Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday August 30 2007 - (813)

Thursday August 30 2007 edition
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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 UFO Spotted Near Kaitaia, Over Tasman Sea, Baffles Experts 2007-08-29 17:35:13 A mysterious object seen in skies over the Tasman Sea near Kaitaia is baffling UFO experts. Last month, The Northern News reported that UFO Focus New Zealand (UFOCUS NZ) and world UFO expert Dr. Bruce Maccabee were studying a series of unusual photographs taken at Ahipara on April 28. The digital photos, taken of the sky and sea at 5:42 p.m., showed a bright object which did not look like a cloud and had the appearance of a craft. The story attracted intense interest and remained one of the most viewed stories on the Northland page of New Zealand's Stuff news website three weeks after publication. Last week, UFOCUS released its report on the sighting and Stuff has now posted the photos. Read The Full Story Japan's Faster, Cheaper Warpspeed Internet Connections Paying Off In Innovation 2007-08-29 13:59:10 Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it. Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States - and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show. Accelerating broadband speed in this country - as well as in South Korea and much of Europe - is pushing open doors to Internet innovation that are likely to remain closed for years to come in much of the United States. The speed advantage allows the Japanese to watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the Internet, an experience that mocks the grainy, wallet-size images Americans endure. Ultra-high-speed applications are being rolled out for low-cost, high-definition teleconferencing, for telemedicine - which allows urban doctors to diagnose diseases from a distance - and for advanced telecommuting to help Japan meet its goal of doubling the number of people who work from home by 2010. Read The Full Story Commentary: These Countries That Are Buying Up The Planet 2007-08-29 13:58:31 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Frederic Lemaitre and appears in the Le Monde edition for Tuesday, August 28, 2007. July 2005: French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin preached "economic patriotism." From London to Brussels, the condemnations were unanimous. August 2007: German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces a proposed law to "preserve national interests in the face of problematic foreign investments." Nobody is offended by it. Why the difference? Because in two years the perception of globalization has changed. For two decades, globalization has rhymed with liberalization and privatization. That's over, or very nearly so. Tomorrow, by a strange reversal of the situation, globalization will rhyme more and more with nationalizations. With one important new detail: companies will no longer be the property of the State in which they were created, but will belong to the planet's new bankers: notably China, Russia, Norway and the Gulf States. In fact, thanks to the rise in raw material prices or their trade surpluses, these countries have money. Lots of money. For a long time, they were content to manage it paternally, especially by buying U.S. Treasury Bonds. Then, observing that the stock market offered a better return over the long run, a number of these countries acquired stocks, taking shares here and there in private companies. They went from being lenders to becoming owners. But, often minority shareholders: they did not interfere in management and settled for collecting their dividends. In this way, the Norwegian government pension fund, which manages a trifling 300 billion dollar (219.5 billion Euros) portfolio, is a shareholder in about 90 French companies, but never holds more than about 1 percent of the shares of any of them. That could become the exception. The Dubai investment fund just acquired 9.5 percent of MGM Mirage, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's company, which owns a third of the casinos and half the hotel rooms in Las Vegas. Through its different subsidiaries, the same investment fund owns 3.12 percent of EADS. It does not hesitate to oppose the Swedish authorities in order to buy up OMX, one of Northern Europe's stock exchanges. The Qatar fund, for its part, is ready to spend 24 billion dollars to acquire the British supermarket chain Sainsbury. Read The Full Story Antibacterial Soaps No Better At Protecting Agains Infections Than Plain Soap 2007-08-29 13:57:55 Antibacterial soaps that contain triclosan as the main active ingredient are no better at preventing infections than plain soaps, say University of Michigan researchers who reviewed 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006 to reach their conclusion. The team also concluded that these antibacterial soaps could actually pose a health risk, because they may reduce the effectiveness of some common antibiotics, such as amoxicillin. That's because - unlike antibacterial soaps used in hospitals and other clinical settings - the antibacterial soaps sold to the public don't contain high enough concentrations of triclosan to kill bacteria such as E. coli. "What we are saying is that these E. coli could survive in the concentrations that we use in our [consumer-formulated] antibacterial soaps," researcher Allison Aiello, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement. Read The Full Story The Looming Food Crisis 2007-08-29 03:07:55 Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming - but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries. Add in water shortages, natural disasters and an ever-rising population, and what you have is a recipe for disaster. The mile upon mile of tall maize waving to the horizon around the small Nebraskan town of Carleton looks perfect to farmers such as Mark Jagels. He and his father farm 2,500 acres (10,000 square kilometers), the price of maize - what the Americans call corn - has never been higher, and the future has seldom seemed rosier. Carleton (town motto: "The center of it all") is booming, with $200 million of Californian money put up for a new biofuel factory and, after years in the doldrums, there is new full-time, well-paid work for 50 people. But there is a catch. The same fields that surround Jagels' house on the great plains may be bringing new money to rural America, but they are also helping to push up the price of bread in Manchester, England, tortillas in Mexico City and beer in Madrid. As a direct result of what is happening in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana and Oklahoma, food aid for the poorest people in southern Africa, pork in China and beef in Britain are all more expensive. Challenged by President George Bush to produce 35 billion gallons of non-fossil transport fuels by 2017 to reduce U.S. dependency on imported oil, the Jagels family and thousands of farmers like them are patriotically turning the corn belt of America from the bread basket of the world into an enormous fuel tank. Only a year ago, their maize mostly went to cattle feed or was exported as food aid. Come harvest time in September, almost all will end up at the new plant at Carleton, where it will be fermented to make ethanol, a clear, colorless alcohol consumed, not by people, but by cars. Read The Full Story Bush Wants $50 Billion More For Iraq War 2007-08-29 03:07:19 President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said Tuesday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces. The request - which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crockerwill assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year. The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said. Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq, which has expanded the U.S. force there by about 28,000 troops, to about 160,000. The cost of the buildup was not included in the proposed 2008 budget because Pentagon officials said they did not know how long the troop increase would last. The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress. 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 Al Sadr Orders Six-Month Suspension Of Mahdi Army 2007-08-29 13:59:27 Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr Wednesday ordered a six-month shutdown of his militia in what his aides described as an attempt to reform the organization, a development that came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki imposed a curfew in the southern holy city of Karbala to contain the deadly fighting there. The fighting in Karbala during a religious festival was blamed by some on Sadr's Mahdi Army. In a statement read on Iraqi state television, Hazim al Arraji, an aide to the powerful cleric, announced that Sadr was "freezing the Mahdi Army, without exception in order to have it restructured in a way that would retain for this ideological body its prestige for a period of a maximum of six months." He also called for a day of mourning to condemn the recent clashes in Karbala, which left at least 49 dead during one of the Shiite faith's chief holidays. "I advise all sides to investigate what had happened." Read The Full Story Commentary: CheneyBush's 'Mercenary' Legions 2007-08-29 13:58:49 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Bernard Weiner, co-editor of The Crisis Papers website. Mr. Weiner's commentary appeared on that site on Tuesday, August 28, 2007. Mr. Weiner, Ph.D. in government and international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, and worked for two decades as a writer/editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. His commentary follows: "Outsourcing" jobs overseas is only the tip of the iceberg. How about the CheneyBush administration "outsourcing" our military, our intelligence-gathering, our nation's soul? Taking private enterprise way beyond what is reasonable, or desirable, or safe, the CheneyBush administration has turned over a huge raft of national-security functions to those not adequately trained, not accountable to the public or the law, not showing up on the political radar. In short, CheneyBush have created what amounts to their own private legions - soldiers, intelligence analysts, security guards, construction experts, supply specialists, et al. - in effect, a "mercenary" force bought and paid for by the American taxpayer. That's why there will probably be no draft: There is no guarantee of loyalty from those dragooned into service. Besides, many draftees have politically-connected constituencies. But when one's mercenary "volunteer" forces are totally beholden to the paymaster for their livelihood and under-the-table payoffs, they will dance with them that brung 'em. These are no small numbers. It's estimated that in addition to the 160,000 regular troops in the field in Iraq, CheneyBush control anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 private assets ("independent contractors"). Nobody's even sure under what "rules of engagement" these guys - many in security and reconstruction fields - operate, or whether they are accountable to anyone other than their corporate bosses' and the financial "bottom line." History shows us the dangers involved when leaders have large extra-institutional forces at their command, such as the Praetorian Guards and Legions of ancient Roman Caesars, Hitler's Brownshirts, Saddam's Republican Guards, the private militias of political and religious leaders today in Iraq, Blackwater forces in control of New Orleans after Katrina, etc. By and large, these mercenaries swear allegiance to their employer, not to the rule of law, not to any constitution. The catastrophic damage done to democracy by the existence, and power, of these private forces can't be overstated. Read The Full Story Taliban Free 12 South Korean Hostages In Afghanistan 2007-08-29 13:58:13 Twelve South Korean church volunteers were freed Wednesday after six weeks in Taliban captivity, said officials in Afghanistan, and the release of the remaining seven seemed imminent, apparently ending a hostage crisis that has gripped both nations. According to the agreement struck on Tuesday, South Korea pledged to withdraw its 200 noncombat troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year - a move it had previously said it would take - and ban missionary work by Korean Christians in Afghanistan. An official with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which helped facilitate the negotiations, said Taliban officials were living up to their end of the bargain. "So far everything is going exactly to plan. We see no reason it should not continue that way," said Greg Muller, a Red Cross delegate in the central Afghan province of Ghazni. Three women were freed Wednesday morning, followed by four women and one man around noon, said Muller. As dusk approached, four more hostages were freed, the Associated Press reported. The hostages were to be taken from Ghazni to Kabul by Red Cross officials, then handed over to South Korean authorities. Read The Full Story Bhutto: Musharraf To Step Down As Head Of Pakistan Military 2007-08-29 13:57:40 Pakistan's exiled former prime minister said Wednesday that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had agreed to step down as military chief in a move she expected before the next presidential election. Benazir Bhutto also said that corruption charges would be dropped against her and dozens of other lawmakers as part of ongoing negotiations to restore civilian rule. Bhutto, a two-time prime minister who left Pakistan in 1999 to avoid a government collapse, has been in negotiations with Musharraf. In a telephone interview with the Associated Press from London, she confirmed reports that Musharraf had agreed to step down as military chief as a key part of political negotiations in a power-sharing agreement. Read The Full Story Wall Street Shaken As U.S. Home Price Index Drops To 20-Year Low 2007-08-29 03:07:30 Effects of credit crisis are felt across global markets. Fed Reserve hints that further interest rate cut may be necessary. Global stock markets endured a fresh burst of volatility Tuesday as new evidence emerged over the depth of America's sub-prime mortgage crisis, prompting nervousness over interest rates and economic stability. The FTSE 100 index fell 117 points to 6,102, pushed downwards by a dive in banking shares. Markets across Europe experienced similar drops and in New York the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 279 points to 13,042. Newly published minutes from the Federal Reserve's August meeting revealed that the U.S. central bank felt obliged to keep a close eye on the situation and hinted at a possible change to interest rates if conditions worsen. "A further deterioration in financial conditions could not be ruled out and, to the extent that such a development could have an adverse effect on growth prospects, might require a policy response," said the Fed. "Policymakers would need to watch the situation carefully." The gloom was reinforced by the Standard & Poor's housing index which revealed a 3.2% fall in U.S. home prices - the worst quarterly drop since the measure began in 1987. There was a particularly sharp fall in home prices in Boston, Washington and Detroit. Of 20 cities included in the survey, 15 saw a year-on-year fall. The S&P index's committee chairman, David Blitzer, said: "We still don't see anything that looks like a clear bottom ... We're still headed down." Read The Full Story GOP Leaders Want Craig Inquiry 2007-08-29 03:07:01 Idaho Senator Asserts "I have never been gay." U.S. Senate Republican leaders called for an ethics investigation of Sen. Larry E. Craid (R-Idaho) Tuesday as he dug in for a legal and political fight to save his congressional career after acknowledging that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly-conduct charges stemming from an incident with an undercover police officer in an airport men's room. Craig denied doing anything wrong and said he had "overreacted" in pleading guilty after his June 11 arrest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.He said that he is "not gay" and vowed to continue to serve in the Senate. "While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in the hope of making it go away," Craig, 62, told reporters in Boise, Idaho. He said that he has retained a lawyer to review his guilty plea, though earlier this month he signed court papers declaring that he had read the police report of the incident and understood the nature of the crime and he paid a $500 fine. Legal experts said that would make any challenge difficult. Read The Full Story
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