have to borrow money to make money. Now, the well of cheap loans is running dry. The corporate bond market, the MasterCard for U.S. companies, has slowed to levels not seen since the recession of the early 1990s, as rising defaults among mortgage borrowers are causing lenders to question loans going to companies as well. Without a healthy bond market, a swath of corporate activity is eliminated and the economy slows down. Firms stop borrowing to buy drilling equipment for coal mines, plants for manufacturing cars and land for expanding restaurant chains. "It affects everything," Michael Tarsala, an analyst for Thomson Squawk Box, said of the bond market. "It's access to capital. It's the lifeblood of a lot of big S&P companies. ... They've been encouraged to borrow money to make money for so long, and now the spigot's suddenly been shut off." Read The Full Story Kurds Flee Homes As Iran Shells Villages In Iraq 2007-08-20 03:11:57 Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern Sunday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of northeast Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards. Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said four days of intermittent shelling by Iranian forces had hit mountain villages high up on the Iraqi side of the border, wounding two women, destroying livestock and property, and displacing about 1,000 people from their homes. Yawer said there had also been intense fighting on the Iraqi border between Iranian forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an armed Iranian Kurdish group that is stepping up its campaign for Kurdish rights against the theocratic regime in Tehran. On Saturday the Iranian news agency Mehr said an Iranian army helicopter which crashed killing six Republican Guard members had been engaged in a military operation against PJAK. Iranian officials said the helicopter had crashed into the side of a mountain during bad weather in northern Iraq. PJAK sources said the helicopter had been destroyed after it attempted to land in a clearing mined by guerrillas. The PJAK sources claimed its guerrillas had also killed at least five other Iranian soldiers, and a local pro-regime chief, Hussein Bapir. "If this escalates it could pose a real threat to the Kurdistan region, which is Iraq's most stable area," said Yawar, who said he expected the Iraqi government and U.S. officials in Iraq to make a formal protest to Tehran about the "blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty". Read The Full Story 13 Die In U.S. Midwest Flooding 2007-08-20 03:11:17 Rivers swollen by as much as a foot of rain lifted houses off their foundations and washed away roads, killing at least 13 people in three states, authorities said Sunday. Hundreds of people in southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin were evacuated, some by boat off rooftops. "I cannot describe the terror of it all. I'm just glad to be alive," said Sean Wehlage, 29, who climbed onto the roof of his one-story home in Stockton to wait out the storm. Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered 240 National Guard soldiers to the area to help with flood-relief and provide security, and the Red Cross set up emergency shelters. Six deaths were reported in Minnesota, and six more in Oklahoma. "This is the worst disaster that's hit southeast Minnesota in a lifetime," said state Sen. Sharon Erickson Ropes. 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