Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday August 23 2007 - (813)

Thursday August 23 2007 edition
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Bush: There Will Be No Pullout From Iraq While I'm President 2007-08-23 00:24:48 President George Bush sought to buy more time for his Iraq "surge" strategy Wednesday by making a risky comparison for the first time with the bloodshed and chaos that followed the U.S. pullout from Vietnam. Making it clear he will resist congressional pressure next month for an early withdrawal, he signalled that U.S. troops, whom he hailed as the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known", will be in Iraq as long as he is president. He also said the consequences of leaving "without getting the job done would be devastating", and "the enemy would follow us home". Bush's speech came on the day that the U.S. suffered one of its highest daily death tolls since the 2003 invasion, with 14 troops killed when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed. In a speech to army veterans in Kansas City, Bush invoked one of the U.S.'s biggest military disasters in support of keeping troops in Iraq: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people', 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'." Read The Full Story Hundreds Flee Flooding In Ohio 2007-08-23 00:24:16 Firefighters and volunteers steered boats through streets awash in waist-deep water Wednesday, plucking residents and pets from porches as flooding that has swamped the Upper Midwest and Plains reached Ohio. The rising water forced at least 500 people forced to flee their homes in several northern Ohio towns. It also prompted authorities to move about 130 inmates from the county jail in Findlay to a regional prison. Many neighborhood rescuers showed up with canoes and kayaks wanting to help during Findlay's worst flooding in nearly 100 years. Three men in a fishing boat ferried a woman and her 2-week-old daughter, along with the family dogs. The Blanchard River was 7 feet above flood stage Wednesday at Findlay, the highest level it has reached since a 1913 flood, and could rise another half-foot or more, said the National Weather Service. Read The Full Story Foreign Aid Groups Face Terror Probes By U.S. 2007-08-23 00:23:39 The Bush administration plans to screen thousands of people who work with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for International Developmentfunds to ensure they are not connected with individuals or groups associated with terrorism, according to a recent Federal Register notice. The plan requires that the organizations give the government detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers, birth dates and e-mail addresses, but the government plans to shroud its use of that information in secrecy and does not intend to tell groups deemed unacceptable why they are rejected. The plan has aroused concern and debate among some of the larger U.S. charitable organizations and recipients of AID funding. Officials of InterAction, representing 165 foreign aid groups, said last week that the plan would impose undue burdens and has no statutory basis. The organization requested that it be withdrawn. Read The Full Story Armed Militias Seizing Control Of Iraq's Electrical Grid 2007-08-23 00:21:51 Armed groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday. That is dividing the national grid into fiefs that, he said, often refuse to share electricity generated locally with Baghdad and other power-starved areas in the center of Iraq. The development adds to existing electricity problems in Baghdad, which has been struggling to provide power for more than a few hours a day because insurgents regularly blow up the towers that carry power lines into the city. The government lost the ability to control the grid centrally after the American-led invasion in 2003, when looters destroyed electrical dispatch centers, the minister, Karim Wahid, said in a news briefing attended also by United States military officials. Read The Full Story Stronger Hurricane Dean Rakes Mexico For Second Time 2007-08-23 00:21:05 A sprawling Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico for the second time in as many days Wednesday and quickly stretched across to the Pacific Ocean, then weakened as it drenched the central mountains with rain that flooded houses along the coast. Coming ashore with top sustained winds of 100 mph, Dean's center hit the tourism and fishing town of Tecolutla shortly after civil defense workers loaded the last evacuees onto army trucks and headed to inland shelters. There was no escaping the wide storm's hurricane-force winds, which lashed at a 60-mile stretch of the coast in Veracruz state. ''You can practically feel the winds, they're so strong,'' Maria del Pilar Garcia said by telephone from inside the hotel she manages in Tuxpan, a town some 40 miles north of where Dean made landfall. ''I hope this passes quickly and the rivers don't overflow.'' Read The Full Story Burma Cracks Down As Fuel Protests Gather Pace 2007-08-23 00:20:07 Armed police intervene to break up demonstration. Widespread hardship as natural gas prices increase 500%. At least eight Burmese pro-democracy activists were seized on the streets of Rangoon Wednesday as armed police and supporters of the junta intervened to disperse hundreds of demonstrators protesting at a dramatic hike in fuel prices and growing economic hardship. Around 300 marchers walked from the commercial capital's outskirts as thousands - some cheering - looked on. The latest in a growing series of protests came hours after 13 leading activists, including the senior leadership of the 88 Student Generation group, were arrested in the most serious clampdown by the Burmese junta in a decade. Houses of the group's leadership were searched and documents removed in the night raids. Official Burmese media reported that the activists could face jail terms of 20 years. Read The Full Story GOP Political Consultant Resigns After Call To N.Y. Governor's Dad 2007-08-22 14:35:05 A prominent political consultant for the New York state Senate Republicans agreed to resign Wednesday after reports surfaced that he had made a threatening phone call to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's father. Roger Stone, who in the 1970s worked on President Nixon's re-election effort and has also done work for Presidents Bush and Reagan, denied making the call and said he was "set up". Stone said the phone number cited by Bernard Spitzer's lawyers is his, but the apartment is owned by a Spitzer fundraiser and someone else could have gotten inside to make the call or used other technology to mimic his voice and that number. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Stone was still asked to resign and sever connections with the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee because the allegations could "only serve as a distraction from the real issues". Read The Full Story Dean Batters Mexico's Oil Industry 2007-08-22 14:33:42 Mexico's rich offshore oil platforms came under assault early Wednesday as Hurricane Dean whirled through the Gulf of Campeche after downing trees and dumping heavy rain on the Yucatan Peninsula. More than a day after the storm struck the Yucatan as a massive Category 5 hurricane, there still have been no deaths reported, but several small cities were bailing out after severe street flooding. Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, said early Wednesday that it would not know until later in the daywhether its drilling platforms have been damaged. The company evacuated 18,000 workers and shut down production, losing 2.7 million barrels of oil a day and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas. After missing the most heavily populated areas of the Yucatan, Dean once again headed for lightly populated areas on the mainland. The National Hurricane Center said the eye of Dean made landfall near the town of Tecolutla in the state of Veracruz at about 11:30 a.m. CDT. The center said the hurricane was a Category 2 with winds estimated at 100 mph. Read The Full Story Armored Vehicles Slow To Reach Iraq 2007-08-22 14:32:45 The Pentagon will fall far short of its goal of sending 3,500 lifesaving armored vehicles to Iraq by the end of the year. Instead, officials expect to send about 1,500. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that while defense officials still believe contractors will build about 3,900 of the mine-resistant, armor-protected vehicles by year's end, it will take longer for the military to fully equip them and ship them to Iraq. "Production is on pace, the issue is delivery," he said, adding that the lag is a disappointment and the Defense Department is still committed to getting as many of the vehicles to the war as quickly as possible. Read The Full Story Federal No-Bid Contracts On The Rise 2007-08-22 02:16:49 Use of favored firms a common shortcut under Bush Administration. Under pressure from the White House and Congress to deliver a long-delayed plan last year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security's counter-narcotics office took a shortcut that has become common at federal agencies: They hired help through a no-bid contract. And the firm they hired showed them how to do it. Scott Chronister, a senior official in the Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, reached out to a former colleague at a private consulting firm for advice. The consultant suggested that Chronister's office could avoid competition and get the work done quickly under an arrangement in which the firm "approached the government with a 'unique and innovative concept'," documents and interviews show. Read The Full Story Pakistan's Political Crisis Coming To A Head 2007-08-22 02:15:50 This country's long-running political crisis has entered a decisive phase, with developments in coming weeks likely to determine whether President Pervez Musharraf is able to hang on to power or is pushed aside. Exiled opponents such as former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are vowing to return and reclaim a place on the political stage. The current parliament, whose rubber-stamp approval Musharraf wants for another term as president, is nearing the end of its tenure. An emboldened Supreme Court is weighing legal challenges to Musharraf's participation in politics while he retains his position as military chief. All the while, popular anger simmers. Celebrations last week of the 60th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule and the advent of statehood were muted not only by security fears but by a sense among many Pakistanis that a transition away from military rule is long overdue. "This is supposed to be a time for national pride, but I don't see how things can continue as they are," said shopkeeper Iqbal Hussein, who allowed his three young sons out briefly into the sultry summer evening to set off a few celebratory firecrackers on Independence Day. Read The Full Story Chinese Blankets Recalled Over High Levels Of Formaldehyde 2007-08-22 02:15:10 Chinese-made blankets containing high levels of formaldehyde have been recalled across Australia and New Zealand, the product distributor said Wednesday. The voluntary recall by Australia-based Charles Parsons came two days after New Zealand launched a probe of Chinese-made clothing after scientists found dangerous levels of formaldehyde in woolen and cotton garments. The New Zealand Ministry of Consumer Affairs said Wednesday it would start a program to test for formaldehyde in clothes next week as part of its probe, while acknowledging the country had no standard for formaldehyde levels in textiles - a concern of retailers. Read The Full Story	Bush Administration Rule To Expand Mountain Top Coal Mining 2007-08-23 00:24:31 The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion. The new rule would allow the practice to continue and expand, providing only that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law. Read The Full Story U.S., U.K. Upset Over Pakistan's Release Of Al-Qaeda Suspect 2007-08-23 00:23:58 Pakistan's decision to release a suspect al-Qaeda expert accused of training suicide bombers and plotting to attack Heathrow airport met with surprise and dismay in London and Washington Wednesday, with officials describing the Pakistani computer engineer as a "significant individual". Pakistan's supreme court heard this week that Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, 28, from Karachi, had returned home after three years' detention at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies. His lawyer, Babar Awan, said that all charges had "gone with the wind". Article continues The media has been prevented from interviewing Khan, who remains under tight surveillance. His low-key release contrasted with the clamor that followed his capture in July 2004, which authorities celebrated as a big blow for al-Qaeda. Khan was alleged to have been the conduit for scrambled email communications between the al-Qaeda leaders in the tribal belt and the outside world. Read The Full Story Commentary: How Can This Bloody Failure Be Regarded As A Good War? 2007-08-23 00:23:18 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Seumas Milne and appears in the Guardian edition for Thursday, August 23, 2007. In his commentary, Mr. Milne writes that the Western occupation of Afghanistan has brought neither peace nor development - and it fuels the terror threat. His commentary follows: Enthusiasts for the catastrophe that is the Iraq war may be hard to come by these days, but Afghanistan is another matter. The invasion and occupation that opened George Bush's war on terror are still championed by powerful voices in the occupying states as - in the words of the New York Times this week - "the good war" that can still be won. While speculation intensifies about British withdrawal from Basra, there's no such talk about a retreat from Kabul or Kandahar. On the contrary, the plan is to increase British troop numbers from the current 7,000, and ministers, commanders and officials have been hammering home the message all summer that Britain is in Afghanistan, as the foreign secretary, David Miliband, insisted, for the long haul. "We should be thinking in terms of decades," the British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, declared; Brigadier John Lorimer, British commander in Helmand province, thought the military occupation might last more than Northern Ireland's 38 years; and the defense secretary, Des Browne, last week confirmed that the government had made a "long-term commitment" to stay in Afghanistan to prevent it reverting to a terrorist training ground. Even allowing for the Brown government's need for political cover if it is indeed to run down its forces in Iraq, that all amounts to a pretty clear policy of indefinite occupation - one on which it has not thought necessary to consult the British people, let alone the Afghans. Read The Full Story Federal Prosecutors Hope To Revive Oil Bribery Case 2007-08-23 00:21:24 The U.S. government is seeking to resurrect its case against three men accused of offering hundreds of millions of dollars to top officials in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan to get favorable treatment in oil deals. In papers filed late Tuesday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal prosecutors said U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin was mistaken when she dismissed most of the charges in June. Scheindlin had said most charges in an indictment against Frederic Bourke, Jr., of Greenwich, Connecticut, and David Pinkerton, a Bernardsville, New Jersey, executive with American International Group Inc., were filed after the deadline for charges to be brought had passed. Pinkerton lawyer Barry H. Berke said Wednesday that he and his client "obviously agree with the district court's opinion". A lawyer for Bourke did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Read The Full Story Jewish Leader Sounds Alarm After Racist Attack In Germany 2007-08-23 00:20:28 Brutal assault on Indians sparks call to curb far-right. East German xenophobia "scaring off foreign firms". A leading member of Germany's Jewish community has accused the government of failing to control rightwing extremism following an attack on a group of Indian men in an eastern town. Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews said that until a nationwide action plan was launched to tackle the problem, attacks on minorities would only get worse. His remarks followed a brutal attack on eight Indians in the town of Mugeln, near Leipzig, over the weekend. During a town festival the men were chased through the streets by around 50 young Germans, who hurled abuse at them, including the taunt "foreigners out". All of the men were beaten up, one of them seriously. "Yesterday it was colored people, today it's foreigners, tomorrow it'll be homosexuals and lesbians and maybe Jews," Kramer told the German daily newspaper Taz. Prior to the Mugeln incident, police had been braced for trouble in certain east German towns as rightwing extremists commemorated the anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. Kramer said that parts of former communist eastern Germany were "no-go" areas, which people who looked foreign should be warned against visiting. He accused the government of "delivering the same sentiments" every time there was an attack, but failing to produce results with its anti-extremist strategy. "This isn't hysteria," he said. "This is the bitter truth." Read The Full Story Russia Steps Up Military Expansion 2007-08-22 14:35:19 Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's military power and restore its role as the world's leading producer of military aircraft Tuesday. Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind the west. The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the U.S. with nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic began last week for the first time since 1992. Presidential aides hinted Tuesday that Russia could shortly resume the production of Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic nuclear bombers, now that the aircraft are again flying "combat missions". The bombers would be used as a "means of strategic deterrence", a presidential aide, Alexander Burutin, told Interfax. Read The Full Story Commentary: At Stake In Sudan 2007-08-22 14:34:48 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Vaclav Havel, internationally known author and the first president of the Czech Republic. In his commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Wednesday, August 22, 2007, Mr. Havel writes: "This trace of hope offers a rare chance for Darfur. The global consequences could hardly be greater." Mr. Havel's commentary follows: The critical conditions that prevail in Darfur are causing immense suffering. Both sides of the conflict - the government of Sudan and its allied forces, as well as all the opposition groups in Darfur - must understand that civilians should no longer fall victim to their political disputes. The Sudanese government's consent to the deployment of the U.N./African Union mission, which aims to keep peace in the region, is a welcome development. But the mandate of this mission must be strong enough to allow for full protection of civilians. Moreover, the force must have sufficient manpower and funding to put this vital objective into practice. The countries and institutions that have committed additional funds in order to help secure the success of this mission - notably France, Spain, and the European commission - should all be applauded. It is important for international actors to assure Sudan's government that the U.N./A.U. mission will not strive for regime change. At the same time, the Sudanese government must be fully aware that only by adhering to past commitments and by cooperating in helping to prepare, deploy, and maintain the mission will the international community be encouraged to continue its support. Read The Full Story 14 U.S. Troops Die In Iraq Helicopter Crash 2007-08-22 14:33:19 A U.S. Army helicopter crashed north of Baghdad early Wednesday morning, killing all 14 soldiers onboard, said the military. Meanwhile, a suicide truck bomber in the northern city of Baiji killed at least 20 people at a police station Wednesday morning, said police. A statement from the U.S. military said initial evidence indicates the UH-60 Black Hawk experienced mechanical failure and did not come under enemy fire. However, the cause of the crash is under investigation, said the military. According to the military statement, two helicopters were conducting a night operation when one went down. The aircraft had been carrying four crewmembers and 10 passengers from Task Force Lightning, an American operation whose area of command includes the cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk, Samarra and Mosul. Read The Full Story Report Faults Tenet's Pre-9/11 Efforts 2007-08-22 02:17:07 Intellpuke: There are three items here. The first, as the headline says, is the Washington Post's article on the CIA Inspector General's report. The second is former CIA director George Tenet's statement responding to that report, also printed in the Washington Post, and the third is a link to the full report by the Inspector General. The Washington Post article follows. Former central intelligence director George J. Tenet and his top lieutenants failed to marshal sufficient resources and provide the strategic planning needed to counter the threat of terrorism in the years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a long-secret CIA report released Tuesday. Despite promises of an all-out war against terrorism in the late 1990s, leaders of the spy agency allowed bureaucratic obstacles and budget shortfalls to blunt the agency's efforts to find and capture al-Qaeda operatives, said the report, by the CIA's inspector general. It also faulted agency leaders for failing to "properly share and analyze critical data". The 19-page document - a redacted executive summary of a classified report given to congressional intelligence committees two years ago - called for the creation of a special board to assess "potential accountability" for Tenet and other former CIA leaders. Its stark assessments triggered a sharp response, with Tenet and other former and current intelligence officials denouncing the inspector general's conclusions. "The I.G. is flat wrong," Tenet said in a lengthy statement. Read The Full Story White House Manual Details How To Deal With Protesters 2007-08-22 02:16:26 Not that they're worried or anything, but the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn't want any. A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country. Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out. But that does not mean the White House is against dissent - just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route". Read The Full Story Bush Puts Pressure On Iraq's Maliki 2007-08-22 02:15:24 President Bush pointedly declined Tuesday to offer a public endorsement of embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, expressing his disappointment at the lack of political progress in Iraq and saying that widespread popular frustration could lead Iraqis to replace their government. "The fundamental question is: Will the government respond to the demands of the people?" said Bush. Stopping short of directly endorsing Maliki, as he has on several previous occasions, Bush continued, "If the government doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government." In apparent response to congressional calls for a change of leadership in Iraq, Bush added, "That's up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians." White House aides said later that Bush's comments did not mean he was withdrawing support from Maliki but were simply a statement of reality - that Iraqis were growing frustrated and that under the country's new democratic system, the people could decide to replace the current government with a more capable one. But the president's tough words - together with similar strong statements from the top U.S. diplomat in Baghdad - suggested that the administration's patience with the current leadership is wearing thin. Read The Full Story Server Outage 2007-08-22 00:29:45   I'd like to apologize for our outages in the last few days.   For those who are technically inclined, the details are:   On Saturday, our provider upgraded the Cisco switch to which we are attached.   We're good to go well past 1Gb/s on this segment now.  They were also kind enough to allow us to install our second server.  Our space there is completely dependent on their good will, and our readers utilizing their services.  Should you need web/e-commerce design, virtual hosting or dedicated hosting, you should contact Energenesis.   Despite the fact that Free Internet Press is hosted on a very nice server, bad things occasionally do happen.    This afternoon (Wednesday) we had a slight technical hiccup. For some reason ({cough}{cough}), the filesystem became a little corrupted.  Little being a relative t! erm.  Approximately 4,000 files were restored from backups, including some essential files like many of the /etc/rc.d/* files.  The fsck took a long time, but the file restore was fairly quick.   With the help of all of your recent donations (which I will be posting again soon, thanks everyone!), and a few anonymous benefactors, we should be bringing up another server so we will have a better level of redundancy.   As a lovely reminder, as we receive more donations, we'll be able to do more to improve Free Internet Press.    Thanks for your time, and your continued support!   JW Smythe   Editor   Free Internet Press Read The Full Story
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