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Thursday October 25 2007 edition
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Waxman's Oversight Puts Pressure On Bush Administration 2007-10-25 02:48:32 For months, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, has been threatening, subpoenaing and just plain badgering Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come before his panel to answer questions about the run-up to the Iraq war, corruption and State Department contracting. Thursday, Rice will finally appear, but Waxman (D-California) has not spent the week on a victory lap. He has found time to produce evidence accusing State Department security contractor Blackwater Worldwide of tax evasion, to fire off a letter to Rice demanding information about alleged mismanagement of a $1 billion contract to train Iraqi police, and to hold a hearing on uranium poisoning on Navajo land. Waxman has become the Bush administration's worst nightmare: a Democrat in the majority with subpoena power and the inclination to overturn rocks but, in Waxman, the White House also faces an indefatigable capital veteran - with a staff renowned for its depth and experience - who has been waiting for this for 14 years. These days, the 16-term representative is always ready with a hearing, a fresh crop of internal administration e-mails or a new explosive report. And he has more than two dozen investigations underway, on such issues as the politicization of the entire federal government, formaldehyde in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers, global warming, and safety concerns about the diabetes drug Avandia. Read The Full Story $38 Million Computerized Accounting System In Iraq Is Useless 2007-10-25 02:48:02 A $38 million U.S. effort to create a computerized accounting system for the Iraqi government has been suspended because the Ministry of Finance there has continued to use a paper system, according to the latest report of Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. "Nobody noticed" when the computerized Iraq Financial Management Information System was inoperable for a month, and no one relies on it to produce reports, Bowen said in a report released by his office Wednesday. Bowen's statement follows a disclosure earlier this month by the Government Accountability Office that $8 million was spent to train about 500 Iraqi government employees in various ministries to use the computerized system, but the Finance Ministry refused to drop its paper spreadsheets. Installation of the new accounting system was halted last May when a British contractor and his security team were kidnapped from the Ministry of Finance office, located outside the protected Green Zone where many international officials live and work. Read The Full Story 18 Killed In Mexico Oil Rig Accident 2007-10-25 02:46:47 At least 18 oil workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned oil company said Wednesday. Seven workers were still missing. Rescuers have pulled 61 oil workers to safety from storm-tossed waters but have yet to control the oil leak, Mexico's oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a news release. One survivor, Eder Ortega Flores, 25, told the Televisa television network that workers abandoned the rig amid 25-foot waves only after leaking gas rose to unbearable levels and the supply of air from emergency breathing devices ran out. Once in the water, the waves battered the workers' orange-colored, covered life rafts. "The life rafts didn't hold up under the force of the waves," he said. "They broke up, at least the one I was on, little by little, until the raft sank, and all my co-workers went into the sea." Read The Full Story Israel To Cut Off Power To Gaza Strip 2007-10-24 20:03:34 Israel's military is to cut off electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to continued rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory. The plan, formulated by a senior team led by the deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, is expected to be approved by the defense minister, Ehud Barak, Thursday. Speaking on Israel's Army radio, Vilnai said he intended to "dramatically reduce the flow" of power to the territory for some weeks. It was not immediately clear exactly when the decision would take effect. "It's clear that we have to cut off ... the supply of electricity and the supply of fuel," said Vilnai. "We will dramatically reduce the flow of electricity from Israel over several weeks." Last month, Israel's government declared the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a "hostile territory", clearing the way for sanctions to be imposed in the area. The planned power cuts come as part of the country's hardening military stance toward Hamas, which violently seized control of Gaza in June. Read The Full Story 7.1 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Indonesia 2007-10-24 20:02:17 A powerful earthquake rocked western Indonesia early Thursday, sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes and briefly triggering a tsunami warning. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and struck 135 kilometers (85 miles) west of Bengkulu, a coastal town off Sumatra island, said the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit 30 kilometers (18 miles) beneath the ocean floor. Read The Full Story Turkish Warplanes Attack Kurds Near Iraq Border 2007-10-24 14:26:10 Attacks are the first time that Turkish warplanes have been employed in assaults against the Kurdish rebels. Turkish warplanes joined Sikorsky and Cobra military helicopters in southeastern Turkey Wednesday in attacks on the broad mountainous passes that Kurdish separatist rebels use to travel from hideouts in northern Iraq into Turkey, the state-run Anatolian News Agency reported, without explicitly stating whether or how far the aircraft flew inside Iraqi territory. The attacks are the first time that Turkish warplanes have been employed in assaults against the Kurdish rebels since the fall of the Saddam regime in Iraq, and follow several days of Turkish shelling. The report did not disclose the number of aircraft involved. Some unconfirmed media reports said the Turkish aircraft had flown into Iraqi territory. A government official briefed about the military’s activities on Tuesday evening said Turkish soldiers may already have crossed the border - a rocky, uninhabited area - in brief pursuits of the Kurdish rebels, returning quickly after their incursions. “It is a harsh, rugged region away from residential areas, and in pursuit of the rebels, troops from time to time cross the border for few kilometers, and that’s what was mentioned to us,” said the official. The Turks began threatening to send troops into Iraq after months of frustration over raids into Turkey by Kurdish rebels. The Turkish authorities say the rebels have killed at least 42 people within Turkey in the past month, including 12 soldiers in an ambush on Sunday. Read The Full Story China Launches Lunar Probe 2007-10-24 14:25:32 China sent a satellite rocketing toward lunar orbit Wednesday evening, the latest step in an ambitious national program to shoot more astronauts into space, build a space station and eventually land Chinese astronauts on the moon. The satellite, called Chang'e after a goddess who flew to the moon in Chinese legend, was lifted into space atop a white-painted Long March 3A rocket that blasted off at 6:05 p.m. local time (6:05 a.m. in Washington, D.C.) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in central China. The China National Space Administration said Chang'e was scheduled to enter a lunar orbit Nov. 5 and send back images and analyses of the moon's surface for about a year. The trouble-free liftoff, with flame and white smoke billowing out of the rocket, was heralded by commentators and broadcast live on government television, underlining the Communist Party's desire to cultivate national pride in a growing list of accomplishments in space. In the same vein, the launch was scheduled just two days after a national party congress acclaimed Hu Jintao for a second five-year term as party leader, president and military chief. "The launch shows our comprehensive state power," said Jiao Weixin, a professor at Peking University's School of Earth and Space Sciences. "It can help to improve our image in the world. Chinese would feel excited and greatly encouraged by just having a Chinese Nobel Prize winner, let alone having the chance to prove to the world our capability to explore space." Read The Full Story Devastating California Fires Persist Through 3rd Day 2007-10-24 02:30:23 New blazes in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, more evacuations. As temperatures and winds again rise, officials say containment of major blazes is days away at the earliest. More than 1,200 homes have been lost; 4 evacuees die. Fires raged in mountain communities around Lake Arrowhead Tuesday, adding to the devastation that has burned more than 1,200 Southern California homes and prompted authorities to order hundreds of thousands of people to get away. Authorities said four evacuees in San Diego County had died; but some residents were allowed to return to their homes in Scripps Ranch and other areas. Fires sprang up today in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, and more evacuations were ordered in Orange and San Diego counties. As many as 10,000 people sought shelter at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where food and blankets were available, and there was entertainment for children. Weary firefighters fought major blazes that have burned since the weekend in seven counties, and officials said containment was days away at the earliest. Read The Full Story Heavy White House Editing Alleged In Climate Change Testimony 2007-10-24 02:29:59 Testimony that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to give Tuesday to a Senate committee about the impact of climate change on health was significantly edited by the White House, according to two sources familiar with the documents. Specific scientific references to potential health risks were removed after Julie L. Gerberding submitted a draft of her prepared remarks to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. Instead, Gerberding's prepared testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee included few details on what effects climate change could have on the spread of disease. Only during questioning did the director of the government's premier disease-monitoring agency describe any specific diseases likely to be affected, again without elaboration. A CDC official familiar with both versions said Gerberding's draft "was eviscerated," cut from 14 pages to four. The version presented to the Senate committee consisted of six pages. Read The Full Story Editorial: Tilting The Scales Of Justice 2007-10-24 02:29:36 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, October 24, 2007. Every time we take a look at the United States attorney scandal, more evidence emerges that Alberto Gonzales politicized the Justice Department to the point where it sometimes seems like a branch of the Republican National Committee. Tuesday, for example, Richard Thornburgh, a former Republican attorney general, told a Congressional hearing that his client, Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Democratic officeholder in Pennsylvania, was indicted on federal charges that should not be federal charges by a United States attorney who targeted Democrats. At the same hearing, more evidence emerged that the prosecutions of Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi Democrat, may have been political hits. And a University of Missouri professor testified that his statistical analysis showed that the Justice Department engaged in “political profiling.” Dr. Wecht’s case has gotten little attention, but that may change. Mr. Thornburgh said prosecutors are using “unprecedented” legal theories to turn mostly “nickel and dime transgressions” into major federal felonies. He charged that while United States Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan went after Dr. Wecht and other Democrats, she ignored the offenses of Republican officials, including a congressman whose staff accused him of using government employees in his election campaign. Read The Full Story Security Firms In Iraq Face New Rules 2007-10-24 02:28:42 Private security contractors will continue to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq but will operate under closer supervision by U.S. Embassy officials and with clearer accountability for their actions, according to new rules approved Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  Neither the U.S. military nor the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service is prepared to assume responsibility for guarding diplomats and other official U.S. civilians, according to a Rice-appointed review panel that recommended the changes. Instead, communications among the military, the embassy and the Iraqi government will be improved and a joint committee will investigate and judge all contractor incidents "involving the use of deadly force." The panel, appointed by Rice after security contractors allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians last month, said that "shortcomings in coordination and oversight" of the security program risk undermining the U.S. mission in Iraq. Although it noted that contractors have been "highly effective" in keeping diplomats safe, it implicitly agreed with criticisms that the program is poorly conceived and supervised. In ordering the new rules, Rice appeared to reject earlier suggestions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that security contractors be placed under military control. U.S. commanders and officers in Iraq have sharply criticized the contractors, and North Carolina-based Blackwater USA in particular, for behaving like "cowboys" and undermining U.S. objectives for bringing stability to Iraq. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Rice spoke to Gates Tuesday before the rules were announced. Read The Full Story	Reports Suggest Broader Losses From U.S. Mortgages 2007-10-25 02:48:15 The loss in total real estate wealth is expected to range from $2 trillion to $4 trillion, depending on how far home prices fall, according to several economists. Every time economists and Wall Street executives think they have acknowledged the full extent of the losses from the meltdown in real estate mortgages, more bad news turns up. Merrill Lynch said Wednesday that it would take a charge for mortgage-related securities on its books that is $3 billion more than the $5 billion it expected just two weeks ago. And a report from the National Association of Realtors showed that sales of existing homes in September fell twice as much as economists had expected, to their lowest level in nearly 10 years. Stocks fell sharply early Wednesday on the news, with the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index falling 1.8 percent before recovering in the afternoon. Investors also bid up Treasuries as they sought the safety of government-backed debt. Read The Full Story Bush Administration Targets New Sanctions At Iran's Military 2007-10-25 02:47:39 The Bush administration plans to roll out an unprecedented package of unilateral sanctions against Iran Thursday, including the long-awaited designations of its Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and of the elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism, according to senior administration officials. The package, scheduled to be announced jointly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., marks the first time that the United States has tried to isolate or punish another country's military. It is the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, said the officials. "This is a very powerful set of measures designed to send a message to Iran that there will be a cost to what they do. We decided on them because we have seen no change in Iranian behavior," said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the measures have not yet been announced. "Our diplomacy needs to be stronger and more effective." The move caps a year of growing U.S. pressure on Tehran, including billions of dollars in arms sales to Persian Gulf allies and Israel,interception of Iranian arms shipments in Iraq and Afghanistan, detention of Iranian agents in Iraq, and pressure on the United Nations and European allies to increase Iran's isolation. The dramatic U.S. steps underscore the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. Read The Full Story U.S. State Dept. Security Chief Quits 2007-10-24 20:03:45 Richard J. Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, resigned today after a scathing review of security in Iraq that criticized the supervision of private contractors there and recommended changes in the way diplomats are protected. Griffin, a former Department of Veterans Affairs and Secret Service official who held the security job for two years, announced his departure this morning at a staff meeting. He is expected to leave office by Nov. 1. In a memorandum to President Bush dated Wednesday, Griffin gave no reason for his departure, saying only that he would "move on to new challenges." Saying that Diplomatic Security (DS) agents "serve on the front lines of the Global War on Terror" Griffin wrote that the State Department could "not possibly carry out its foreign policy mission" without them. A State Department announcement said Gregory B. Starr, a career DS official who served as Griffin's deputy, would take over as acting head of the office. Read The Full Story In Italy, Organized Crime Does Pay - To The Tune Of 90 Billion Euros 2007-10-24 20:03:19 Italy's mafias earn more than the country's biggest corporation, according to a report by the national retailers' association. Its latest annual analysis of organized crime estimates that the four main "mobs" together take in a sum equivalent to seven per cent of Italy's gross domestic product. And that is without an estimate for the sale of drugs. Leoluca Orlando, a former mayor of mafia-ridden Palermo said the report highlighted the concealed price that Italians paid for the infiltration of their economy by the dons. Were it not for organized crime, he said, "we could be one of the most modern of European countries, with state-of-the-art social services and infrastructure." The extent of the mafia's reach was brought home yesterday when police claimed to have discovered a Cosa Nostra money-laundering operation with its headquarters a few yards from the offices of the prime minister in central Rome. They said the firm was set up to recycle $600 million (£292 million) worth of profits from the narcotics trade. The retailers' federation Confesercenti put the earnings of organized crime in Italy at €90 billion (£63 billion or $130 billion). Read The Full Story Damage From California Wildfires Estimated At $1 Billion 2007-10-24 14:26:38 Bush declares California a major disaster area, allowing federal aid. With winds gradually dying, evacuees from Southern California's devastating wildfires began returning to their homes in some areas Wednesday, but new fires threatened the Camp Pendleton Marine base and major power lines and forced the closure of a key highway during the morning rush hour. The four-day-old wildfires are blamed for the deaths of six San Diego County residents and damage estimated at more than $1 billion so far, officials said. In announcing a new, higher toll of "fire-related deaths" Wednesday, the county's Office of Emergency Services said one man was killed on his property by a fire Sunday and five other people, including three in their 90s, died during or after the evacuation. "Clearly this is going to be a billion-dollar or more disaster," said Ron Lane, the San Diego County emergency services director. He told a news conference that the figure was based on initial estimates of damage only to homes in the county. Lane said Marines at Camp Pendleton were attacking a fire on the base "very aggressively" and that the county was trying to help them. "Transmission lines go through there," he said. "That's a major concern for us." Read The Full Story Commentary: The Politics Of Absolute Power 2007-10-24 14:25:43 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Philip S. Golub and appears in the Le Monde diplomatique English-language edition for October 2007. Mr. Golub is a journalist and lecturer at the University of Paris VIII. His  commentary follows: The Bush administration is a case study in how a small elite representing minority interests can seize power and then use fear and nationalism in a political mobilisation to achieve authoritarian goals. When he came to power in 2000 Bush had no democratic legitimacy. He had lost the popular vote to Al Gore and had been given the presidency by a questionable Supreme Court decision to stop a vote recount in Florida. For manyconstitutional scholars, the Bush victory amounted to a “constitutional coup, an unlawful accession to power”. Although Al Gore conceded to Bush to avoid a constitutional crisis, the presidency was tainted by illegitimacy. Given the balance of forces - the Republicans lost control of the Senate in July 2001 - many analysts expected political paralysis, hence a modest presidency in domestic and international policy. The opposite happened. From the start the Bush White House strove to remove constraints on its sovereign action. In the domestic sphere, rather than governing from the center as expected, it engaged in adversarial politics designed to polarise society, and launched a sustained effort to reduce the rights secured by women and minorities during the 1960s and 1970s. Karl Rove, Bush’s political adviser who has now resigned, invented this strategy to mobilise and unify conservatives, fracture the Democrats and create a permanent Republican majority. Read The Full Story Astronauts Check For Damage To Discovery 2007-10-24 14:25:21 Discovery's seven astronauts conducted a painstaking inspection of the space shuttle Wednesday, focusing especially on three wing panels to make sure possible cracks spotted beneath the shuttle's protective coating hadn't worsened. The inspection came on the first full day of what NASA considers to be the most complicated international space station construction mission yet. The shuttle is to reach the station Thursday. Commander Pamela Melroy and her crew used a laser and camera-tipped inspection boom to check Discovery's wings and nose. The check is standard since a strike by a slab of fuel-tank foam created a hole in Columbia's wing in 2003, downing the shuttle. The astronauts went a little more slowly to capture more detailed images of three of 44 wing panels where it is possible there are cracks beneath the coating. NASA said last week that a new inspection method, conducted before flight, uncovered the possible degradation. Read The Full Story Climate Change 'Extinctions' Warning 2007-10-24 02:30:08 Predicted levels of global warming could trigger a "mass extinction event" like the one which wiped out the dinosaurs, new research suggests. Such a disaster would not necessarily mean the end of humanity, but it could kill off more than half of all the animal and plant species on Earth. British scientists have uncovered the first strong evidence of a close coupling between the Earth's climate and extinctions. The researchers from the University of York analyzed the relationship between the two over the past 520 million years - almost the whole of the available fossil record. Read The Full Story Commentary: Lawbreaker In Chief 2007-10-24 02:29:46 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Jeb Rubenfeld and appeared in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, October 23, 2007. Mr. Rubenfeld is a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School. His commentary follows: At his confirmation hearings last week, Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, was asked whether the president is required to obey federal statutes. Judge Mukasey replied, “That would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country.” I practiced before Judge Mukasey when I was an assistant United States attorney, and I saw his fairness, conscientiousness and legal acumen. But before voting to confirm him as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, the Senate should demand that he retract this statement. It is a dangerous confusion and distortion of the single most fundamental principle of the Constitution - that everyone, including the president, is subject to the rule of law. It is true that a president may in rare cases disregard a federal statute - but only when Congress has acted outside its authority by passing a statute that is unconstitutional. (Who gets the last word on whether a statute is unconstitutional is something Americans have long debated and probably will always debate.) But that is not what Judge Mukasey said. What he said, and what many members of the current administration have claimed, would radically transform this accepted point of law into a completely different and un-American concept of executive power. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Presidency Is Taking Over The Courts And Congress 2007-10-24 02:29:19 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Jim Hightower, a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of "Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time To Take It Back". Mr. Hightower and Phillip Frazer edit "The Hightower Lowdown" website, where this commentary first appeared. Mr. Hightower's commentary follows: Where is Congress? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered - a presidential coup is taking place. I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry. "My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total," she declared in her thundering voice. "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution." Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today's Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators - or worse, as abettors of Bush's usurpation of their own congressional authority. Why It Matters Separation of powers. Rule of law. Checks and balances. These may seem to us moderns to be little more than a set of dry, legal precepts that we had to memorize in high-school history class but need not concern us now. After all, the founders (bless their wigged heads!) established these principles for us back in 17-something-or-other, so we don't really have to worry about them in 2007. Think again. These are not merely arcane phrases of constitutional law, but the very keystones of our democracy, essential to sustaining our ideal of being a self-governing people, free of tyrants who would govern us on their own whim. The founders knew about tyranny. The monarch of the time, King George III, routinely denied colonists basic liberties, spied on them and entered their homes at will, seized their property, jailed anyone he wanted without charges, rounded up and killed dissidents, and generally ruled with an iron fist. He was both the law and above the law, operating on the twin doctrines of "the divine rule of kings" and "the king can do no wrong." Read The Full Story Merrill Lynch To Report Additional $2.5 Billion Loss 2007-10-24 02:28:21 Merrill Lynch is expected to report Wednesday that it will add about $2.5 billion more to the $5 billion worth of write-downs it has already announced, according to a person briefed on the situation. Merrill reports its third-quarter earnings this morning. The bank announced earlier this month that it expected to write down $5 billion because of losses in its fixed-income unit. Most of the losses, the bank said, were tied to the decline in value of complex debt instruments called collateralized debt obligations, whose value has diminished in recent months as credit markets have been hit by a collapse in the subprime mortgage market. A Merrill spokesman declined to comment. The additional write-down, coming so soon after the company’s $5 billion charge, may raise more questions about the leadership of E. Stanley O'Neal, Merrill’s chief executive, and the ability of his top executives to assess the firm’s risk exposure. Read The Full Story
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