Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday September 16 2007 - (813)

Sunday September 16 2007 edition
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More Than 190 Arrested At Washington, D.C., Anti-War Protest 2007-09-16 02:11:05 Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested. The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now." Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, of Lawton, Oklahoma, was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance. "We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war." Counter-protesters lined the sidewalks behind metal barricades. There were some heated shouting matches between the two sides. Read The Full Story Britain's 'Housing Boom Over' As Bank Chaos Grows 2007-09-16 02:10:22 Economist wars of sharp downturn; Tory leaders criticizes prime minister over crisis. Britain's house price growth will be halved next year as the global financial crisis exacerbates the impact of rising mortgage rates, according to Nationwide, the U.K.'s biggest mortgage lender. After the dramatic bail-out of high street bank Northern Rock underlined the impact of the American "sub-prime"  mortgage crisis on Britain's financial sector, Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's group economist, said she expected house price inflation to slow to around 3 per cent next year. Thousands of anxious customers queued outside Northern Rock branches for a second day Saturday, ignoring calls for calm from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, and the bank's management, and sparking fears of a full-blown "run" on the bank. Speaking to Britain's Channel 4 News Saturday night, Darling said he had been assured by the Financial Services Authority that Northern Rock was capable of meeting its financial obligations to its customers. Read The Full Story Torture Fate 'Awaits U.K. Deportees' 2007-09-16 02:09:14 Britain insists that is safe to send asylum seekers back to the Congo. Now, a repentant secret policeman has revealed the sickening brutality that awaits returning opponents of the Kinshasha regime. His stories are as shocking as they are horrific. A former senior member of the secret police in the Democratic Republic of Congo has revealed the inside story of the regime's brutal treatment of its political enemies. This is one of the few times that a perpetrator of the violence, rather than a victim of it, has spoken out. Jules Waka Ndumba decided to tell The Observer the truth about the killing, rape and torture ahead of a key legal challenge against the British government's policy of attempting to deport failed asylum seekers back to the Congo. Ndumba, 40, worked as part of the personal security corps for the former president Laurent Kabila and as a secret police chief. He said it was usual for trusted officials to have more than one "sensitive" job. Ndumba said he was involved in many acts of torture carried out at the notorious police headquarters, Kin Maziere, in the capital, Kinshasa. He said those most at risk of rapes, beatings and electrocutions at Kin Maziere are opponents of the government, both in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and abroad, and military deserters. Hundreds of people are tortured there every year, he said. Many of the inmates have been deported from the U.K., France and Germany. Read The Full Story Experts Eye China's Pig Disease 2007-09-16 02:07:46 Beijing says swine epidemic is under control, but scientists fear virus may lead to global crisis. At first, it was just some of the piglets. The mother gave birth to 13, all of them stillborn. Within a few weeks, however, she and other adult pigs in neighboring stalls became feverish and died. By the end of the summer, all but a handful of the village's 300 pigs had succumbed to the mysterious disease. "It was quick, very quick. Before we knew something was wrong, they were all dead," said Lo Jinyuan, a 55-year-old pig farmer in the village of Shandi. Moving rapidly from one farm to the next, the virus has been devastating pig communities throughout China for more than a year, wiping out entire herds, driving pork prices up nearly 87 percent in a year and helping push the country's inflation rate to its highest levels since 1996. The Chinese government has admitted that the swine deaths amount to an epidemic but contends that the situation is under control. Read The Full Story Iraq War Demonstrations - For And Against War - Kick Off On National Mall 2007-09-15 16:19:23 Rallies likely to be followed by week of civil disobedience in Washington to increase anti-war activism. The first major protest against the Iraq War in Washington since January kicked off Saturday with speeches near the White House, to be followed by a "die-in" at the U.S. Capitol featuring the playing of taps and a mock 21-gun salute. Protesters and counter-protesters started to gather by 8:30 a.m. for the event, which is expected to be followed by a week of civil disobedience in the Washington area intended to shift the anti-war movement to a more confrontational phase. Organizers were predicting tens of thousands of protesters, though their permit is for 10,000. Like the last major anti-war march in January, when tens of thousands descended on the Mall, Saturday's events come at a tense time in the fractious debate over the U.S. mission in Iraq. Today's rally and march on the Capitol follows this week's congressional testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and President Bush's speech to the nation on Thursday. The president ordered the first limited troop withdrawals since voters elected an antiwar Congress last year, but Democratic leaders immediately criticized his plan. Read The Full Story CIA Veteran Sulick To Head Clandestine Service 2007-09-15 16:18:16 CIA Director Michael V. Hayden Friday named Michael J. Sulick to head the National Clandestine Service, bringing back to government service a veteran covert operator who left almost three years ago after a confrontation with aides to Hayden's predecessor, former congressman Porter J. Goss (R-Florida). In announcing the appointment, Hayden described Sulick as "a familiar figure to many of you" and "a seasoned operations officer" who "earned a reputation for superior tradecraft and sound judgment." In November 2004, Stephen R. Kappes, then CIA deputy director of operations, the top spy position, and Sulick, then his deputy, became involved in a controversy involving leaks to the media, which pitted them against members of Goss' senior staff who had come with the congressman to the agency from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Sulick reportedly argued against transferring a senior officer who was accused of the leak. As events escalated, Kappes and Sulick resigned. Read The Full Story Markets Shudder At Bank Of England Bailout Of Major British Lender 2007-09-15 16:17:40 A major British bank said Friday that it had to arrange emergency funding from the Bank of England to ensure that it had enough cash to keep operating, an announcement that sent European stock exchanges lower and reverberated on Wall Street. The announcement that Britain's central bank had moved to bail out Northern Rock, the country's fifth-largest mortgage lender and eighth-largest bank, combined with a tepid report on August retail sales to initially deflate U.S. markets. (Intellpuke: You can read a related article on this story elsewhere on today's Free Internet Press mainpage.) The market rebounded by day's end, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing up 17.64 points Friday, and 2.5 percent for the week. The Nasdaq closed up 1.12 points and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 0.30 points. Although the amount of the emergency funding was not disclosed, the agreement between Northern Rock and the  Bank of England was being described as the biggest British bank bailout in more than a quarter of a century. As word of the arrangement spread, lines formed outside of some Northern Rock branches as customers withdrew deposits, wire services reported. Northern Rock said that global credit markets have been so tight that it has been unable to raise the money it needs to make new home loans and repay debts that are coming due. Read The Full Story Greenspan Memoir Says Bush And Republicans Abandoned Fiscal Restraint 2007-09-15 02:21:55 Alan Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and was the leading Republican economist for the past three decades, levels unusually harsh criticism at President Bush and the Republican Party in his new book, arguing that Bush abandoned the central conservative principle of fiscal restraint. While condemning Democrats, too, for rampant federal spending, he offers Bill Clinton an exemption. The former president emerges as the political hero of "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan's 531-page memoir, which is being published Monday. Greenspan, who had an eight-year alliance with Clinton and Democratic Treasury secretaries in the 1990s, praises Clinton's mind and his tough anti-deficit policies, calling the former president's 1993 economic plan "an act of political courage." But he expresses deep disappointment with Bush. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan writes. "Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. ... To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake." Read The Full Story Commentary: Why Is Bush's Kid-Brother Neil Getting Federal Funding? 2007-09-15 02:21:18 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Liliana Segura, a writer and activist living in New York City, N.Y. Her commentary was posted on AlterNet.org's website on Thursday, September 13, 2007. Ms. Segura's commentary follows: So here's a tidy little racket: After being installed president thanks to a voting fracas in a state conveniently governed by your brother, cook up a national educational curriculum and place at its center the standardized test. Give the curriculum a name with a wink and a nudge, like, oh, "No Child Left Behind." Then, funnel taxpayer money to equipping schools with a gimmicky learning device focused on standardized tests and sold by your other brother, the sadly anonymous one, whose only (fading) claim to fame is a role in the Savings and Loan scandal of the late 80s. Despite having no experience in education, Neil Bush is the founder of a Texas-based company called Ignite! Learning, which, since 1999 has peddled strange little devices called "Curriculums on Wheels" (COWs) to schools state and nationwide. Rather than anything bovine, COWs actually resemble bright plastic droids or office chairs gone terribly wrong. Described as "computer/projectors," it's not really clear what they do or how they work, and a cursory look at the company's website ( http://www.ignitelearning.com/) does not help. (Apparently it involves swivel action.) Regardless, there are COWs for different subjects: the Math COW, the Science COW ("the ultimate classroom sidekick!") and the Social Studies COW. No sign of a sex-ed COW. Despite glowing testimonials on Ignite!'s website, many teachers are unimpressed, arguing the COWs focus on rote memorization rather than critical thinking skills. (Really, just not what one would expect from a Bush.) Citing the absence of any evidence whatsoever that these devices actually work - they have yet to be peer reviewed - one group has described the COW as "a very expensive device with limited use." Read The Full Story Work On U.S. Sen. Stevens' House Detailed In Testimony 2007-09-15 02:18:42 Former Veco c.e.o. testifies he oversaw project. A former energy company executive testified yesterday that his employees worked on an expansive reconstruction of the house of Sen. Ted Stevens (R), who is under investigation in a federal probe of corruption among Alaska  lawmakers. Bill Allen the former chief executive of Veco Corp., said he personally oversaw the rebuilding of Stevens's house near Anchorage,visiting the home about once a month, and gave the senator furniture. "I gave Ted some old furniture," Allen testified. "I don't think there was a lot of material. There was some labor." Contractors previously told a federal grand jury that Veco executives supervised renovations at Stevens' house and that bills for the work went to Veco for Allen's approval. But Friday was the first time that Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers in Anchorage, named Stevens publicly. Allen testified in federal court in Alaska in the trial of a former state legislator whose case is part of a larger corruption investigation that has ensnared Stevens's son, Ben Stevens, a former state senator. Allen said Friday that Ben Stevens accepted $4,000 a month in bribes, disguised as consulting fees, while he was in the state legislature. Read The Full Story Taiwan Criticizes U.S. Lack Of Support 2007-09-15 02:17:32 Taiwan's president criticized the U.S. on Friday for refusing to support a referendum the island is planning to hold on whether to seek U.N. membership under its own name. Speaking via video to an audience in New York, Chen Shui-bian said he believes the U.S. opposes the referendum because of China's opposition, intimidation and threat of military action. "As a leader in the community of democracies, why can't the U.S. say no to China?" he asked. "Why can't the U.S. openly say that you can't hold a gun pointing at the head of the 23 million people of Taiwan and use the other hand to choke Taiwan?" Read The Full Story	Was Israeli Raid Into Syria A Dry Run For Attack On Iran? 2007-09-16 02:10:50 The head of Israel's air force, Major-General Eliezer Shkedi, was visiting a base in the coastal city of Herziliya last week. For the 50-year-old general, also the head of Israel's Iran Command, which would fight a war with Tehran if ordered, it was a morale-boosting affair, a meet-and-greet with pilots and navigators who had flown during last summer's month-long war against Lebanon. The journalists who had turned out in large numbers were there for another reason: to question Shkedi about a mysterious air raid that happened this month, codenamed "Orchard", carried out deep in Syrian territory by his pilots. Shkedi ignored all questions. It set a pattern for the days to follow as he and Israel's politicians and officials maintained a steely silence, even when the questions came from the visiting French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Those journalists who thought of reporting the story were discouraged by the threat of Israel's military censor. But the rumors were in circulation, not just in Israel but in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. In the days that followed, the sketchy details of the raid were accompanied by contradictory claims even as U.S. and British officials admitted knowledge of the raid. The New York Times described the target of the raid as a nuclear site being run in collaboration with North Korean technicians. Others reported that the jets had hit either a Hezbollah convoy, a missile facility or a terrorist camp. Amid the confusion there were troubling details that chimed uncomfortably with the known facts. Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources, they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000 kilometers when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in Iran, leading to speculation that it was an "operation rehearsal" for a raid on Tehran's nuclear facilities. Read The Full Story Analysis: Prospects For Iraq War Accord Dim 2007-09-16 02:09:39 White House, Congress likely to stay deadlocked on Iraq, at least until Bush's term ends. When Army Gen. David H. Petraeus last week proposed withdrawing more than 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq,  some congressional Democrats nodded their heads and saw it as a positive, if insufficient, step forward. Some wanted to take credit. After all, they reasoned, the drawdown, the benchmarks report, even Petraeus's Capitol Hill testimony came about only because of Democratic pressure. Within hours, that idea was shot down. When House Democratic leaders convened in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (California) at 5:30 p.m. Monday, strategists concluded they were already getting credit for what was happening but that voters wanted much more. So Pelosi, according to aides at the meeting, insisted that Democrats coordinate their message and dictated what that message would be: The general's plan meant 10 more years of war, or even "endless war." Either way, what seems increasingly clear is that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq - at least until President Bush leaves office in 16 months. Following long-awaited congressional hearings, progress reports and presidential speeches, the prospect of a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever. Read The Full Story BAE Lands $80 Billion Saudi Plane Contract 2007-09-16 02:08:40 British aerospace giant BAE is part of a consortium that has clinched a £40 billion ($80 billion) contract to supply 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia in the world's biggest defense deal. The aircraft will replace the Tornados bought by the Saudis under the al-Yamamah oil-for-arms package agreed when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in 1984. The Typhoon transaction will be worth £20 billion ($40 billion) to BAE over the next 20 years. Al-Yamamah was the target of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation until the investigation was shut down after intervention by ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair last December. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the son of the Saudi defense minister, is said to have received payments from BAE as part of the Tornado contract, but the company and the Prince have denied that the payments were improper. One of the reasons cited for the abrupt closure of the Serious Fraud Office investigation was that it could jeopardize relations with the Saudi royal family and therefore the U.K.'s efforts to fight terrorism. BAE also claimed that it could threaten the Typhoon order, which has bolstered the company's share price. The company still faces an investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice, which in June announced a probe into whether the al-Yamamah deal broke anti-corruption laws. Read The Full Story French President Sarkozy Digs In As A Winter Of Strikes Looms 2007-09-16 02:07:21 The battle lines are being drawn, the tear gas and the placards stockpiled. France is preparing for a political war that is unlikely to be over by Christmas. Nicolas Sarkozy, the hyperactive new President, is taking on the self-proclaimed defenders of the rights of the French worker, the unions. Not any old unions either, but the railway workers, miners, fishermen, employees of the vast national electric company and many of the country's bureaucrats who, as they have proved on numerous occasions, are capable of paralyzing the country. This week Sarkozy is expected to announce that he will end the generous special retirement packages enjoyed or anticipated by the 1.6 million Frenchmen and women they represent and spark the first major clash of his presidency. "If the government has already made a decision and is going to try to impose it, then there will be a major conflict,"  said François Chereque, one railway union chief. A second, Bernard Thibault, promised "sport ... and not just on the rugby pitch". Read The Full Story Arms Flow Between Iran, Taliban Escalating 2007-09-15 16:18:32 An Iranian arms shipment destined for the Taliban was intercepted on Sept. 6 by the international force in Afghanistan in what appears to be an escalating flow of weaponry between the two former enemies, according to officials from countries in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The shipment included armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed projectiles, which have been especially deadly when used as roadside bombs against foreign troops in Iraq, said the sources. The NATO-led force interdicted two smaller shipments of similar weapons coming from Iran into southern Helmand province on April 11 and May 3. "It's not the fact that it's qualitatively different, but this was a large shipment which got people's attention," said a U.S. official in Washington. This time, the arms were shipped from the western border of Iran into Farah province, a vast but sparsely populated area, the sources said, indicating an attempt to find different routes less likely to be discovered. Read The Full Story Gen. Wesley Clark Endorses Hillary Clinton 2007-09-15 16:17:59 Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed Saturday by retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who sought the party's nomination in 2004 and whose sterling military credentials could bolster her bid to be the first female commander in chief. Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, praised the New York senator as "a remarkable person" with the skills and experience to be president. "She will be a great leader for the United States of America and a great commander in chief for the men and women in uniform," Clark told reporters in a conference call with the former first lady. Sen. Clinton welcomed Clark's endorsement as a "real sign of confidence" in her ability to lead the military as president. "He and I have been friends for 25 years, and I am deeply admiring of his leadership," she said. Read The Full Story U.S. Dollar's Retreat Raises Fears Of Collapse 2007-09-15 02:22:16 Finance ministers and central bankers have long fretted that at some point, the rest of the world would lose its willingness to finance the United States' proclivity to consume far more than it produces - and that a potentially disastrous free-fall in the dollar's value would result. But for longer than most economists would have been willing to predict a decade ago, the world has been a willing partner in American excess - until a new and home-grown financial crisis this summer rattled confidence in the country, the world's largest economy. On Thursday, the dollar briefly fell to another low against the euro of $1.3927, as a slow decline that has been under way for months picked up steam this past week. "This is all pointing to a greatly increased risk of a fast unwinding of the U.S. current account deficit and a serious decline of the dollar," said Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and an expert on exchange rates. "We could finally see the big kahuna hit." Read The Full Story Commentary: The Promotion Of Failure In The Bush Administration 2007-09-15 02:21:38 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Keith Olbermann, anchor of MSNBC's Countdown program, and was posted on AlterNet.org's website on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007. Transcript from Crooks and Liars. To this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11. Thirty-three percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here (New York City) and in Washington and in Pennsylvania. Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed. Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11. If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare. How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here? In our number one story tonight, no one person is to blame. And only some of those who are, recognize it. As we reported yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell tells G-Q magazine he is "sorry" he gave the world wrong information when he told the U-N of the threat Iraq supposedly posed. He was not fired for doing so. Read The Full Story Almost Home, But Facing More Delays At Walter Reed 2007-09-15 02:19:27 Soldier is told paperwork errors will slow retirement. After nearly three years as an outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon had begun the wrenching process of turning himself into a civilian. He no longer wore the uniform he loved so much. He sported a short beard and traded his black beret for a baseball cap. Granted a 30-day leave to prepare for retirement as his disability case finally made it through the system, he moved his family to Suffolk, Virginia, and began to babysit his two kids, clean the house and grow vegetables. Given what had happened to him in Iraq - the traumatic brain injury from an AK-47 round that shattered one eye and half his skull - and the chronic post-traumatic stress disorder that followed, that was about all he could handle. Last week, Shannon, 43, was back at Walter Reed, but not to say goodbye. The doctors' signatures on two time-sensitive forms in his disability file had expired. He would have to be reexamined by his doctors, he was told, and his medical summaries would have to be written all over again. Unfortunately, the sergeant in charge of his disability paperwork had not stayed on top of his case. "There was a failure of paying attention to the currency of his paperwork," a Walter Reed spokesman, Charles Dasey, said Friday night. Read The Full Story World Health Organization: Cholera Cases In Iraq Keep Rising 2007-09-15 02:17:56 The number of suspected cholera cases in northern Iraq continues to rise, with 16,000 people now showing symptoms, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday. As of Sept. 10, 6,000 have been reported with symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in the province of Sulaimaniyah, another 7,000 in Tamim province, and 3,000 in Irbil province, the WHO said in a statement. To date 10 people have died and 844 cases of the disease have been confirmed, said the WHO. Earlier in the week, regional authorities reported 11,000 people with symptoms, 700 confirmed cases and 10 deaths. Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It broke out in mid-August and has so far been limited to northern Iraq. Read The Full Story
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