Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday September 8 2007 - (813)

Saturday September 8 2007 edition
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NOAA Scientists Say Arctic Ice Melting Faster Than Expected 2007-09-07 16:17:14 The Arctic ice cap is melting faster than scientists had expected and will shrink 40 percent by 2050 in most regions, with grim consequences for polar bears, walruses and other marine animals, according to government researchers. The Arctic sea ice will retreat hundreds of miles farther from the coast of Alaska in the summer, the scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded. That will open up vast waters for fishermen and give easier access to new areas for oil and gas exploration. It is also likely to mean an upheaval in species, bringing new predators to warmer waters and endangering those that depend on ice. The study, by NOAA oceanographer James Overland and meteorologist Muyin Wang, adds to the increasingly urgent predictions of major ice loss in the Arctic. Six years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted major ice loss by 2100. An update by that United Nations-sponsored panel in February said that without drastic changes in greenhouse gas emissions, Arctic sea ice will "almost entirely" disappear by the end of the century. Read The Full Story Russia, Indonesia Agree To $1 Billion Arms Deal 2007-09-07 16:16:39 Moscow seen as trying to boost clout in Asia. During a one-day visit to Indonesia on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin witnessed the signing of a $1 billion arms deal that many analysts here see as part of a broader Russian effort to restore diplomatic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and make some money, as well. Indonesia, which until 2005 was under a U.S. arms embargo because of human rights abuses, will purchase Russian tanks, military helicopters and submarines. Last month, Russia said it would sell six fighter jets to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, as part of the deal. "The deals signed in Indonesia are part of a Kremlin strategy to expand its influence in Asia and the Middle East,"  said Alexei Makarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. "Russia is trying to pursue a multipolar policy in the world and considers itself to be one of its poles." Unlike the former Soviet Union, he added, today's Kremlin is willing to ship arms only "to those countries who can pay." Read The Full Story Testy Exchange Between Bush And South Korean Leader 2007-09-07 14:17:11 Roh Moo-hyun upset that U.S. failed to secure treaty ending war between two Koreas. At the invitation of North Korea, an international delegation of nuclear experts from Russia, China and the United States will travel to the North next week to inspect nuclear sites that are to be shut down, the chief American envoy to the country said in Sydney, Australia, Friday. The announcement, by Assistant Secretary of State Ambassador Christopher R. Hill, came on a day when the North’s nuclear ambitions dominated the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney, creating an awkward and testy exchange between President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyunover what would seem like an historical anachronism, the lack of a peace treaty ending the Korean war. With Roh scheduled to go to Pyongyang to meet his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-il, next month, the South Korean leader used his photo opportunity with the president to make a public issue of the peace accord. With television cameras rolling, and Bush by his side, Roh publicly pressed the American president to declare a formal end to the hostilities - something Bush has said he will not do until the North has completely scrapped its nuclear program. “I said it’s up to Kim Jong-il,” Bush said, looking irked, “as to whether or not we’re able to sign a peace treaty to end the Korean War. He’s got to get rid of his weapons in a verifiable fashion. And we’re making progress toward that goal. It’s up to him.” Officials said the inspections are an important step. Read The Full Story Britain's Environmental Groups Withdraw From Nuclear Power Talks 2007-09-07 03:27:38 Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and World Wildlife Fund describe government consultation as a sham. Britain's leading environmental groups are poised to formally withdraw from a British government consultation Friday that will determine whether government ministers will be able to push ahead with plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations. The coalition which was asked to provide evidence to inform the debate believes the government has failed to fairly reflect the arguments for presentations that will be given to more than 1,100 members of the public that are due to start Saturday. The process was forced upon the government by the the U.K.'s high court, which ruled in February that a previous consultation was "seriously flawed" and "manifestly inadequate and unfair". At least six groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and Green Alliance, claim the government is distorting the evidence and say they are considering whether to take the case to court again. The accusations are damaging because the government is bound by its own guidelines to keep an open mind on new nuclear power stations until after the "fullest public consultation". If the government is forced into a third consultation it could delay major energy decisions being made for at least a year. Read The Full Story Study Indicates Virus May Be Cause Of Collapse In Honeybee Colonies 2007-09-07 03:27:09 Scientists Thursday identified a virus as one of the likely causes of the recent wave of honeybee colony collapses across the country. The study, co-authored by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several other institutions, suggests that the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) helps trigger the mysterious condition known as colony collapse disorder, which destroyed about 23 percent of U.S. beehives last winter. The paper is being published Friday in the journal Science. Beekeepers, scientists and public officials have been searching for the cause of the disorder, which surfaced in 2004 and was formally recognized last year. Unlike other diseases that strike hives, the collapse disorder leaves a colony without most of its worker bees despite the presence of plentiful food, a queen and other adult bees. It has devastated an industry that produces honey and pollinates lucrative crops such as almonds, oranges and apples. The scientists who authored the paper emphasized that they have begun to solve the puzzle but have yet to determine exactly what causes a colony's abrupt decline. Read The Full Story Petraeus Open To Pullout Of 1 Brigade 2007-09-07 03:25:34 Top general in Iraq said to favor caution. Army Gen. David H. Petreaus has indicated a willingness to consider a drawdown of one brigade of between 3,500 and 4,500 U.S. troops from Iraq early next year, with more to follow over the next months based on conditions on the ground, according to a senior U.S. official. The pullouts would be contingent on the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to sustain what the administration heralds as recent gains in security and to make further gains in stabilizing Iraq. President Bush signaled the possibility of drawdowns after visiting Anbar province earlier this week. After meeting with Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, Bush said he was told that "if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces." Administration officials say the president will make the final decision about the overall strategy in Iraq, but they suggested that Bush is unlikely to depart significantly from recommendations made by top military officials but, on the eve of Petraeus's testimony before Congress early next week, there is still a diversity of opinion among top U.S. military officials on the eventual size and length of U.S. deployments. Petraeus's recommendations could fall on the conservative side of preferences among U.S. military planners, with the Joint Chiefs and Adm. William J. Fallon,  head of the U.S. Central Command, concerned about the drain on U.S. forces and the heavy focus on Iraq, U.S. officials say. Read The Full Story Islamist Website Claims Bin Laden Will Release Video Message To Mark 6th Anniversary Of 9/11 2007-09-07 03:23:55 Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, will release a video addressing the American people on the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, an Islamist website reported Thursday night. The announcement appeared on a website where al-Qaeda's media arm, as-Sahab, frequently posts messages. It was illustrated with a still photo from the video, showing bin Laden addressing the camera, his beard apparently dyed black The tape is expected to be released in the next 72 hours. A banner for the forthcoming address read: "Soon, God willing, a videotape from the lion sheikh Osama bin Laden, God preserve him." If genuine, the tape will be the first time Bin Laden has appeared in a video broadcast since October 2004 when a tape was obtained by al-Jazeera shortly before the U.S. presidential elections. In that address Bin Laden said America could avoid another 9/11 style attack if it stopped threatening Muslims. Read The Full Story	In New Video, Bin Laden Challenges America's 'Innocence', Urges Americans To Convert 2007-09-07 16:16:52 ABC News has obtained a transcript of the latest taped message from Osama bin Laden.  Sources tell ABC News the tape, bin Laden's first message in three years, is approximately 30 minutes long, and does not contain overt threats to the United States. Bin Laden opens with "praise to Allah" and his "law of retaliation" - "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed." Bin Laden also spoke to the ongoing situation in Iraq throughout the tape, heavily criticizing the Bush administration. He says to the American people, "you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld…" Read The Full Story GAO Says Federal Government Needs To Do More On Global Warming 2007-09-07 16:16:23 The federal government needs to do a better job addressing how climate change is transforming the hundreds of millions of acres under its watch, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Thursday. The 184-page report, which U.S. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and John McCain (R-Arizona) requested in 2004, highlights the extent to which global warming is already affecting the nation's parks, forests, marine sanctuaries and monuments. Looking at agencies ranging from the U.S. Forest Service to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,  GAO officials gathered reports of dramatic changes across the nearly 30 percent of U.S. land that lies under federal control. Since 1850, the glaciers in Glacier National Park have declined from 150 to 26; climate-triggered coral bleaching in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is eroding the area's tourist appeal. Read The Full Story Growth In U.S. Jobs Ends, Stocks Plunge 2007-09-07 14:16:56 Employers eliminated 4,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday, bringing an end to four years of uninterrupted job growth. Economists said the report provides the Federal Reserve with ample justification to lower its key interest rate at least a quarter point when it meets Sept. 18. The numbers also raised fresh fears of a recession and suggested that the damage from the recent turmoil in financial markets could be spreading. “If the economy is not headed toward recession, it is very close to one,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. At the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, stocks dropped 1 percent within minutes. And losses only deepened throughout the day. At 1:30 p.m., the Dow was off about 180 points, or 1.3 percent. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down a bit less and the Nasdaq composite index was off slightly more, as were European markets. Read The Full Story Bandwidth Hogs Shut Down 2007-09-07 03:27:22 Comcast Cuts Internet Service To Big Downloaders The rapid growth of online videos, music and games has created a new Internet sin: using it too much. Comcast has punished some transgressors by cutting off their Internet service, arguing that excessive downloaders hog Internet capacity and slow down the network for other customers. The company declines to reveal its download limits. "You have no way of knowing how much is too much," said Sandra Spalletta, of Rockville, Maryland, whose Internet service was suspended in March after Comcast sent her a letter warning that she and her teenage son were using too much bandwidth. They cut back on downloads but were still disconnected. She said the company would not tell her how to monitor their bandwidth use in order to comply with the limits. "You want to think you can rely on your home Internet service and not wake up one morning to find it turned off," said Spalletta, who filed a complaint with the Montgomery County Office of Cable and Communication Services. "I thought it was unlimited service." Read The Full Story Commentary: A Police State? Crying Wolf Won't Protect Civil Liberties 2007-09-07 03:26:33 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Conor Gearty and appears in the Guardian edition for Friday, September 7, 2007. Conor Gearty is professor of human rights law and director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics; his latest book, "Civil Liberties", will be published next week. In his commentary, Prof. Gearty writes that if the left rejects every challenge to individual freedom, it will miss its chance to regain the influence lost under Tony Blair. His commentary follows: The argument for compulsory DNA testing of the entire population and all visitors to the U.K., so eloquently put by Lord Justice Stephen Sedley, has provoked another bout of anxious navel gazing by civil libertarians. Sedley is no reactionary but rather one of Britain's most progressive judges, a man with an impeccable record of legal activism. If even this kind of person is now joining the Reids, Howards and the rest on the authoritarian side, does this mean Britain's much-battered freedom has at last lurched into terminal decline? Is the police state that so many have warned about for so long finally on its way? Fortunately the position is rather more complicated than this. Just as the right is given to moral panics (teddy boys, hippies, hoodies) so the left regularly succumbs to freedom frenzies. Earlier this summer it was concern about police use of CCTV material. In days gone by it was extending police powers of search. Long before that it was the prosecution of journalists and civil servants under the Official Secrets Act. Each generation of committed civil libertarians has been convinced it is sure to be the last. Every home secretary is always the worst ever - until the next one comes along. No wonder the community as a whole treats civil libertarians much as the villagers did the boy assigned to look after sheep in Aesop's fable. But what words do we have left if the wolf does finally and truly arrive? A fresh, more cautious approach is called for. We can start by being more careful about language. The term civil liberties is confusing in that it includes both a commitment to the liberty of the individual and to political freedom, but these are not the same. The first is a liberal idea, rooted in that old English notion of the individual being above and beyond the state and with a natural right not to be interfered with by it. Supporters of this idea are the people who break CCTV cameras and are affronted by being asked to stop smoking in public places. This kind of libertarianism is often quite reactionary and in its absolute form it is always being overridden - and rightly overridden - by government in the name of the public good. Read The Full Story Britain's RAF Scrambles To Confront Russian Bombers As Putin Flexes Air Power 2007-09-07 03:25:06 Encounter reminiscent of Cold War incidents. Shifting alliances raise tension with Moscow. Vladimir Putin's new-found determination to project Russia's military power internationally led Thursday to an aerial encounter with the RAF over the North Sea as British fighter jets, backed by an early warning aircraft, intercepted eight long-range Russian planes in the North Atlantic. In the latest of a series of aerial incidents reminiscent of the cold war, four Tornado F3s from RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire, and RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, were scrambled early Thursday followed by an E3 early warning radar aircraft and a refueling tanker to shadow eight Russian Tupolev Tu-95 "Bears". The Tu-95s were designed as bombers but are now frequently used for maritime reconnaissance. The aircraft, originally shadowed by Norwegian F-16s, were "approaching but not in British airspace", said Britain's Ministry of Defense (MoD), which played down the interception as "routine NATO procedure". The Russians were "upgrading and exercising their capabilities", said a defense official, adding, "It is not the start of a new cold war." Read The Full Story
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