Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday August 29 2007 - (813)

Wednesday August 29 2007 edition
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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 Bush Accuses Iran Of Threatening To Put Middle East Under Shadow Of Nuclear Holocaust 2007-08-28 18:43:41 George Bush Tuesday ramped up the war of words between the U.S. and Iran, accusing the Iranian regime of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorized U.S. military commanders in Iraq to "confront Tehran's murderous activities". In a speech designed to shore up American public opinion behind his increasingly unpopular strategy in Iraq, the president reserved his strongest words for the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he accused of openly supporting violent forces within Iraq. Iran, he said, was responsible for training extremist Shia factions in the country which it supplied with arms and weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs. He referred specifically to 240mm rockets that he said had been made in Iran this year and smuggled into Iraq by Iranian agents. "Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." Read The Full Story Northwest Passage Now Plain Sailing 2007-08-28 18:43:12 The Northwest Passage - the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice - is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began. "Since August 21 the Northwest Passage is open to navigation. This is the first time that it happens," Nalan Koc, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's climate change program, told reporters in Longyearbyen, a town in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. "The Arctic ice sheet currently extends on 4.9 million square kilometers. In September 2005 it measured 5.3 million  square kilometers." Koc was quoting research from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, where scientists monitor the surface of the Arctic ice sheet at regular intervals. Last week they noted "the imminent opening" of the Northwest Passage. Read The Full Story Yahoo! Sued Over Disclosure Of Chinese Citizens' Identities 2007-08-28 18:42:42 China arrested dissidents whose identities were revealed. The internet company Yahoo! has become embroiled in a legal battle with a human rights group over a decision to disclose the identity of Chinese citizens, leading to their arrests. Yahoo! is being sued by the World Organization for Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Wang Xiaoning and his wife, Yu Ling. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for advocating democratic reform in articles circulated on the internet. The group is also suing Yahoo! on behalf of Shi Tao, a journalist serving a 10-year sentence for sending an email summarizing a Chinese government communique on how reporters should handle the 15th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Read The Full Story Anger At Greek Government's Wildfires Response 2007-08-28 18:40:37 The Greek president Tuesday declared the wildfires raging across the country a "national catastrophe" as the death toll reached 64. The most devastating fires in Greece's history have also led to bitter political attacks, with the socialist opposition accusing the government of being "totally incompetent" in its response. However, in thinly-veiled criticism of the warring politicians, President Karolos Papoulias called on Greeks to show "maturity". Tuesday the body of a shepherd, found near Zaharo in the western Peloponnese, became the latest victim of the fires, which the government has suggested have been the result of arson. Read The Full Story Men's Room Arrest Clouds Idaho Senator's Future 2007-08-28 13:34:00 A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) Tuesday after Craig said he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's room. The conservative three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate ethics committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct. Craig, who has voted against gay marriage, finds his political future in doubt in the wake of the charges, which have drawn national attention. Read The Full Story Number Of Americans Without Health Insurance Hits Record High 2007-08-28 13:33:24 The nation's poverty rate declined for the first time this decade, but the number of Americans without health insurance rose to a record high of 47 million in 2006, according to Census figures released Tuesday. The statistics offered a mixed picture of the economy's ongoing recovery from the recession of 2000-2001. While median household income rose for the second consecutive year in 2006, the increase appeared to be driven by a jump in the number of people in each household taking on full-time jobs, rather than a rise in wages. The addition of 2.2 million people to the roster of the uninsured was attributed largely to continuing declines in employer-sponsored insurance coverage. In all, 15.8 percent of Americans lacked coverage last year, up from 15.3 percent in 2005, according to new figures from the Current Population Survey. That tied 1998 as the year with the highest percentage of uninsured people over the last two decades. Read The Full Story Abdullah Gul, Devout Muslim, Wins Vote For Turkey's Presidency 2007-08-28 13:32:46 A devout Muslim with a background in political Islam won the Turkish presidency on Tuesday, in a major triumph for the Islamic-rooted government after months of confrontation with the secular establishment. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul received a majority of 339 votes in a parliamentary ballot and took the oath of office, pledging impartiality and loyalty to Turkey's historic separation of religion and politics. ''Secularism - one of the main principles of our republic - is a precondition for social peace as much as it is a liberating model for different lifestyles,'' said Gul. ''As long as I am in office, I will embrace all our citizens without any bias. I will preserve my impartiality with the greatest of care.'' Gul's victory took place a day after the military, which has ousted four governments since 1960, issued a stern warning about the threat to secularism. Gul's initial bid for president was blocked over fears that he planned to dilute secular traditions. Read The Full Story Iraq Weapons Are Focus Of Federal Criminal Investigations 2007-08-28 01:52:25 Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other materiel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict in Iraq. The inquiry has already led to several indictments of Americans, with more expected, said the officials. One of the investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David H. Petreaus in setting up the logistics operation to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials said Monday. There is no indication that investigators have uncovered any wrongdoing by General Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, who, through a spokesman, declined comment on any legal proceedings. This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen federal investigators, Congressional, law enforcement and military officials, and specialists in contracting and logistics, in Iraq and Washington, who have direct knowledge of the inquiries. Many spoke on condition of anonymity because there are continuing criminal investigations. Read The Full Story U.S. House To Hold Hearings On Two New Reports On Iraq 2007-08-28 01:51:45 The U.S. House of Representatives will hold hearings next week on two key reports assessing political and military conditions in Iraq,jump-starting the debate over President Bush's strategy even before long-awaited testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, due the following week. A completed 70-page report by the Government Accountability Office, to be delivered to Congress next Tuesday, paints a bleak picture of prospects for Iraqi political reconciliation, according to administration officials who have seen it. The second report, by an independent commission of military experts, is being drafted, but a scorecard on the Iraqi security forces released Monday by an adviser to the group concluded that the Iraqis are years away from taking over significant responsibility from U.S. combat forces. The two reports - and hearings on them in the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees - will set a largely negative backdrop for Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, who are expected to testify together in a joint hearing before the two House committees and in a separate session in the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has objected to a Pentagon proposal that they appear on Sept. 11, a Pelosi spokesman said, and the exact date remains under negotiation. Read The Full Story FAA Orders Checks Of Boeing's Airplanes After Fire 2007-08-28 01:50:55 Federal regulators ordered airlines to inspect the wings of more than 700 Boeing jets in response to a fire that destroyed a plane after it landed in Japan last week, officials said Monday. The inspections will affect more than 780 next-generation Boeing 737s operated by U.S. carriers, including AirTran  and American, Southwest and Continental airlines. The Federal Aviation Administration order focuses on the planes' slats, which are attached to the front edge of both wings and are deployed during takeoffs and landings to increase lift. The order was prompted by an accident involving a China Airlines 737, which erupted in a fireball after landing on the Japanese island of Okinawa on Aug. 20, FAA officials said. All 165 people on board escaped uninjured. 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 Huge Saudi Force To Defend Oil Fields Against Al-Qaeda 2007-08-28 18:43:27 Anxieties about al-Qaeda attacks and a U.S.-led war against Iran have prompted Saudi Arabia to establish a special force - being trained by an American defense contractor - to protect its oilfields. Saudi authorities have already recruited 5,000 members of the Facilities Security Force and plan to raise the number to 8,000-10,000 over the next two years, in a project being run by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, officials confirmed. Nervousness has been growing recently about the impact of attacks by al-Qaeda-related groups and possible retaliation by Iran in the event of U.S. or Israeli strikes on its nuclear installations. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and home to 25% of its proven reserves. It has more than 80 oil and gas fields and 11,000 miles of pipeline. The plan to set up a force that will eventually number 35,000 to guard oil and other installations was announced in July by the country's interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz. The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported: "The scale of the latest security initiative is immense and several years are likely to elapse until the new force is fully capable." The total cost was likely to reach $5 billion (£2.48 billion), it said. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops Reportedly Detain Iranians 2007-08-28 18:42:57 American troops raided a Baghdad hotel Tuesday night and took away a group of about 10 people that a U.S.-funded radio station said included six members of an Iranian delegation here to negotiate contracts with Iraq's government. The Iranian Embassy did not confirm the report, but it said seven Iranians - an embassy employee and six members of a delegation from Iran's Electricity Ministry - were staying at the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel, which was the one raided by U.S. soldiers. An arrest of Iranian officials would add to tensions between Washington and Tehran already strained by the detention of each other's citizens as well as U.S. accusations of Iranian involvement in Iraq's violence and alleged Iranian efforts to develop nuclear bombs. Videotape shot Tuesday night by Associated Press Television News showed U.S. troops leading about 10 blindfolded and handcuffed men out of the hotel in central Baghdad. Other soldiers carried out what appeared to be luggage and at least one briefcase and a laptop computer bag. Read The Full Story Man Cleared By DNA Test After 18 Years In Prison 2007-08-28 18:40:54 A man wrongly jailed for 18 years in a child rape case was released from prison Tuesday after new DNA testing cleared him of the crime. Dwayne Allen Dail, now 39, hugged his attorney as Wayne County Superior Court Judge Jack Hooks, Jr., set aside his conviction. District Attorney Branny Vickory had asked the judge to dismiss the original charges against Dail because of the new test results. The tests showed that DNA found on the 12-year-old victim's nightgown matched that of another man already in prison. The results also excluded Dail as the rapist. "I'm a blessed man," said Dail, hugging his mother as other crying family members stood nearby. He said he never thought the conviction would be set aside. Read The Full Story Ex-Astronaut Nowak Planning Temporary Insanity Defense 2007-08-28 18:39:44 Former astronaut Lisa Nowak is pursuing a temporary insanity defense on charges that she assaulted and tried to kidnap a romantic rival, according to a court document released Tuesday. Nowak suffered from major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia and "brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors", defense attorney Donald Lykkebak wrote in his notice of intent to rely on the insanity defense. He also noted that the already petite Nowak recently lost 15 percent of her body weight and struggled with "marital separation". "Even the most naive observer should recognize that Lisa Nowak's behavior on February 5 was uncharacteristic and unpredicted for such an accomplished person with no criminal record or history of violence," Lykkebak said in a separate public statement. Read The Full Story Wall Street - Stocks Retreat Ahead Of Federal Reserve Minutes 2007-08-28 13:33:37 Wall Street extended its retreat Tuesday as investors cautiously awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting that could provide insight into whether it may cut interest rates. The Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 140 points. There was little news to affect trading, but the market's overall difficult mood since the turbulence of earlier this month coupled with light volume helped skew price swings - especially ahead of the Fed report. ''There's no real reason why we've dropped as steeply as we have, you're seeing incredibly light volume amid continuing credit and housing concerns,'' said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader with Voyageur Asset Management. ''You're not seeing enough buyers around to support these levels, and stocks are just going to trickle to the downside.'' He and other analysts said the market is waiting to hear what came out of the central bank's Aug. 7 meeting, when policymakers held rates steady and said that although tight credit and the housing market may drag on the economy, inflation remains its predominant concern. The market has since tumbled further from record levels of mid-July and the Fed, raising worries about the market turmoil's effect on the economy, lowered the discount rate, the interest it charges banks. Read The Full Story Iraqi Police Order 1 Million Pilgrims To Leave Karbala After 2 Days Of Violence 2007-08-28 13:33:08 Iraqi police ordered a curfew Tuesday in Shiite holy city of Karbala and told more than 1 million pilgrims to leave after two days of violence claimed at least 27 lives during a religious festival. More than 100 people were wounded. Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, gave the toll of dead and wounded, and said the ''entrances and exits to Karbala have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces.'' Another official in the ministry accused the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr of attacking government security forces in the center of Karbala, site of two Shiite shrines under the control of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. Al-Sadr's forces are battling SIIC for power in regions south of Baghdad. Read The Full Story Reports: Taliban May Release South Korean Hostages 2007-08-28 13:32:30 Representatives of the Taliban and the South Korean government said they had concluded face-to-face negotiations today over the fates of 19 South Korean church volunteers the Taliban has held captive in Afghanistan since mid-July. It was not immediately clear whether reports in Seoul and elsewhere that the Taliban had agreed to release the 19 hostages were accurate. In Afghanistan, Qari Yusaf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed that the talks in the central Afghan town of Ghazni had concluded, but he declined to give further information. He said he was not yet aware of how the talks had ended. Separately, the Associated Press quoted Ahmadi as saying an agreement had been reached, but giving no further details. Read The Full Story Police Feel Wartime Pinch On Ammunition 2007-08-28 01:52:02 Target practice cut to conserve bullets. The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve rounds by cutting back on weapons training, said police officials. To varying degrees, said officials in Montgomery, Loudoun and Anne Arundel counties [in the Washington, D.C., area], they have begun rationing or making other adjustments to accommodate delivery schedules that have changed markedly since the military campaigns began in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Before the war, lag time from order to delivery was three to four months; now it's six months to a year," said James Gutshall, property supervisor for the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. "I purchased as much as I could this year because I was worried it would be a problem." Montgomery police began limiting the amount of ammunition available to officers on the practice range a little more than year ago, said Lucille Baur, a county police spokeswoman. The number of cases a group of officers can use in a training session has been cut from 10 to three. Read The Full Story French President Sarkozy Raise Possibility Of Force Against Iran 2007-08-28 01:51:11 In his first major foreign policy speech, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not live up to its international obligations to curb its nuclear program. Addressing France’s ambassadorial corps, Sarkozy stressed that such an outcome would be a disaster. He did not say France would ever participate in military action against Iran or even tacitly support such an approach. Yet the mere fact that he raised the specter of the use of force is likely to be perceived both by Iran as a warning of the consequences if it continues its course of action, and by the Bush administration as acceptance of its line that no option, including the use of force, can be excluded. Read The Full Story
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