Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday November 30 2007 - (813)

Friday November 30 2007 edition
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Blackwater Runs Into New Problem, This One Closer To Home 2007-11-30 01:41:13 Randel Parks pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on the heels of his cowboy boots. "I've been here 30 years," he said, staring at the ground, "and I've spent most of my adult life working on this property, turning it into my piece of paradise. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them spoil it." A mile away, around a bend in the mountain road that runs past Parks'  property, his new neighbors spread a map out on the ground to discuss plans for the 325-hectare (800-acre) site they are in the process of buying. "There will be eight 100-yard carbine ranges here, and three 50-yard pistol ranges here. And we'll have a 10,000-square feet armory and a bunkhouse for 360 students over here." Welcome to Blackwater West, the latest expansion from the company that dominates private security operations in Iraq. Last month Blackwater's chief executive, Erik Prince, appeared before Congress to defend the company's role in the alleged shootings of unarmed civilians. This week, reports alleged that it had turned a blind eye to the use of steroids among its employees. Now the company is looking to expand domestically. So it has come to the border hamlet of Potrero, California,  population 850. Eight miles from Mexico and 40 miles inland from San Diego, Potrero has found itself at the center of a controversy. Read The Full Story FBI's Gun-Ban List Doubles 2007-11-30 01:40:47 Thousands added to file marked "mental defective". Since the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns because of mental health problems, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday. Justice officials said the FBI's "Mental Defective File" has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily because of additions from California. The names are listed in a subset of a database that gun dealers are supposed to check before completing sales. The surge in names underscores the size of the gap in FBI records that allowed Seung Hui Cho to purchase the handguns he used in April to kill 32 people and himself at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. Read The Full Story New-Home Prices Take Biggest Dive Since 1970 2007-11-30 01:40:16 Median cost tumbles 13 percent. Prices for new houses nationwide fell last month by their largest margin since 1970, when the nation was in a recession, providing more gloomy news for the struggling building industry and the jittery economy. "The market remains quite weak," said Celia Chen, director of housing at Moody's Economy.com. "If builders are selling homes, they're cutting prices very aggressively." The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the median price of a new single-family house in October was $217,800, down 13 percent from a year earlier, the biggest percentage drop in 37 years. Read The Full Story Bin Laden: Europe Must Quit Afghanistan 2007-11-30 01:39:35 The al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, called on European governments to end their military cooperation with the U.S. in Afghanistan in a new audio message broadcast Thursday. With his fifth public message this year, bin Laden sought to exploit tensions between European capitals and Washington over the ongoing NATO military campaign in Afghanistan. He reiterated that he was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the U.S., not the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan at the time. "The American tide is ebbing," he said in a message addressed directly to the European public. "It is better for you to restrain your politicians who are thronging the steps of the White House." Read The Full Story Powerful 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Caribbean 2007-11-29 23:09:30 A powerful earthquake rocked the eastern Caribbean Thursday, sending office workers and shoppers on several islands fleeing into the streets. Minor injuries were reported on the island of Martinique. The 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck at 2 p.m. EST and was centered 26 miles southeast of Roseau, capital of Dominica, where the shaking lasted for about 20 seconds. The temblor was felt hundreds of miles away in Puerto Rico to the west, and Venezuela and Suriname to the south. In the neighboring island of Martinique, a government official said police and firefighters were responding to hundreds of calls for help. He said some people sustained minor injuries, but no major casualties have been reported. The official declined to give his name in accordance with government policy. The earthquake collapsed the roofs of a bank and a store in the capital of Martinique, Fort-de-France. Ambulances were called in. Read The Full Story Musharraf: Emergency Rule Will End Dec. 16 2007-11-29 23:08:58 Hours after being sworn in for a second five-year term Thursday, President Pervez Musharraf announced on television that he intended to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on Dec. 16. If he goes ahead with the move, it could be an important step in Pakistan’s recent tumultuous politics, which has seen the president impose emergency rule on Nov. 3, suspending the Constitution, dismissing the Supreme Court and arresting thousands of opponents. It remains unclear what the step could actually mean, and whether Musharraf will release all of the political opponents that remain in detention, or try to prosecute them, and what his response will be if protesters take to the streets after the emergency is lifted. Hundreds of lawyers clashed with the police in the eastern city of Lahore Thursday demonstrating against his new term. “Right now, I think the dust is settling down and everything is under control,” said Musharraf, speaking on television beside a Pakistan flag. “I have my intention that I will make this move on Dec. 16.” Read The Full Story U.S. Cities, School Systems Squeezed By Municipal Bond Crunch 2007-11-29 00:30:43 The widening credit crunch is making it harder for cities and school systems to get money for buildings, ballparks and other vital projects from the $2.5 trillion market for municipal bonds, a sector of Wall Street that rarely sees trouble. That is leaving them with a tough choice: either put off the projects, or pay higher interest rates on their bonds, a cost that ultimately would fall on the backs of taxpayers. The problem is affecting municipalities with lower credit ratings, which require them to pay more to borrow money. Faced with the prospect of paying higher interest rates this month, Chicago, Illlinois, canceled a $960 million bond. Miami-Dade County pulled a $540 million offering for its airport; and the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), has a $350 million bond for schools, parks and roads scheduled for next month that could be delayed if credit conditions continue to deteriorate, said a top D.C. finance official. Read The Full Story Slovak Police Arrest 3 For Allegedly Trying Sell Radioactive Material 2007-11-29 00:30:13 Alarms over international nuclear smuggling were raised Wednesday night when Slovak police announced that three men had been arrested in Slovakia and Hungary after allegedly trying to sell a kilogram of radioactive material. A Slovak police spokesman told journalists that the authorities in Slovakia and Hungary had been monitoring the activities of the alleged nuclear traders for several months before arresting them. They were detained in eastern Slovakia and eastern Hungary, near the common borders with Ukraine. Article continues Police declined to provide any details of the radioactive substance, but said they had seized the material and sent it for examination. The location of the operation suggested that the material had been smuggled from the former Soviet Union, either Russia or Ukraine. Western officials have been concerned for years about the risk of nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union, although U.S.-funded safeguarding programs have been effective in reducing the danger of nuclear trading. Read The Full Story Global Hackers Threaten Internet Security In Cyber Warfare Aimed At Top Targets 2007-11-29 00:29:30 A "cyber cold war" is developing as international web espionage and cyber-attacks become the biggest threats to internet security, according to a report. The computer security firm McAfee said governments and government-allied groups are engaging in increasingly sophisticated cyber spying, with many attacks originating from China. Some 120 countries could be developing the capacity for such activities. What started as probes to see what was possible have become well-funded and well-organized operations for political, military, economic and technical espionage, said the report, with perpetrators aiming to cause havoc by disrupting critical national infrastructure systems. Targets include air traffic control, financial markets, government computer networks and utility providers. In September, the Guardian reported that Chinese hackers, including some believed to be from the state military, had been attacking the computer networks of British government departments, including the Foreign Office. China has spelled out in a white paper that "informationized armed forces" are part of its military strategy. Read The Full Story Saudis Arrest 208 In Terrorist Plots 2007-11-29 00:28:54 Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday that it had arrested 208 suspected terrorists in six cells and thwarted several planned attacks in the kingdom's largest terror sweep to date. Among the plots, the Interior Ministry said, the capture of eight al-Qaeda-linked suspects "pre-empted an imminent attack on an oil installation" in the country's east, which is home to most Saudi petroleum reserves. A ministry statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency said the eight were led by a non-Saudi man, who was among those arrested. Eighteen other suspects led by a non-Saudi missile expert were arrested for "planning to smuggle eight missiles into the kingdom to carry out terrorist operations," said the statement. The kingdom, which is the birth place of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been waging a heavy crackdown on al-Qaeda militants since a 2003 wave of attacks on foreigners here. Read The Full Story	Commentary: Forget The Green Technology - The Hot Money Is In Guns 2007-11-30 01:41:01 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Naomi Klein and appears in the Guardian edition for Friday, November 30, 2007. Ms. Klein writes that "Far from saving us from catastrophe, the market is developing fortresses to shield the haves from the victims of the future". Her commentary follows: Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, a director of Venture Business Research, which tracks trends in venture capitalism. "I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant," he said recently. Lloyd's bouncy mood was inspired by the money that is gushing into private security and defense companies. He added: "I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy." Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, then sell solar and buy surveillance: forget wind, buy weapons. This observation - coming from an executive who is trusted by such clients as Goldman Sachs and Marsh & McLennan - deserves particular attention in the run-up to the United Nations climate change conference, which takes place in Bali next week. There, world environment ministers are supposed to come up with the global pact that will replace the Kyoto agreement. Read The Full Story U.S. Special Counsel Says He Won't Provide Files 2007-11-30 01:40:30 A U.S. official overseeing a probe of potential White House misconduct declared through a spokesman Thursday that he will not give federal investigators copies of personal files that he deleted from his office computer. The decision by Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch escalates the confrontation between the Bush appointee and the White House, each of which is investigating the other. Bloch's office is tasked with upholding laws against whistle-blower retaliation and partisan politicking in federal agencies. Earlier this year, Bloch directed lawyers in his office to look into charges that former Bush adviser Karl Rove  inappropriately deployed government employees in Republican political campaigns. Bloch had previously been targeted by the White House, which in 2005 asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to investigate allegations that Bloch had retaliated against whistle-blowers among his own staff members and improperly dismissed whistle-blower cases brought to the agency by others. Read The Full Story Bernanke Predicts Economic 'Headwinds' For Consumers 2007-11-30 01:40:04 The chairman of the Federal Reserve said Thursday night that the central bank would take into account recent deterioration in the financial markets as it decides whether to cut interest rates next month. Hours earlier, the White House released its economic forecast that acknowledged housing would be a drain on the economy next year, but it said tightening credit conditions would not stall business expansion. The separate developments show how the Fed and the administration are grappling with a deterioration in the housing and credit markets as they set a course for the nation's economic policy. This month, new strains on global markets for debt have emerged, leading many economists to think there is greater risk of a recession. Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, laid out in a speech to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce how he is thinking through the economic situation as the central bank's policymaking committee prepares to meet Dec. 11. He noted that, by many measures, the labor market is doing well, with job growth and wages both on the rise. Read The Full Story Things Get Worse For Britain's Prime Minister In Donation Scandal 2007-11-30 01:39:17 Gordon Brown implicated in political donation scandal. Harriet Harman, the Labor Party's deputy leader, was forced to implicate Gordon Brown deeper into the donor scandal last night as Scotland Yard was called in to investigate the affair. Harman revealed it had been Brown's campaign coordinator who had recommended she seek a donation from the proxy of David Abrahams, the controversial businessman who has secretly bankrolled the party with £600,000 ($1.2 million). She disclosed that former minister Chris Leslie, who was running Brown's leadership campaign, had suggested she seek a donation from Janet Kidd, Abrahams' secretary - despite having himself rejected her money for the Brown campaign. The astonishing news, which heaped further pressure and embarrassment on Downing Street, came as the Metropolitan police began to mount an inquiry into the scandal following a decision by the Electoral Commission to refer possible breaches of the law to the police. Read The Full Story U.S. Senator Rejects Bush Executive Privilege Claims 2007-11-29 23:09:16 A U.S. Senate chairman said Thursday that President Bush was not involved in the firings of U.S. attorneys last winter, and he therefore ruled illegal the president's executive privilege claims protecting his chief of staff, John Bolten, and former adviser Karl Rove. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy directed Bolten, Rove, former White House political director Sara Taylor and her deputy, J. Scott Jennings, to comply ''immediately'' with their subpoenas for documents and information about the White House's role in the firings of U.S. attorneys. ''I hereby rule that those claims are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to this investigation,'' wrote Leahy, D-Vermont. The ruling is a formality that clears the way for Leahy's panel to vote on whether to advance the citations to the full Senate. Read The Full Story Sudan Finds British Teacher Guilty In Teddy Bear Incident 2007-11-29 23:08:45 The British teacher in Sudan who let her 7-year-old pupils name a class teddy bear Muhammad was found guilty on Thursday of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation. Under Sudanese law, the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, could have spent months in jail and been lashed 40 times. “She got a very light punishment,” said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman. “Actually, it’s not much of a punishment at all. It should be considered a warning that such acts should not be repeated.” British officials, meanwhile, were furious. As soon as the news broke that Gibbons had been convicted, the British foreign office in London, which had called the whole ordeal “an innocent mistake” summoned the Sudanese ambassador - for the second time in two days. Read The Full Story 12 States Sue EPA For Toxins Data 2007-11-29 00:30:28 Twelve states sued the Bush administration Wednesday to force greater disclosure of data on toxic chemicals that companies store, use and release into the environment. The state officials oppose new federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules that allow thousands of companies to limit the information they disclose to the public about toxic chemicals, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the lead attorney general in the lawsuit. The change lets 100 polluters off the hook in New York alone, he said. The EPA, however, said the change improves the Toxics Release Inventory law and eases requirements only on companies that can certify they have no releases of toxins to the environment. Read The Full Story FCC Chief Still Standing -- Sort Of 2007-11-29 00:29:48 Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin's ongoing fight with Big Cable has left him bloodied but still standing, say FCC officials, industry executives and public interest groups, and he may now spend the remainder of his tenure with fewer allies. Martin has led the FCC since 2005. A Republican whose wife has worked in the White House, Martin could typically count on the support of the commission's other two Republicans while winning some battles with the commission's two Democrats, but that changed over several weeks leading to a late-night, particularly contentious Tuesday meeting, following a cable industry lobbying effort and dissent within the commission. The issue was cable regulation. In particular, Martin has taken positions against the cable industry, including in attempts to regulate violent content. Before Tuesday's meeting, Martin tried to convince his fellow commissioners that the cable industry had grown big enough to warrant tough new rules, which the industry strongly opposed. The chairman used as his proof a single study, from an independent research company called Warren Communications, estimating the number of U.S. cable subscribers. Read The Full Story Dell Takes 'Cybersquatters' To Court 2007-11-29 00:29:17 Personal computer giant Dell Inc. is pursuing a major "cybersquatting" lawsuit against several companies that buy and sell Web site addresses, alleging that the entities earned millions of dollars from Internet traffic intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. In a case quietly filed with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in October and unsealed last Wednesday, Dell took aim at a stable of registrars - companies that are licensed to register and sell new domain names to the public - alledging that they are responsible for registering and profiting off of nearly 1,100 domains that were "confusingly similar" to Dell's various trademarks. At issue are Web addresses made up of slight misspellings of well-known trademarks, a form of cybersquatting called "typosquatting". Typosquatters typically register domains that surfers are likely to hit if they misspell a Web site name. Users are then taken to sites filled with advertising that generates pay-per-click commissions for the domain holders. According to Dell's attorneys, the defendants' portfolio of some 1.8 million domain names is not limited to Dell's marks, but rather "reads like a who's who of corporate America." Read The Full Story Mideast Leaders Doubt Timetable For Peace 2007-11-29 00:28:38 A day after their leaders announced a new push for peace, Israelis and Palestinians returned Wednesday to a familiar and deadly routine, deeply skeptical over the timetable set for the talks and whether an end to the conflict is achievable at all in the current political climate. In cafes and blogs in the Arab world, the Annapolis, Maryland, conference prompted little more than wisecracks. Commentators made much of a linguistic coincidence: In Arabic, "ana polis" means "I am the police." President Bush's message, former Lebanese cabinet minister Essam Norman wrote in that country's opposition Al-Akhbar newspaper, was: "I am the policeman of the Middle East, responsible for your safety and security. Beware devious troublemaking. Israel isn't the enemy, Iran is." The United States had succeeded only in "dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest," Norman wrote. Read The Full Story
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