Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday August 5 2007 - (813)

Sunday August 5 2007 edition
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U.S. House Passes Bill To Support Renewable Energy 2007-08-05 01:01:06 The U.S. House of Representatives Saturday passed a far-reaching package of energy legislation that would promote conservation and the use of renewable resources at the expense of the country's oil and gas interests. The bill, which passed 241 to 172, would require more energy efficiency in appliances, buildings and power grids, which proponents of the bill say would reduce carbon dioxide emissions and electricity use. It calls for more energy efficiency measures in the Capitol building. It also would provide grants for studies to promote ethanol pipelines, installation of pumps for 85 percent ethanol fuel at gas stations and production of cellulosic ethanol. The Democrats also won passage of a provision that would require that 15 percent of electricity from private utilities come from solar, wind or other renewable energy sources. It would be the first such requirement to apply to all the states. The House last night also passed, 221 to 189, a companion tax package, totaling nearly $16 billion, that targets the oil and gas industry. In a letter to Congress, however, the Bush administration said Friday that the two House measures would result in less domestic oil and gas production. The letter said President Bush's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bills. Read The Full Story Poll: Iowa Republicans Not Thrilled With Field Of GOP Presidential Candidates 2007-08-05 01:00:41 As the Republican presidential candidates gather this morning in Des Moines for their fourth debate, Iowa GOP voters are expressing limited enthusiasm for the field of current and potential aspirants, according to a new Washington Post-ABC Newspoll. Their views appear to be a microcosm of GOP sentiment across the country and point to a wide open battle for the nomination. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has emerged as the early leader in the campaign for Iowa, but his support is both soft and shallow, suggesting that the Republican race in the state, as nationally, remains extremely fluid. Just 19 percent of likely GOP caucus attendees said they were "very satisfied" with the field of candidates - far below satisfaction levels among Iowa Democrats - and poll respondents were badly fractured when asked to rate the candidates on political and personal attributes. Read The Full Story Private Science Lab Suspected In Britain's Foot And Mouth Outbreak 2007-08-05 01:00:06 An accidental leak of an experimental vaccine from a private research site was being investigated urgently Saturday  night as the likely source of Britain's new foot and mouth disease outbreak. The news came as the government attempted to avert a full-scale crisis in farming and the tourism industry. Movement of all livestock has been banned, exports to Europe stopped and country fairs cancelled to minimize the risk of the country suffering a disastrous rerun of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic which cost the nation £8.5 billion ($17 billion). Scientists made a breakthrough last night as they identified the strain of the virus as one which is not naturally occurring, but is a vaccine strain, and has never been seen before in Europe. This enabled investigators to link the outbreak to a company which lies less than three miles down the road from the source of the outbreak. Merial Animal Health, a private pharmaceutical firm shares facilities with a government laboratory in Pirbright, and is commissioned by the European Union to formulate new vaccines for animal diseases. Both companies are expected to meet tight regulatory standards for biosecurity. Read The Full Story Montana Gov.: Wildfire Is In 'Hands Of God' 2007-08-05 00:59:32 Authorities worried about firefighters' safety on Saturday pulled them off a fast-growing wildfire in western Montana and told residents of about 200 homes to get out of the way. "This fire is in the hands of God right now," Gov. Brian Schweitzer said after taking a helicopter flight over the blaze, which already had burned nearly 8 square miles since starting Friday afternoon. Winds between 25 and 30 mph were helping to fan the blaze northeast of Missoula, near the popular getaway spots of Seeley and Placid lakes. The fire was volatile and could grow rapidly, jeopardizing crews, said Schweitzer.  "We can't risk firefighters' lives," he said. Residents of about 200 homes scattered around Seeley Lake and Placid Lake to the south were ordered to evacuate, said Jamie Kirby, a fire information officer. The governor told them to "open the gates, turn the livestock loose, take your pets, shut off the propane at the tank, shut off the electricity and get out." Read The Full Story U.S. House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill 2007-08-05 00:58:40 The U.S. House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation." The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States". Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress. The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that ``foreign intelligence information'' is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, said some lawmakers. Read The Full Story Housing Worries Pummel Stock Market - Dow Down 281 On Job, Credit Fears 2007-08-04 02:57:48 Slowing job growth and increasing credit worries about a Wall Street firm hit by losses in mortgage investments sent stocks tumbling Friday, capping a tumultuous week of trading during which jumpy investors tried to assess just how much more damage the housing downturn would unleash. A rapid sell-off in the final hour of trading erased gains made in the two previous days. The losses were led by shares of financial companies, which have been hit particularly hard by lingering weakness in housing and related lending markets. "No one really knows how pervasive this is ... and the uncertainty is what's killing the market," said Jim Herrick, director of equity trading at Robert W. Baird. Most major market measures shed more than 2 percent of their value on one of the year's worst days for stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 281.42 points, or 2.1 percent, to 13,181.91. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 39.14, or 2.7 percent, to 1433.06. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 64.73, or 2.5 percent, to 2511.25. Despite posting losses for three consecutive weeks, the Dow is up 5.8 percent for the year. The broader S&P 500 is now up just 1 percent for the year, however, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks is down 4 percent. Read The Full Story Bush Invites World Powers To Discuss Climate Change 2007-08-04 02:57:02 President Bush Friday formally invited top officials from the world's leading economic powers to take part in a climate change summit aimed at establishing voluntary goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining growth. The meeting follows a May pledge by Bush to convene the world's leading economies - and most prolific polluters - to find a solution to the problem of climate change that would both promote energy efficiency and encourage prosperity. "Science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it," Bush said in the letter of invitation. Long wary of the effectiveness of global environmental agreements, Bush tried to seize the initiative on global warming with his pledge to initiate a series of meetings to set flexible, long-term goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He said his approach would allow countries to find their own best paths to reducing pollution. The proposal marked a clear shift for Bush, who had come under international criticism for his opposition to participating in the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations-led environmental agreement that will expire in 2012. Read The Full Story Drug Violence Invades Monterrey, Mexico - Once Latin America's Safest City 2007-08-04 02:56:29 Biti Rodriguez could have gone anywhere for her 10-year-old's birthday party, but Incredible Pizza, a mammoth restaurant and fun house tucked into the corner of a strip mall here, offered her something that suddenly has become a consuming obsession: safety. She herded her daughter, Alejandra, and a dozen other giggling girls through two metal detectors one recent afternoon at this pizza parlor that promises "incredible security for your children," then dumped bags of presents on a table to be probed by a guard. It took a while to actually get inside, but Rodriguez didn't care. She thinks all the extra security is "super bien" - super good. Not so long ago, metal detectors at a pizza place would have been unimaginable in Monterrey, Mexico's  third-largest metropolitan area, with more than 3.6 million residents. The city once seemed as if it could do no wrong -- two years ago it was named the safest city in Latin America by an international consulting group, it boasted the region's wealthiest residential neighborhood, and it was a strong competitor for the Major League Baseball  franchise that became the Washington Nationals. Read The Full Story Afghans: At Least 18 Civilians Wounded In U.S. Airstrike On 2 Taliban Commanders 2007-08-04 02:55:55 The United States military said Friday that it had carried out an airstrike on two Taliban commanders during “a sizable meeting” of insurgents in a remote region of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, but that it could not be sure the men had been killed. Local officials said that at least 18 Afghans were wounded in the attack. A large number of the Taliban had gathered for a public execution near a shrine in the Baghran district and that members of the public were also present at the time of the bombing, 4 p.m. on Thursday, they said. “The people say there were many people there,” the provincial police chief, Muhammad Hussain Andiwal, said in a telephone interview. “The Taliban were also in great numbers; some 16 to 17 vehicles belonging to the Taliban were present at the scene. There must be heavy casualties to the Taliban.” Read The Full Story Foot And Mouth Disease Found On Farm In Britain 2007-08-04 02:55:29 Foot and mouth disease has been found in cattle on a British farm, the government said on Friday as it banned livestock movements to prevent a repeat of a 2001 outbreak that blighted farming and rural tourism. Infected livestock were found on a farm near Guildford, close to London, and all cattle on the farm were being culled, said Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Officials immediately halted movements of pigs and ruminant animals such as cows and sheep across the United Kingdom to stop the spread of the disease and set up a 10-kilometer (six-mile) surveillance zone around the farm. The disease causes high fevers and blisters in cloven-hoofed animals and can often lead to death. It can be contracted by cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, but very rarely by people. Read The Full Story	Gonzales Now Says Top Aides Got Political Briefings 2007-08-05 01:00:54 Justice Department officials attended at least a dozen political briefings at the White House since 2001, including some meetings led by Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, and others that were focused on election trends prior to the 2006 midterm contest, according to documents released Friday. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he did not believe that senior Justice Department officials had attended such briefings; but he clarified his testimony Friday in a letter to Congress, emphasizing that the briefings were not held at the agency's offices. Internal guidelines forbid partisan meetings at the Justice Department and sharply restrict the ability of employees to participate directly in election campaigns or other political activities, a Justice official said Friday. The official, who declined to be identified publicly discussing the issue, said the type of meetings held at the White House did not appear to run afoul of department policy. A list of briefings for Justice officials was included with a letter sent yesterday from Gonzales to Patrick J. Leahy  (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which sought to clarify and correct parts of his testimony before the panel on July 24. The list was sent to House oversight committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) in June, but it had not been released publicly before Friday. Read The Full Story Minneapolis Bridge Search Ends For Day With No Luck 2007-08-05 01:00:21 Divers spent a third fruitless day searching for victims of a deadly bridge collapse, finding no bodies inside a crushed car pulled earlier Saturday from the murky Mississippi River waters. Authorities said they had been unable to check at least one other car lying beneath another vehicle on the river bottom. They planned to return to work Sunday with sonar equipment to scan areas upriver and downriver. An examination of a car lifted onto a barge Saturday "did not find anything in the vehicle in terms of victims or human remains," said Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek. Police also released an official list Saturday of the eight people reported missing, matching estimates that had been lowered from the hours immediately after the collapse. The official death toll is five. Read The Full Story Desperate Bid To Save South Asia Flood Victims 2007-08-05 00:59:51 Aid agencies were struggling Saturday to get relief to millions of villagers marooned in north east India, Nepal and Bangladesh who have been hit by devastating floods, as the Red Cross warned that as few as 2 per cent of those affected were getting the help they needed. Up to 20 million people across the whole of south Asia are believed to have been affected by the most severe floods in living memory, according to UNICEF. Eastern India was facing a health crisis as hospitals in the region were overwhelmed by people suffering from waterborne diseases. Health workers and aid groups in Assam in north east India were working around the clock to treat and feed many of the three million people displaced or surrounded by floodwaters with the limited medicines and supplies available. Elsewhere, villagers were getting desperate and hungry. "Our family survived for a week on buffalo milk, but now the animal has stopped producing milk as it has gone without food for days," said Meghu Yadav, a villager in the Samastipur district of impoverished Bihar state in the north of the country. Read The Full Story U.S. Muslim Sect Suspected Of 'Executing' Newspaper Editor 2007-08-05 00:59:03 For Chauncey Bailey, one of the most respected black journalists in America, last Thursday morning's trip to work should have been like any other. The editor of the Oakland Post was strolling down the pavement in Oakland, California, a mostly black city next to San Francisco. It was 7:30 a.m. and Bailey, 57, lived just a few blocks away. Suddenly, a man dressed in black and wearing a mask appeared. Shots rang out and Bailey collapsed from three bullet wounds. He was dead before an ambulance arrived; the apparent victim of an assassination. Bailey's murder has shocked the San Francisco Bay Area. It has also rippled out into the rest of America as the country comes to grips with the daylight murder of a senior newspaper editor. There is little doubt that Bailey was executed. It was the kind of ruthless murder more likely to be found on the streets of Moscow than northern California. "This was no random act," said Sergeant Derwin Longmire, an Oakland police spokesman. Read The Full Story Sentate Votes To Expand Warrantless Surveillance - Temporarily 2007-08-04 02:58:02 The U.S. Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order. The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it failed to approve the changes he wanted. The legislation, which is expected to go before the House Saturday, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas. Read The Full Story U.S. Military In Iraq Forms Perilous Alliances With Former Enemies 2007-08-04 02:57:32 Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit. Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road. "Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot. An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies. Read The Full Story House Forms Special Panel Over Alleged Stolen Vote 2007-08-04 02:56:48 The U.S. House last night unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that Democratic leaders had stolen a victory from the House Republicans on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night. The move capped a remarkable day that started with Republicans marching out of the House in protest near midnight Thursday, was punctuated by partisan bickering, and ended with Democratic hopes for a final legislative rush fading. Even a temporary blackout of the House chamber's vote tally board led to suspicions and accusations of skullduggery. While Democratic leaders hoped to leave for their August recess on a wave of legislative successes, the House instead slowed to an acrimonious crawl that threatened to stretch the legislative session into next week. Read The Full Story Beseiged By Crises, Afghan President Karzai Prepares To Meet With Bush 2007-08-04 02:56:09 As Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepares for a two-day meeting with President Bush at Camp David starting Sunday, his government is confronting contradictory pressures at home and abroad over how to secure the release of 21 surviving South Korean hostages, combat the aggressive Taliban insurgency and rein in Afghanistan's flourishing opium poppy trade. Bush administration officials have described the meeting as a private "strategy session" between partners and a chance to reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Karzai's beleaguered government; but here, analysts and politicians say that in return for providing $10 billion in aid and more than 20,000 troops, U.S. officials may be pushing Karzai to take or accept harsh actions that many Afghans adamantly oppose. The most urgent issue is what to do about the Taliban, the once-defeated radical Islamic militia that has roared back to life as a power-hungry, media-savvy guerrilla force. It is taking ever more audacious actions - such as kidnapping 23 Korean church volunteers on a bus July 19 - while moving ever closer to this tense capital in its campaign to drive out foreign troops and restore strict Islamic rule. Read The Full Story After Pakistan's Chief Justice Returns, Supreme Court Releases Musharraf Critic 2007-08-04 02:55:40 Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled to free one of the country’s main opposition leaders, Javed Hashmi, who had been serving a sentence for treason and inciting mutiny in the armed forces. The case provided the first significant ruling since the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry,  and had been closely watched to see what direction Chaudhry would take the court in after his own successful battle against a dismissal attempt by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.  Opposition political parties hailed the decision as a victory against military rule, and a lawyer for Hashmi said the ruling was “an expression of absolute independence of the judiciary.” “There are no political overtones,” said Muhammad Akram Sheik, the senior lawyer for Hashmi. “It is not a result of judicial activism.” Read The Full Story
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