Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday September 20 2007 - (813)

Thursday September 20 2007 edition
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Blackwater - Where The Military Rules Don't Apply 2007-09-20 01:25:37 Blackwater's security force was exempt from rule that applied to other security contractors in Iraq. Blackwater USA, the private security company involved in a Baghdad shootout last weekend, operated under U.S. State Department authority that exempted the company from U.S. military regulations governing other security firms, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives. In recent months, the State Department's oversight of Blackwater became a central issue as Iraqi authorities repeatedly clashed with the company over its aggressive street tactics. Many U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives said they came to see Blackwater as untouchable, protected by State Department officials who defended the company at every turn. Blackwater employees protect the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Iraq.  Blackwater "has a client who will support them no matter what they do," said H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, an advocacy organization in Baghdad that is funded by security firms, including Blackwater. The State Department allowed Blackwater's heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military's restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield. Read The Full Story African Deluge Brings Misery To 1.5 Million People 2007-09-20 01:25:05 Nearly 200 people drowned, 650,000 homes destroyed. U.N. appeals for aid as food is sent to seven countries. The small plane banks steeply to the east and the extent of the floods in the low-lying Teso region of Uganda become clear: mile upon mile of low-lying pasture land submerged, tens of thousands of acres of staple crops like cassava, millet and groundnuts waterlogged. There are impassable roads, overflowing rivers, stranded cattle and devastated bridges. Villages are cut off and mud houses and roads have been swept away. Yet this is a fraction of the devastation caused by some of the heaviest rains in memory to have hit a great swath of Africa from the Sahel to the horn. Article continues According to the United Nations Wednesday, 18 of the poorest and normally driest countries in Africa, from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso in the west, to Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in the east, have been seriously hit by months of torrential rains which, meterologists forecast, will continue in places for many more weeks. "We believe at least 650,000 homes have been destroyed, 1.5 million people affected and nearly 200 people so far drowned," said Elisabeth Brys, at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, Switzerland. "This is harvest time for many countries and there are already food shortages." Read The Full Story Did CIA Kidnap Vacationer? It's A State Secret 2007-09-20 01:24:19 At issue is whether the White House has the power to keep an alleged victim from seeking redress in the U.S. courts. In December 2003, German citizen Khaled el-Masri boarded a bus in Germany for a holiday in Skopje, Macedonia. Instead of a restful vacation, the Muslim man of Lebanese heritage says he ended up in a Central Intelligence Agency isolation cell in Afghanistan as a suspected terrorist. He was released after five months of interrogation with no explanation justifying the action or apology if it was a mistake. Now, nearly four years later, his lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to examine whether the Bush administration has the power to prevent Masri from seeking recourse in American courts. Masri's lawyers claim that the CIA kidnapped and tortured an innocent man. The government has never responded directly to the accusation. Instead, Justice Department lawyers asked a U.S. judge to throw the case out of court to prevent disclosure of state secrets. He did. Read The Full Story Germany's Defense Minister Ready To Shoot Down Hijacked Planes 2007-09-20 01:23:46 Germany's politicians are locked in a heated debate after the defense minister signaled his readiness to shoot down hijacked airplanes at the risk of killing innocent civilians in order to avert a wider disaster. The comments of Josef Jung, of the Christian Democrats, have unleashed a passionate debate across the parties and Wednesday led to calls for his resignation in an emotional session in the Bundestag, the German parliament. "In cases of common danger or danger to free and democratic basic order" it would be possible to shoot down a plane, Jung has said. His proposal goes against the decision by Germany's federal constitutional court last year to throw out a law allowing the downing of planes. The government is in the throes of trying to agree to new legislation, but the grand coalition is split on the issue. It also does not want to ignore the 70% of Germans who are against shooting down passenger planes. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Asks Congress To Increase U.S. Debt Limit 2007-09-19 13:49:35 Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Wednesday that the federal government will hit the current debt ceiling on Oct. 1. He urged quick action to increase the limit, saying it was essential to protect the "full faith and credit" of the country, especially at a time of financial market turmoil. The current debt limit is $8.965 trillion. Unless Congress votes to raise that ceiling, the country would be unable to borrow more money to keep the government operating and to pay debt obligations coming due. The United States has never defaulted on a debt payment but the decision on whether to raise the debt ceiling often sparks a prolonged political battle in Congress. In his letter to congressional leaders, Paulson said that according to data now available, the Treasury expects to hit the current debt ceiling on Oct. 1 - the first day of the new federal budget year. However, that projection does not take into account maneuvers the government often has to employ of withdrawing investments from certain trust funds to create room for extra borrowing until Congress finally approves a debt increase. Read The Full Story Bomb Kills Anti-Syrian Lawmaker In Lebanon 2007-09-19 13:49:05 A bomb rocked a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and six other people, security officials said. Antoine Ghanem is the eighth prominent anti-Syrian figure assassinated since 2005. Ghanem, 64, a member of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party, was targeted by the bomb, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The Voice of Lebanon radio station, which is owned by the Phalange party, confirmed Ghanem's death. The identities of the others killed were not immediately known. Read The Full Story Experts: Effects Of Climate Change Will Be Felt Sooner Than Scientists Realized 2007-09-19 02:36:01 The effects of climate change will be felt sooner than scientists realized and the world must learn to live with the effects, experts said Tuesday. Professor Martin Parry, a climate scientist with Britain's Met Office, said destructive changes in temperature, rainfall and agriculture were now forecast to occur several decades earlier than thought. He said vulnerable people such as the old and poor would be the worst affected, and that world leaders have not yet accepted their countries will have to adapt to the likely consequences. Speaking at a meeting to launch the full report on the impacts of global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Professor Parry, co-chairman of the IPCC working group that wrote the report, said: "We are all used to talking about these impacts coming in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Now we know that it's us." He added politicians had wasted a decade by focusing only on ways to cut emissions, and had only recently woken up to the need to adapt. "Mitigation has got all the attention, but we cannot mitigate out of this problem. We now have a choice between a future with a damaged world or a severely damaged world." Read The Full Story Musharraf Pledges To Leave Army If Re-Elected President 2007-09-19 02:34:23 Foes want Musharraf to leave both jobs. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's attorney told Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday that Musharraf would step down as army chief if he is elected to another term as president this fall. But the pledge failed to appease Pakistani opposition leaders, who continued to press for him to leave both posts. Top aides to Musharraf had been saying for weeks that if he is elected to a new term as president, he intends to take off his uniform and become a civilian before he is sworn in. Sharifuddin Pirzada, Musharraf's attorney, made the plan official Tuesday. The new election must be held by Oct. 15, and Musharraf's current term expires Nov. 15. Musharraf, 64, has been in the army his entire adult life, and his role leading the military is seen as his primary source of power but, legally and politically, he had little option but to pledge to abandon his army job. He was constitutionally barred from holding both offices simultaneously beyond this year, and any continuation of military rule probably would spark street protests at a time when anti-army sentiments are running high. Opposition leaders signaled Tuesday that, despite his promised change to civilian status, Musharraf's problems are still not over. Read The Full Story	Iraqis Aim Anger At Blackwater 'Dogs' After Shootings 2007-09-20 01:25:22 Hated by Iraqis who refer to them as "Mossad," Blackwater contractors are also mistrusted by fellow private security guards operating in Iraq who say they are arrogant, rude and dangerous. "They kill innocent people in the street," Hameed Hussein, a pensioner in west Baghdad's Al-Maamoun neighborhood said on Tuesday, two days after guards from the U.S. security firm opened fire on civilians, killing 10 people and wounding 13. "Where else in the world does this happen?" asked 60-year-old Hussein. "These are not security forces but rather forces to kill Iraqis. They are frenzied dogs." Iraq's interior ministry ordered the cancellation of Blackwater's operating license after its guards who were escorting U.S. embassy officials were involved in Sunday's shooting in Baghdad's Al-Yarmukh neighborhood. Read The Full Story Ahmadinejad's Party Attacks Him Over Jocular Attitude On Inflation 2007-09-20 01:24:36 In Iran, living costs spiral, rising prices hurting poor, say fundamentalists. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has suffered an embarrassing blow to his prestige after his own party attacked him for adopting a jocular tone towards inflation at a time of rampant price rises. The Islamic Revolution Devotees Society - a fundamentalist grouping of revolutionary veterans co-founded by  Ahmadinejad - has added its voice to a rising chorus of economic discontent by warning the president that spiralling living costs are hurting the poor and undermining his stated goal of social justice. The society says the government is to blame because it embarked on extravagant projects while failing to control the money supply. "Unrestrained inflation increases the pressure on the weak and leads to the poor becoming poorer as owners of non-monetary assets get richer," it says in an economic report. "The result is counter to the goals, plans and slogans of Dr. Ahmadinejad's government." The report also accuses Ahmadinejad and other officials of refusing to acknowledge the problem and of making light of it with inappropriate jokes. It says: "Sometimes some high-ranking government officials deny the growth of prices and deal with them through making jokes. To deny the current inflation or ignoring it through jokes is totally unacceptable." Read The Full Story Israel Declares Gaza Strip 'Hostile Entity' 2007-09-20 01:24:04 Threat to cut fuel supplies if rocket attacks continue. Rice backs crackdown, but U.N. chief calls for rethink. The Israeli government Wednesday declared the Gaza Strip a "hostile entity" and threatened to further cut fuel and electricity supplies if militants continue to fire Qassam rockets at Israel, a decision that was backed by the United States. The decision was described by Palestinians and international agencies, including the United Nations, as collective punishment, which is illegal under international law. Hamas said the policy is a declaration of war. In a statement, the Israeli government said that Hamas had taken over the Gaza Strip and turned it into a hostile territory. It said: "Additional sanctions will be placed on the Hamas regime in order to restrict the passage of various goods to the Gaza Strip and reduce the supply of fuel and electricity." Further restrictions on the movement of people in and out of Gaza would also be implemented. Read The Full Story U.S. Senate Ethics Committee Intensifies Probe Of Domenici 2007-09-20 01:23:30 The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics has stepped up its probe of Pete Domenici, the Republican senator from New Mexico, who allegedly pressured David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney in that state, to return an indictment against a local Democratic official who was the target of a corruption investigation prior to the 2006 midterm elections. Over the past couple of weeks, the Ethics Committee has been interviewing witnesses - including staffers from the US attorney's office in New Mexico - who were privy to a phone call Domenici made to Iglesias last November in which he asked the former federal prosecutor about the timing of an indictment against Manny Aragon, a prominent former New Mexico state senator and the subject of a federal corruption probe, according to the senior staffers. Congressional ethics rules prohibit lawmakers from contacting federal agency officials during ongoing probes. Iglesias is one of at least eight U.S. attorneys who were fired last December. He believes his termination was due in part to his staunch refusal to allow investigations he had undertaken to be politicized in order to swing the November 2006 midterm elections toward Republicans. Read The Full Story Senate Republicans' Filibuster Stops Bill Expanding Detainees' Rights 2007-09-19 13:49:23 A Republican filibuster in the Senate today shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest their detentions and treatment in federal courts, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress's difficulty with terrorism issues. The 56-43 vote fell short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote on the amendment to the Senate's annual defense policy bill. But the measure did garner the support of six Republicans, a small victory for its supporters. The Senate then moved to the first big showdown over Iraq war policy of the fall, taking up a measure by Sens. James Webb (D-Virginia) and Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) to guarantee that troops receive home stays at least as long as their last combat deployments before being sent back to war. The detainee rights bill was an effort to reverse a provision of last year's Military Commissions Act, which suspended the writ of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects at the military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other off-shore prisons. Read The Full Story U.S. House Members Resist Subpoenas To Testify In Contractor Bribery Trial 2007-09-19 02:36:28 The defense contractor charged with bribing convicted former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham has subpoenaed 13 House members, including former speaker J. Dennis Hastert, to testify in his federal trial. The 13 lawmakers are refusing the subpoena, and the House general counsel sent lawyers for the contractor, Brent R. Wilkes, a letter saying that it was overly broad and "did not elaborate as to what testimony you seek from each member." Wilkes has been indicted on more than 30 counts, including fraud and money laundering, as one of several alleged conspirators who paid more than $2.4 million in bribes to the California Republican. Cunningham is serving an eight-year prison term after pleading guilty to steering millions of dollars in government business to Wilkes and other defense contractors. It is unclear what Wilkes' defense team wants from Hastert (R-Illinois) and the other lawmakers. His attorney, Mark J. Geragos, did not respond to repeated requests for comment Tuesday. Read The Full Story U.S. Agrees To Further British Withdrawal From Iraq - or - U.S., Britain Differ On Southern Iraq Mission, Official Says 2007-09-19 02:35:13 Intellpuke: There are two articles on the same subject here. The first was posted on the Guardian's website about 8 hours (due to different time zones, the Guardian is a British news organization based in Manchester, England) before the second, which is the Washington Post's article. I posted them in the order they appeared on the World Wide Web, so the Guardian article is first, and the Post's article follows it: Britain is poised to announce significant cuts in the number of troops in southern Iraq following an upbeat assessment by U.S. and British military officials in London Tuesday. This was the message from defense officials last night following talks between British government ministers and General David Petraeus, the American military commander in Iraq. Amid concern about the mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iraq and nuclear issues, Gen.  Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, also kept up the pressure on Iran, saying its repeated calls for dialogue with the U.S. were irrelevant as long as it continued supporting Iraqi militias and played what  Crocker called a "lethal and damaging" role. The Guardian understands an announcement on further cuts in British troops could be made as early as October 8 when Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to make a statement to Parliament members when the House of  Commons returns after its summer break. A reduction of 500 troops out of a total of 5,500 has already been announced. Read The Full Story Typhoon Wipha Slams Into China's Coast, Then Wimps Out, Now Just A Tropical Storm 2007-09-19 02:33:52 Typhoon Wipha slammed into the coast south of Shanghai early Wednesday, flooding streets and disrupting transport as authorities ordered 2 million people evacuated. One man was electrocuted. But Wipha was fast losing power and appeared unlikely to live up to forecasts that it could be the most powerful storm to hit eastern China in a decade. By Wednesday morning, the Meteorological Bureau in Zhejiang province, where Wipha made landfall, reported that it was downgraded to a severe tropical storm when its sustained wind speeds dropped below 74 mph. However, the storm was expected to pass Shanghai, China's biggest city, later in the day and still carried the potential to cause significant damage through flooding and strong winds. Read The Full Story
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