Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday May 31 2008 - (813)

Saturday May 31 2008 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
White House Report Backs Global Warming Warnings 2008-05-30 14:49:52 After a court order and four years late, Bush administration scientist issue an assessment. President Bush's top science advisors issued a comprehensive report Thursday that, for the first time, endorses what most scientific experts have long asserted: that greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion "are very likely the single largest cause" of Earth's warming. The 271-page report could undercut opposition to the more aggressive provisions of climate legislation, which is to be debated in the Senate next week. The Bush administration had long resisted a congressional mandate, the 1990 Global Change Research Act, requiring the White House to report every four years on the science and impact of global warming and other environmental forces. A U.S. District Court in August ordered Bush to comply with a 2004 deadline for an updated report, after the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups filed suit. Read The Full Story CIA Chief Cites Big Gains Against Al-Qaeda 2008-05-30 14:49:21 Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda's allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group's core leadership. While cautioning that al-Qaeda remains a serious threat, Hayden said Osama bin Laden is losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world and has largely forfeited his ability to exploit the Iraq war to recruit adherents. Two years ago, a CIA study concluded that the U.S.-led war had become a propaganda and marketing bonanza for al-Qaeda, generating cash donations and legions of volunteers. All that has changed, Hayden said in an interview with the Washington Post this week that coincided with the start of his third year at the helm of the CIA. Read The Full Story Lose Homes, Pay More Tax 2008-05-30 03:45:06 Some of the biggest losers in the real estate slump are not purchasers of mansions they could not afford. They are buyers of second homes - or third ones, for that matter - who are sitting on a tax time bomb. Many of these people will lose their properties in foreclosure and then stagger into bankruptcy under the weight of a sizable tax bill. While Congress has granted some tax relief to people who lose their primary homes, there is no such aid for those who fall behind on payments on a getaway condo in Las Vegas, Nevada, a retirement home on the Florida coast or an old house that they are renting out for income. Bankruptcy lawyers say they are seeing a wave of foreclosures among owners of second homes in such a position, owners who thought they had found sound advice for financial security. Two years ago, Lilia Garcia and her husband, Jesus, bought their dream house in Linden, California, for $535,000 and financed it in part by taking out a bigger loan backed by their previous house in nearby Stockton. They decided to hang onto the Stockton house and rent it out, believing that it would more than pay for itself and could be sold years in the future to help pay for college for their two children. Read The Full Story Bear Stearns Shareholders OK $1.4 Billion Buyout By JP Morgan 2008-05-30 03:44:41 It took barely 10 minutes for a room full of sombre shareholders to deliver the last rites Thursday to Bear Stearns, the 85-year-old Wall Street brokerage once feared for its swashbuckling, high-risk culture of aggression. At a special meeting convened at Bear's 45-floor octagonal midtown office tower, investors nodded through a sale of the cash-strapped company to its rival JP Morgan at a bargain price of about $1.4 billion (£700 million). The meeting was closed to the media but those in the room said Bear's chairman, Jimmy Cayne, told investors he was "personally sorry" for the way the firm had collapsed. "Words alone can't describe the pain that I feel," said Cayne, a former scrap-iron salesman who joined the bank in 1969 but whose hands-off management style came under criticism. He was described as looking "disheveled" by one shareholder. Read The Full Story Abdul Qadeer Khan, "Father" Of Pakistan's Atomic Bomb, Disowns Confession 2008-05-30 03:44:01 For four years Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, has lived in the shadows, confined to his Islamabad home since a tearful televised confession in which he admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Friday, however, the 76-year-old scientist returned to the spotlight with a bold new twist: that he had not meant a word of his earlier admission. In his first western media interview since 2004, Khan said the confession had been forced upon him by President Pervez Musharraf. "It was not of my own free will. It was handed into my hand," he told the Guardian. More worryingly, he swore never to cooperate with investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite persistent fears that nuclear technology traded by his accomplices could fall into terrorist hands. "Why should I talk to them?" he said. "I am under no obligation. We are not a signatory to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]. I have not violated international laws." He said details of his clandestine nuclear supply network were "my internal affair and my country's affair". Despite numerous requests from the IAEA and the U.S. government, Pakistan has refused access to Khan, who is still considered a national hero. A spokesman at the United Nations watchdog's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, declined to respond to his comments. Read The Full Story Climate Enters Debate Over Nuclear Power 2008-05-30 03:43:07 After part of a cooling tower collapsed last August at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, the company that runs it blamed rotting wooden timbers that it had failed to inspect properly. The uproar that followed rekindled environmental groups’ hopes of shutting down the aging plant. The proposed closing, albeit a long shot, has gained some support this year among Vermont politicians. The discussion is bringing into sharp relief a conflict between two objectives long held by environmental advocates: combating nuclear power and stopping global warming.  Nuclear plants supply nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, and they do so without emitting the carbon dioxide that is the principal cause of global warming. Vermont’s 36-year-old plant, which feeds into the regional power grid, represents a third of the state’s electrical generation. Antinuclear groups that are arguing for closing the plant hope to replace the lost electricity with renewable generation from wind turbines, solar power and the combustion of plant material. Additionally, they cite the potential for cutting electrical demand by making homes and business more efficient. Read The Full Story World's Largest Mud Volcano On Brink Of 'Catastrophic Collapse' 2008-05-30 03:42:24 The world's largest mud volcano that has been erupting continuously since 2006 is beginning to show signs of "catastrophic collapse", according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area. The volcano - named Lusi - has already devastated homes and businesses in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, displacing around 10,000 people and killing 14. Now scientists say that the land near the central vent could sag by up to 146 meters in the next decade. In March, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 meters in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1 centimeter per day. "It is starting to show signs that the central part is undergoing a more catastrophic collapse," said Prof. Richard Davies, a geologist at Britain's Durham University. "The fact that the whole area is collapsing means there are probably new faults forming. These faults are new pathways for fluids to seep up to the surface. We've never really seen a mud volcano develop so quickly." Read The Full Story Texas Supreme Court Back Polygamist Sect's Parents 2008-05-30 03:41:48 The Texas Supreme Court affirmed Thursday that state officials should not have seized scores of children from the ranch compound of a polygamist sect, agreeing with an appellate court that the group's beliefs were not, by themselves, proof of abuse. The decision, issued Thursday afternoon in Austin, Texas, did not immediately bring the release of the more than 460 children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints  compound near Eldorado, Texas. But it did seem to make that outcome very likely. Child-protection authorities said Thursday evening that they would comply if the trial court judge ordered the children returned. "We are disappointed, but we understand and respect the court's decision and will take immediate steps to comply," a statement from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services read in part. It added: "We will continue to prepare for the prompt and orderly reunification of these children with their families." Because the case involves state law, not federal statutes, legal experts said the Texas Supreme Court was as high as an appeal could go. That court agreed with a decision last week by the state Court of Appeals for the Third District, which rejected arguments at the heart of the state's case. Read The Full Story	McCain's Web Gap Is Showing 2008-05-30 14:49:37 The video lasts just more than three minutes. But that's long enough to raise some nasty doubts about John McCain's reputation as a straight talker. There's the Arizona senator arguing both sides of President Bush's tax cuts. Here's the supposed foreign policy wizard flubbing the simple facts about which terrorists are being trained in Iran. He's even ducking his own admission that he needs to learn more about economics. The newsreel of McCain lowlights has zoomed up the YouTube charts in the last week, with more than 1.5 million views. "John McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c) is the video's title, which might be dismissed as partisan hype but for one thing: It's true. The presumed Republican presidential nominee is taking a serious drubbing on YouTube, the most popular video-sharing service on the Internet and the virtual town square for millions of new young voters. Read The Full Story Thousands Of Iraqis Rally Against U.S. Security Agreement 2008-05-30 14:48:58 Thousands of people heeded a call from anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to protest talks between Washington and Baghdad on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2008, but turnout on Friday was lower than past marches. Explaining the relatively low numbers, spokesmen for Sadr's movement said the protests were widely spread through the country but security forces prevented marches in some areas. In one of the largest demonstrations, several thousand people took to the streets in the Baghdad district of Sadr City, a bastion of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. They held up pictures of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dressed as Saddam Hussein. In the Kadhimiya district in northwest Baghdad, hundreds of demonstrators with raised fists marched behind a banner asking the United Nations to "stand with the Iraqi people against this security deal between the government and the occupation." Read The Full Story Crude Oil Trading Being Investigated 2008-05-30 03:44:53 During continued volatility in oil prices, federal regulators said Thursday that they had been investigating crude oil trading, storage and transportation for the past six months with a focus on possible "futures market manipulation". The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which normally keeps investigations confidential, said in a statement that it was "taking the extraordinary step of disclosing this investigation because of today's unprecedented market conditions." Those conditions have sent oil prices to record heights, adding to the U.S. trade deficit, hurting consumers and companies, and weighing heavily on the nation's economy. Gregory Mocek, director of enforcement at the CFTC, said five senior trial lawyers, "some of the most experienced prosecutors that we have," and other investigators were engaged in the inquiry. "The scope is quite broad," Mocek said, adding that the commission was looking at the "national crude market," including trades on regulated exchanges, cash trades, storage, pipeline operations and shipping. Read The Full Story Chemical Fire, Rain Hamper China Earthquake Recovery 2008-05-30 03:44:18 A stockpile of chemicals being used to disinfect an earthquake-shattered Chinese town ignited Thursday and injured scores of soldiers doing relief work, adding to a day of problems for urgent recovery efforts. Heavy rain also added to the misery of crowds of homeless survivors living in tents or lean-tos, and hampered troops rushing to drain a quake-spawned lake before it floods a valley filled with villages. The chemical fire took place in the town of Leigu, in devastated Beichuan county. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 800 people were evacuated to avoid a cloud of dense chlorine gas caused by the blaze. As in many destroyed towns, officials have been spraying disinfecting bleach on streets and rubble in an effort to prevent disease breakouts. Thousands of people are still missing and their bodies could be buried in the rubble, while rats and other scavengers have been reported in some places. One expert said the spraying of bleach on rubble has little effect except perhaps a psychological one for victims. Read The Full Story Storm Derails Train, Damages Buildings In Nebraska 2008-05-30 03:43:33 A storm bearing hail and possible tornadoes struck central Nebraska Thursday night, damaging businesses, derailing train cars, tearing down trees and disrupting power to thousands. A possible tornado touched down near Aurora, about 70 miles west of Lincoln, damaging a few businesses and damaging at least one house on the outskirts of town. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. Tornadoes were also reported in Kearney, about 60 miles west of Aurora, where 90 rail cars were blown off the tracks outside the city limits. There were reports of downed trees and power lines throughout Kearney, and reports of damage on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus and at a county fairgrounds. Initial reports from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency indicated several dozen homes were damaged in both Aurora and Kearney. Read The Full Story Plunging RBS Share Prices Raise Questions Over Take-Up For Cash Calls 2008-05-30 03:42:39 There was further pressure on the shares of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bradford & Bingley Thursday amid concern that investors would shun their rights issues. The share prices have fallen sharply since the cash calls were announced and are getting ever closer to the discounted offer price. RBS fell as much as 6% Thursday before closing 6.25 pounds lower at 231.75 pounds. The shares on offer have been priced at 200 pounds. At the time of the rights issue announcement, they were at a discount of 46% but the differential is now only 16%. Bradford & Bingley is even closer to the rights issue price of 82 pounds a share, dropping 6.75 pounds Thursday to 90.5 pounds. Read The Full Story Confidence In The U.K. Economy Evaporates 2008-05-30 03:42:13 Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown's hopes of recovering from this month's hat-trick of electoral setbacks received a fresh blow Friday as falling house prices and rising food and energy bills prompted the biggest slump in consumer confidence since the onset of the last U.K. recession in autumn 1990. A report by GfK NOP showed that the government's efforts to bounce back from the Labour Party's third place in the local elections, defeat in the London mayoral election and the loss of the Crewe and Nantwich seat are being hampered by a mood of deep gloom that has engulfed voters in the year since Brown became prime minister. Friday morning's survey of public opinion followed a report by the Nationwide building society showing that house prices dropped by 2.5% last month, the biggest one-month drop since the property crash of the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) reported a second month of declining spending on the high street. Adding to the prime minister's woes, an opinion poll published Thursday night showed that support for Labour has fallen to its lowest level for more half a century. The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph shows Labour at 23 points and the Conservatives at 47 - a Tory lead of 24 points. Read The Full Story
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Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday May 30 2008 - (813)

Friday May 30 2008 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Lose Homes, Pay More Tax 2008-05-30 03:45:06 Some of the biggest losers in the real estate slump are not purchasers of mansions they could not afford. They are buyers of second homes - or third ones, for that matter - who are sitting on a tax time bomb. Many of these people will lose their properties in foreclosure and then stagger into bankruptcy under the weight of a sizable tax bill. While Congress has granted some tax relief to people who lose their primary homes, there is no such aid for those who fall behind on payments on a getaway condo in Las Vegas, Nevada, a retirement home on the Florida coast or an old house that they are renting out for income. Bankruptcy lawyers say they are seeing a wave of foreclosures among owners of second homes in such a position, owners who thought they had found sound advice for financial security. Two years ago, Lilia Garcia and her husband, Jesus, bought their dream house in Linden, California, for $535,000 and financed it in part by taking out a bigger loan backed by their previous house in nearby Stockton. They decided to hang onto the Stockton house and rent it out, believing that it would more than pay for itself and could be sold years in the future to help pay for college for their two children. Read The Full Story Bear Stearns Shareholders OK $1.4 Billion Buyout By JP Morgan 2008-05-30 03:44:41 It took barely 10 minutes for a room full of sombre shareholders to deliver the last rites Thursday to Bear Stearns, the 85-year-old Wall Street brokerage once feared for its swashbuckling, high-risk culture of aggression. At a special meeting convened at Bear's 45-floor octagonal midtown office tower, investors nodded through a sale of the cash-strapped company to its rival JP Morgan at a bargain price of about $1.4 billion (£700 million). The meeting was closed to the media but those in the room said Bear's chairman, Jimmy Cayne, told investors he was "personally sorry" for the way the firm had collapsed. "Words alone can't describe the pain that I feel," said Cayne, a former scrap-iron salesman who joined the bank in 1969 but whose hands-off management style came under criticism. He was described as looking "disheveled" by one shareholder. Read The Full Story Abdul Qadeer Khan, "Father" Of Pakistan's Atomic Bomb, Disowns Confession 2008-05-30 03:44:01 For four years Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, has lived in the shadows, confined to his Islamabad home since a tearful televised confession in which he admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Friday, however, the 76-year-old scientist returned to the spotlight with a bold new twist: that he had not meant a word of his earlier admission. In his first western media interview since 2004, Khan said the confession had been forced upon him by President Pervez Musharraf. "It was not of my own free will. It was handed into my hand," he told the Guardian. More worryingly, he swore never to cooperate with investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite persistent fears that nuclear technology traded by his accomplices could fall into terrorist hands. "Why should I talk to them?" he said. "I am under no obligation. We are not a signatory to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]. I have not violated international laws." He said details of his clandestine nuclear supply network were "my internal affair and my country's affair". Despite numerous requests from the IAEA and the U.S. government, Pakistan has refused access to Khan, who is still considered a national hero. A spokesman at the United Nations watchdog's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, declined to respond to his comments. Read The Full Story Climate Enters Debate Over Nuclear Power 2008-05-30 03:43:07 After part of a cooling tower collapsed last August at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, the company that runs it blamed rotting wooden timbers that it had failed to inspect properly. The uproar that followed rekindled environmental groups’ hopes of shutting down the aging plant. The proposed closing, albeit a long shot, has gained some support this year among Vermont politicians. The discussion is bringing into sharp relief a conflict between two objectives long held by environmental advocates: combating nuclear power and stopping global warming.  Nuclear plants supply nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, and they do so without emitting the carbon dioxide that is the principal cause of global warming. Vermont’s 36-year-old plant, which feeds into the regional power grid, represents a third of the state’s electrical generation. Antinuclear groups that are arguing for closing the plant hope to replace the lost electricity with renewable generation from wind turbines, solar power and the combustion of plant material. Additionally, they cite the potential for cutting electrical demand by making homes and business more efficient. Read The Full Story World's Largest Mud Volcano On Brink Of 'Catastrophic Collapse' 2008-05-30 03:42:24 The world's largest mud volcano that has been erupting continuously since 2006 is beginning to show signs of "catastrophic collapse", according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area. The volcano - named Lusi - has already devastated homes and businesses in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, displacing around 10,000 people and killing 14. Now scientists say that the land near the central vent could sag by up to 146 meters in the next decade. In March, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 meters in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1 centimeter per day. "It is starting to show signs that the central part is undergoing a more catastrophic collapse," said Prof. Richard Davies, a geologist at Britain's Durham University. "The fact that the whole area is collapsing means there are probably new faults forming. These faults are new pathways for fluids to seep up to the surface. We've never really seen a mud volcano develop so quickly." Read The Full Story Texas Supreme Court Back Polygamist Sect's Parents 2008-05-30 03:41:48 The Texas Supreme Court affirmed Thursday that state officials should not have seized scores of children from the ranch compound of a polygamist sect, agreeing with an appellate court that the group's beliefs were not, by themselves, proof of abuse. The decision, issued Thursday afternoon in Austin, Texas, did not immediately bring the release of the more than 460 children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints  compound near Eldorado, Texas. But it did seem to make that outcome very likely. Child-protection authorities said Thursday evening that they would comply if the trial court judge ordered the children returned. "We are disappointed, but we understand and respect the court's decision and will take immediate steps to comply," a statement from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services read in part. It added: "We will continue to prepare for the prompt and orderly reunification of these children with their families." Because the case involves state law, not federal statutes, legal experts said the Texas Supreme Court was as high as an appeal could go. That court agreed with a decision last week by the state Court of Appeals for the Third District, which rejected arguments at the heart of the state's case. Read The Full Story Obama Prepares To Declare Victory After Tuesday's Primaries 2008-05-29 15:02:29 Barack Obama is preparing to claim victory in the Democratic presidential nominating contest after next Tuesday's final primaries in Montana and South Dakota. In a question and answer session Wednesday night with reporters on his campaign plane between Denver, Colorado,  and Chicago, the Illinois senator dismissed the idea that rival Hillary Clinton's stated willingness to take her fight for the nomination to the party convention in late August would matter. "When Dukakis won the nomination, you know, Jesse (Jackson) was still running until the convention," said Obama.  "When Bill Clinton was running, Jerry Brown was still technically in it. As far as I can tell, this is fairly standard fare." Obama said the nominee would be clear "after Tuesday". "I am sure we will have discussions with Senator Clinton and her team," he said. Read The Full Story Lawsuit Filed Against Maker Of Baby Bottles With BPA 2008-05-29 15:01:51 An Arkansas woman filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Connecticut company of making plastic baby bottles with a dangerous chemical linked to serious health problems. The lawsuit by Ashley Campbell against Playtex Products of Westport is the latest challenge involving the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The lawsuit seeks nationwide class-action status to represent what it says are thousands of people who bought plastic bottles containing the chemical from Playtex or other companies. Canada said last month that the chemical, found in hard plastic water bottles, DVDs, CDs and hundreds of other common items, was potentially harmful and may ban its use in baby bottles. Some parents are turning to glass bottles because of the concerns over bisphenol A. Read The Full Story McClellan Faults Bush, Not Aides, For Disillusionment 2008-05-29 15:00:40 Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan made clear today that it was President Bush - not the high-profile aides around him - who left him most disillusioned in the run-up to the Iraq War. In an interview on NBC's "Today Show," McClellan called it a "defining moment" when he learned that President Bush had secretly declassified a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. The move allowed Vice President Dick Cheney and his top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to leak information to reporters at a time when the press secretary was at the podium criticizing those who would leak classified information. "I was kind of taken aback," he said. "It undermined a lot of what I had been saying." He also said he was troubled by instructions from Bush and Cheney to defend Libby and political guru Karl Rove as uninvolved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative. The leaks were an attempt to discredit her husband, who was disputing the rationale for war in Iraq. They later acknowledged their roles and Libby was convicted of lying to prosecutors; his sentence was commuted by Bush. Read The Full Story While U.S. Natural Gas Prices Rise, Imported Natural Gas Is On Hold 2008-05-29 01:46:41 The cost of a gallon of gas gets all the headlines, but the natural gas that will heat many American homes next winter is going up in price as fast or faster. That fact makes the scene in the languid, alligator-infested marshland here in coastal Louisiana all the more remarkable. Only a month after Cheniere Energy inaugurated its $1.4 billion liquefied natural gas (L.N.G.) terminal Cameron Parish, an empty supertanker sat in its berth with no place to go while workers painted empty storage tanks. The nearly idle terminal is a monument to a stalled experiment, one that was supposed to import so much L.N.G. from around the world that homes would be heated and factories humming at bargain prices. Now L.N.G. shipments to the United States are slowing to a trickle, and Cheniere and other companies have dropped plans to build more terminals. Read The Full Story 111 Nations, Minus The U.S., Agree To Cluster-Bomb Ban 2008-05-29 01:46:08 More than 100 countries reached agreement Wednesday to ban cluster bombs, controversial weapons that human rights groups deplore but that the United States, which did not join the ban, calls an integral, legitimate part of its arsenal. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose personal intervention Wednesday led to final agreement among representatives of 111 countries gathered in Dublin, called the ban a "big step forward to make the world a safer place." In addition to the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - all of them major producers or users of the weapons - did not sign the agreement or participate in the talks. The weapons consist of canisters packed with small bombs, or "bomblets," that spread over a large area when a canister is dropped from a plane or fired from the ground. While the bomblets are designed to explode on impact, they frequently do not. Civilians, particularly children, are often maimed or killed when they pick up unexploded bombs, sometimes years later. Read The Full Story McCain's Rebuke Of Minister May Alienate Evangelicals 2008-05-29 01:45:25 The Rev. Rod Parsley paces the stage, wiping his forehead and shouting to his congregation in a taped sermon that marriage is under attack by "tortured and angry homosexuals." During another of his nationally broadcast television shows, he compares Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan,  saying that its goal is to "eliminate" blacks. And at another service at his 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, he punches the air and calls Islam a "false religion" that God has told America to destroy. "We were built for battle! We were created for conflict! We get off on warfare!" he adds. Images of one of the nation's rising stars of television evangelism are widely available on DVDs and Web sites, with sermons that are almost certain to inflame some segment of the voting public but, in its quest to secure support from evangelical Christians, the campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain did not note a long record of inflammatory statements by Parsley and the Rev. John Hagee, of Texas, another TV evangelist, until long after McCain had accepted their endorsements. The move backfired last week when clips of the ministers' sermons gained national attention, prompting McCain to reject their support. The candidate's abrupt turnabout brought criticism not only from secular viewers, who questioned why he had aligned himself with controversial religious voices, but also from evangelicals, who said he may have alienated a powerful bloc of potential Republican voters. Read The Full Story	Crude Oil Trading Being Investigated 2008-05-30 03:44:53 During continued volatility in oil prices, federal regulators said Thursday that they had been investigating crude oil trading, storage and transportation for the past six months with a focus on possible "futures market manipulation". The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which normally keeps investigations confidential, said in a statement that it was "taking the extraordinary step of disclosing this investigation because of today's unprecedented market conditions." Those conditions have sent oil prices to record heights, adding to the U.S. trade deficit, hurting consumers and companies, and weighing heavily on the nation's economy. Gregory Mocek, director of enforcement at the CFTC, said five senior trial lawyers, "some of the most experienced prosecutors that we have," and other investigators were engaged in the inquiry. "The scope is quite broad," Mocek said, adding that the commission was looking at the "national crude market," including trades on regulated exchanges, cash trades, storage, pipeline operations and shipping. Read The Full Story Chemical Fire, Rain Hamper China Earthquake Recovery 2008-05-30 03:44:18 A stockpile of chemicals being used to disinfect an earthquake-shattered Chinese town ignited Thursday and injured scores of soldiers doing relief work, adding to a day of problems for urgent recovery efforts. Heavy rain also added to the misery of crowds of homeless survivors living in tents or lean-tos, and hampered troops rushing to drain a quake-spawned lake before it floods a valley filled with villages. The chemical fire took place in the town of Leigu, in devastated Beichuan county. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 800 people were evacuated to avoid a cloud of dense chlorine gas caused by the blaze. As in many destroyed towns, officials have been spraying disinfecting bleach on streets and rubble in an effort to prevent disease breakouts. Thousands of people are still missing and their bodies could be buried in the rubble, while rats and other scavengers have been reported in some places. One expert said the spraying of bleach on rubble has little effect except perhaps a psychological one for victims. Read The Full Story Storm Derails Train, Damages Buildings In Nebraska 2008-05-30 03:43:33 A storm bearing hail and possible tornadoes struck central Nebraska Thursday night, damaging businesses, derailing train cars, tearing down trees and disrupting power to thousands. A possible tornado touched down near Aurora, about 70 miles west of Lincoln, damaging a few businesses and damaging at least one house on the outskirts of town. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. Tornadoes were also reported in Kearney, about 60 miles west of Aurora, where 90 rail cars were blown off the tracks outside the city limits. There were reports of downed trees and power lines throughout Kearney, and reports of damage on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus and at a county fairgrounds. Initial reports from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency indicated several dozen homes were damaged in both Aurora and Kearney. Read The Full Story Plunging RBS Share Prices Raise Questions Over Take-Up For Cash Calls 2008-05-30 03:42:39 There was further pressure on the shares of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bradford & Bingley Thursday amid concern that investors would shun their rights issues. The share prices have fallen sharply since the cash calls were announced and are getting ever closer to the discounted offer price. RBS fell as much as 6% Thursday before closing 6.25 pounds lower at 231.75 pounds. The shares on offer have been priced at 200 pounds. At the time of the rights issue announcement, they were at a discount of 46% but the differential is now only 16%. Bradford & Bingley is even closer to the rights issue price of 82 pounds a share, dropping 6.75 pounds Thursday to 90.5 pounds. Read The Full Story Confidence In The U.K. Economy Evaporates 2008-05-30 03:42:13 Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown's hopes of recovering from this month's hat-trick of electoral setbacks received a fresh blow Friday as falling house prices and rising food and energy bills prompted the biggest slump in consumer confidence since the onset of the last U.K. recession in autumn 1990. A report by GfK NOP showed that the government's efforts to bounce back from the Labour Party's third place in the local elections, defeat in the London mayoral election and the loss of the Crewe and Nantwich seat are being hampered by a mood of deep gloom that has engulfed voters in the year since Brown became prime minister. Friday morning's survey of public opinion followed a report by the Nationwide building society showing that house prices dropped by 2.5% last month, the biggest one-month drop since the property crash of the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) reported a second month of declining spending on the high street. Adding to the prime minister's woes, an opinion poll published Thursday night showed that support for Labour has fallen to its lowest level for more half a century. The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph shows Labour at 23 points and the Conservatives at 47 - a Tory lead of 24 points. Read The Full Story DOH! World Food Prices Will Remain High 2008-05-29 15:02:39 Uncertain weather, rising demand in developing countries and the increased use of grains for biofuel will likely keep food prices higher than average over the next 10 years and make it harder for the world's poorest countries to feed themselves. In their latest annual assessment of global agriculture, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said the current record levels for grain, milk, oils and other staples will likely fall as drought conditions abate in major grain-producing countries and as higher food prices encourage production in others. Yet, for a variety of reasons, the agencies said that high food prices are likely here to stay: Between 2008 and 2017, beef and pork are likely to cost about 20 percent more than they did between 1998 and 2007; milk, wheat and corn are expected to cost as much as 60 percent more; vegetable oils as much as 80 percent more. Those projections do not account for inflation. When overall price increases are taken into account, the cost of some types of food may actually fall, said the agencies. Read The Full Story Suicides Among Active Army Soldiers Up Again - 115 2008-05-29 15:02:17 The number of Army suicides increased again last year, amid the most violent year yet in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. An Army official said Thursday that 115 troops committed suicide in 2007, a nearly 13 percent increase over the previous year's 102. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a full report on the deaths wasn't being released until later Thursday. About a quarter of the deaths occurred in Iraq. The 115 confirmed deaths among active duty soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops that had been activated was a lower number than previously feared. Preliminary figures released in January showed as many as 121 troops might have killed themselves, but a number of the deaths were still being investigated then and have since been attributed to other causes, said the officials. Suicides have been rising during the five-year-old war in Iraq and nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan. Read The Full Story Could Alaska's Sen. Stevens And Rep. Young Be Indicted Close To Elections? 2008-05-29 15:01:18 Campaigning under the cloud of federal investigations is tough enough, but could Sen. Ted Stevens or Rep. Don Young (both R-Alaska) have the added worries of an indictment before they face the voters? Would prosecutors wait until after the election to bring charges to avoid the appearance of meddling in Alaska politics? It has been 21 months since the federal corruption investigation surfaced in Alaska with a series of dramatic raids on legislative and other offices. Eight cases have been brought, resulting in convictions in all but one - and that matter is still pending. No one outside the government is privy to where the investigation is headed and whether it will eventually lead to charges against Stevens and Young, who deny wrongdoing but who won't discuss specifics about the allegations. It remains especially difficult to charge members of Congress for matters related to legislation. The Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause offers a broad shield against interference by the Justice Department and other agencies of the executive branch into how a congressman might have created, for example, an earmark that benefited a campaign contributor, family member or former aide - matters that are part of the investigations of Young and Stevens. Read The Full Story Magnitude 6.1 Earthquake Shakes Iceland 2008-05-29 15:00:14 A strong earthquake shook southern Iceland on Thursday, damaging roads and buildings and causing some injuries, said officials and local media. Channel 2 television cited civil protection authorities as saying the quake caused injuries, but it was not immediately clear how many. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.1 quake hit at 3:46 p.m., with its epicenter near the town of Selfoss, 30 miles east-southeast of the capital, Reykjavik. The Icelandic Geological Survey said it measured 6.3 on the Richter scale. Residents in the capital felt buildings shake. Read The Full Story Citizens' Groups Get Supplies To China Quake Victims 2008-05-29 01:46:27 Grass-roots organizations and informal networks of private citizens are playing a vital role in getting supplies to rescue workers and survivors of this month's devastating earthquake in China. The government, in a notable shift, appears content to let them do so. Officially, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China must register with the government; the larger groups are as rigid and controlled as their official sponsors. Authorities remain deeply suspicious of smaller, independent groups. Now, however, aided by the proliferation of online bulletin boards, blogs and on-the-ground coordination centers, unregistered grass-roots organizations are essentially functioning as legitimate earthquake-relief NGOs, operating for the first time without having to look over their shoulders and helping to manage a crisis whose death toll could surpass 80,000. Here in the ruined town of Yingxiu, about 40 miles from the epicenter of the May 12 earthquake, a ragtag group of citizens - a shopkeeper from Guizhou province, his friends and a volunteer worker who knew the way - emerged the other day after a four-hour trip. Read The Full Story Ruling Of Democratic National Committee Lawyers A Setback For Clinton 2008-05-29 01:45:52 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects of persuading Democratic officials to override party rules and recognize all delegates selected in the Florida and Michigan primaries suffered a setback yesterday after lawyers for the party ruled that no more than half of those delegations could be legally recognized. Democratic National Committee lawyers wrote in a memo that the two states must forfeit at least half of their delegates as punishment for holding primaries earlier than DNC rules allowed. Clinton (New York) prevailed in both contests, although the Democratic candidates had agreed not to campaign in Florida and Michigan, and Sen. Barack Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is scheduled to meet Saturday to make a final determination on Florida and Michigan, which would have collectively awarded 368 convention delegates. In the memo, party lawyers determined that full restoration, as sought by Clinton, would violate DNC rules, although it did note a loophole that would allow her to carry the challenge to the first day of the Democratic National Convention in late August. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters that the senator from Illinois is prepared to forfeit a portion of his delegate lead, as part of a compromise to resolve the Florida and Michigan flap. "We don't think it's fair to seat them fully," Plouffe said of the two delegations, adding, "We're willing to give some delegates here" in order to put the matter to rest. Read The Full Story Obama's Cautious Policy Stand 2008-05-29 01:45:10 Already famous for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have. So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. "I'm not running for president," he told a group of experts at his Capitol Hill office in the spring of 2006, but he said he had a "national voice" and wanted to use it. When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, "We've had plenty of plans, Democrats," and in another: "Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web." He cast his "new kind of politics" in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates. Now this approach faces a new test from Sen. John McCain. The Republican candidate is making an aggressive appeal to independents by emphasizing his past and present stances against party orthodoxy, particularly his proposals to combat global warming. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday May 29 2008 - (813)

Thursday May 29 2008 edition
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While U.S. Natural Gas Prices Rise, Imported Natural Gas Is On Hold 2008-05-29 01:46:41 The cost of a gallon of gas gets all the headlines, but the natural gas that will heat many American homes next winter is going up in price as fast or faster. That fact makes the scene in the languid, alligator-infested marshland here in coastal Louisiana all the more remarkable. Only a month after Cheniere Energy inaugurated its $1.4 billion liquefied natural gas (L.N.G.) terminal Cameron Parish, an empty supertanker sat in its berth with no place to go while workers painted empty storage tanks. The nearly idle terminal is a monument to a stalled experiment, one that was supposed to import so much L.N.G. from around the world that homes would be heated and factories humming at bargain prices. Now L.N.G. shipments to the United States are slowing to a trickle, and Cheniere and other companies have dropped plans to build more terminals. Read The Full Story 111 Nations, Minus The U.S., Agree To Cluster-Bomb Ban 2008-05-29 01:46:08 More than 100 countries reached agreement Wednesday to ban cluster bombs, controversial weapons that human rights groups deplore but that the United States, which did not join the ban, calls an integral, legitimate part of its arsenal. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose personal intervention Wednesday led to final agreement among representatives of 111 countries gathered in Dublin, called the ban a "big step forward to make the world a safer place." In addition to the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - all of them major producers or users of the weapons - did not sign the agreement or participate in the talks. The weapons consist of canisters packed with small bombs, or "bomblets," that spread over a large area when a canister is dropped from a plane or fired from the ground. While the bomblets are designed to explode on impact, they frequently do not. Civilians, particularly children, are often maimed or killed when they pick up unexploded bombs, sometimes years later. Read The Full Story McCain's Rebuke Of Minister May Alienate Evangelicals 2008-05-29 01:45:25 The Rev. Rod Parsley paces the stage, wiping his forehead and shouting to his congregation in a taped sermon that marriage is under attack by "tortured and angry homosexuals." During another of his nationally broadcast television shows, he compares Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan,  saying that its goal is to "eliminate" blacks. And at another service at his 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, he punches the air and calls Islam a "false religion" that God has told America to destroy. "We were built for battle! We were created for conflict! We get off on warfare!" he adds. Images of one of the nation's rising stars of television evangelism are widely available on DVDs and Web sites, with sermons that are almost certain to inflame some segment of the voting public but, in its quest to secure support from evangelical Christians, the campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain did not note a long record of inflammatory statements by Parsley and the Rev. John Hagee, of Texas, another TV evangelist, until long after McCain had accepted their endorsements. The move backfired last week when clips of the ministers' sermons gained national attention, prompting McCain to reject their support. The candidate's abrupt turnabout brought criticism not only from secular viewers, who questioned why he had aligned himself with controversial religious voices, but also from evangelicals, who said he may have alienated a powerful bloc of potential Republican voters. Read The Full Story In Texas, 2 Voter Rights Cases Get Attention 2008-05-28 15:35:15 “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston, Texas. The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Surpreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. Yet disputes over minority voting rights - along with accusations of election fraud - continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales. “The cold war’s not over - they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details. Meanwhile, the state's attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law. Read The Full Story Editorial: The Senate's Chance On Global Warming 2008-05-28 15:34:25 Intellpuke: This editorial appeared in the New York Times edition for Wednesday, May 28, 2008. For seven long years, President Bush has refused to confront the challenge of climate change and provide the leadership that this country and the world needs to reduce greenhouse gases and avoid the destructive consequences of global warming. The Senate, and all three presidential candidates, have a chance to provide that leadership. Next week, the Senate is scheduled to take up a bill sponsored by John Warner, the Virginia Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, that seeks aggressively to reduce emissions from all sectors of the economy. Mr. Bush, predictably, opposes the bill. Add that to the slim Democratic majority and the complexity of the bill itself, and the chances of getting 60 filibuster-proof votes are modest at best. Even so, a majority vote would create positive momentum for the next Congress and send a strong signal to the country and the world that help on this issue is on the way. Read The Full Story Sen. Levin Questions U.S. Aid To Pakistan 2008-05-28 15:33:56 The U.S. should rethink a multimillion-dollar program aimed at training and equipping a paramilitary force in Pakistan unless the country does more to keep terrorists from crossing the Afghan border, a Democratic senator said Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters after a three-day trip to the region that U.S. officials have little confidence that segments of the Pakistan government,  particularly its army, are working actively to stop the flow of Taliban fighters and weapons into  Afghanistan. In some cases, these groups might even be providing support to terrorists, he said. "If that's our intelligence assessment, then there's a real question as to whether or not we should be putting money into strengthening the Frontier Corps on the Pakistan side," Levin, D-Michigan, said in a conference call from Qatar. Levin is among a growing chorus of Democrats questioning the more than $10 billion in U.S. military and economic aid given to Pakistan to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. Last month, a report by the Government Accountability Office found that despite the money, terrorists are still operating freely along the Afghan border. Read The Full Story Ahmadinejad Rival Elected Speaker Of Iranian Parliament 2008-05-28 15:32:57 A powerful rival to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became speaker of Iran's parliament today, clearing the way for a potential challenge against the hard-line head of state ahead of 2009 presidential elections. Ali Larijani, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator and a prominent conservative, won 232 out of 263 votes cast to attain the powerful and high-profile speaker's seat. His victory over former speaker Gholam-Hossein Hadad-Adel, who rarely challenged Ahmadinejad, suggests hostility to the president among the new batch of mostly conservative lawmakers voted into office in the March parliamentary elections. Enmity between Larijani and Ahmadinejad runs deep. Larijani ran and lost against Ahmadinejad for the presidency in 2005. As Iran's nuclear negotiator he chafed against Ahmadinejad's belligerent international tone, which he complained undermined his talks with European leaders and international arms inspectors. Iran's nuclear program has come under intense international scrutiny. U.S. and European officials suspect that oil- and gas-rich Iran's drive to master the enrichment of uranium is the cornerstone for a future nuclear weapons program. Read The Full Story White House Reacts Angrily To McClellan's Book 2008-05-28 15:32:23 The White House reacted angrily Wednesday to scathing criticisms of President Bush and members of his inner circle that appear in a new memoir written by Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary who was forced out in 2006 after three tumultuous years. In excerpts from the book, set to be published next week, McClellan writes that President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends. He calls the decision to invade Iraq a “serious strategic blunder,” and says that the biggest mistake the Bush White House made was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.” Dana Perino, the current White House press secretary, had harsh words for McClellan, calling him “sad” and suggesting that he mischaracterized his years in the West Wing to sell books. “Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House,” she said. “For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.” Read The Full Story Bin Laden's Brother Wants To Build Bridge Across Red Sea 2008-05-28 01:26:58 Nobody has walked across the Red Sea since Moses parted the waters, but it could happen again under an audacious plan to build the world's longest suspension bridge between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. If built, the bridge would cross the Red Sea at an 18-mile-wide strait known as the Bab al-Mandeb, or Gate of Tears, connecting the southern tip of Yemen with the tiny East African country of Djibouti. Estimated price tag: $10 billion to $20 billion. The proposal is turning heads in the Middle East, and not just because it would make engineering history. The developer of the project is a Dubai-based firm headed by Tarek bin Laden, an elder brother of the world's most famous terrorist. The bin Laden family, from Saudi Arabia, has operated a construction empire for decades. In the mid-1990s, the clan cut its financial ties with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, around the time he declared war on the United States and called for the overthrow of the Saudi ruling family. Read The Full Story	Citizens' Groups Get Supplies To China Quake Victims 2008-05-29 01:46:27 Grass-roots organizations and informal networks of private citizens are playing a vital role in getting supplies to rescue workers and survivors of this month's devastating earthquake in China. The government, in a notable shift, appears content to let them do so. Officially, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China must register with the government; the larger groups are as rigid and controlled as their official sponsors. Authorities remain deeply suspicious of smaller, independent groups. Now, however, aided by the proliferation of online bulletin boards, blogs and on-the-ground coordination centers, unregistered grass-roots organizations are essentially functioning as legitimate earthquake-relief NGOs, operating for the first time without having to look over their shoulders and helping to manage a crisis whose death toll could surpass 80,000. Here in the ruined town of Yingxiu, about 40 miles from the epicenter of the May 12 earthquake, a ragtag group of citizens - a shopkeeper from Guizhou province, his friends and a volunteer worker who knew the way - emerged the other day after a four-hour trip. Read The Full Story Ruling Of Democratic National Committee Lawyers A Setback For Clinton 2008-05-29 01:45:52 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's prospects of persuading Democratic officials to override party rules and recognize all delegates selected in the Florida and Michigan primaries suffered a setback yesterday after lawyers for the party ruled that no more than half of those delegations could be legally recognized. Democratic National Committee lawyers wrote in a memo that the two states must forfeit at least half of their delegates as punishment for holding primaries earlier than DNC rules allowed. Clinton (New York) prevailed in both contests, although the Democratic candidates had agreed not to campaign in Florida and Michigan, and Sen. Barack Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is scheduled to meet Saturday to make a final determination on Florida and Michigan, which would have collectively awarded 368 convention delegates. In the memo, party lawyers determined that full restoration, as sought by Clinton, would violate DNC rules, although it did note a loophole that would allow her to carry the challenge to the first day of the Democratic National Convention in late August. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters that the senator from Illinois is prepared to forfeit a portion of his delegate lead, as part of a compromise to resolve the Florida and Michigan flap. "We don't think it's fair to seat them fully," Plouffe said of the two delegations, adding, "We're willing to give some delegates here" in order to put the matter to rest. Read The Full Story Obama's Cautious Policy Stand 2008-05-29 01:45:10 Already famous for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have. So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. "I'm not running for president," he told a group of experts at his Capitol Hill office in the spring of 2006, but he said he had a "national voice" and wanted to use it. When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, "We've had plenty of plans, Democrats," and in another: "Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web." He cast his "new kind of politics" in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates. Now this approach faces a new test from Sen. John McCain. The Republican candidate is making an aggressive appeal to independents by emphasizing his past and present stances against party orthodoxy, particularly his proposals to combat global warming. Read The Full Story In U.K. And France Traffic Stops Over Gas Prices 2008-05-28 15:35:00 Hundreds of truckers shut down a central London highway Tuesday, French fishermen blockaded ports and French President Nicolas Sarkozyproposed cutting European fuel taxes as already high gasoline prices soared even higher. "It's hard to find words to describe the severity of the problem. It's not even a problem really; it's a meltdown," said Peter Carroll, a trucking industry spokesman who, like hundreds of other drivers, parked his rig on London's A40 highway Tuesday morning, shutting that key commuter artery for most of the day. The truckers, who eventually delivered a petition to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office at 10 Downing Street,  were protesting as Britain's national average pump price for diesel hit the equivalent of $9.56 a gallon and regular unleaded hit $8.61 a gallon, according to the Automobile Association. The protests spreading across Europe signal a growing agitation at skyrocketing fuel prices in nations already accustomed to paying dearly at the pump. Read The Full Story U.S. Set To Break Tornado Record 2008-05-28 15:34:13 Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements. With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year's storms seem to be unusually powerful. Like someone who has lost all his worldly possessions to a whirlwind, meteorologists cannot explain exactly why this is happening. "There are active years and we don't particularly understand why," said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Oklahoma. Read The Full Story Israeli Defense Minister Calls For Olmert To Step Aside 2008-05-28 15:33:10 Israel's defense minister called on Wednesday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to remove himself from his post pending the outcome of a high-profile corruption investigation in which Olmert is embroiled. The defense minister, Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, was the first senior member of Israel’s coalition government to insist Olmert relinquish his office over the corruption case. “The prime minister must disconnect himself from the daily running of the government,” Barak said at a lunchtime news conference broadcast live from the Parliament building. Barak convened the news conference to explain his party’s position a day after a Long Island businessman at the center of the corruption investigation testified in court here that he gave about $150,000, mostly in cash stuffed into envelopes, to Olmert over the course of 13 years. He said the money was for campaign financing and personal expenses. Read The Full Story Human Rights Report Assails U.S. 2008-05-28 15:32:38 Sixty years after the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, governments in scores of countries still torture or mistreat their people, Amnesty International said Wednesday in a report that again urged the United States to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. In its annual report, the London-based human rights watchdog said “flashpoints” in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar (Burma) “demand immediate action”. “World leaders are in a state of denial but their failure to act has a high cost,” Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement accompanying the report. “As Iraq and Afghanistan show, human rights problems are not isolated tragedies, but are like viruses than can infect and spread rapidly, endangering all of us.” The report singled out for criticism China, the United States, and Russia and accused the European Union of complicity in the rendition of terrorism suspects. The European Union, it said, must “set the same bar on human rights for its own members as it does for other countries.” Read The Full Story Former White House Spokesman Writes That Bush Misled Public On Iraq 2008-05-28 01:27:12 Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war". McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA covert operative's name. The book, coming from a man who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, is certain to give fuel to critics of the administration, and McClellan has harsh words for many of his past colleagues. He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints. McClellan stops short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not "employing out-and-out deception" to make their case for war in 2002. In a chapter titled "Selling the War," he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush "managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option." Read The Full Story Commentary: The Fading Of The Mirage Economy 2008-05-28 01:26:43 Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Washington Post Business Columnist Steven Pearlstein, writing from Washington, D.C. Mr. Pearlstein's commentary follows: Suddenly, it seems, we're getting hit from all directions. Energy and food prices are soaring. The housing market continues to collapse. Government revenue is falling, and taxes are rising. Airlines are jacking up fares and fees while reducing service. Banks are pulling credit lines. Auto companies are cutting production once again. Even investment bankers are losing their jobs. The tendency is to see these as separate developments, each with its own causes and dynamic. Fundamentally, however, they are all part of the same story - the story of the global economy purging itself of large and unsustainable imbalances that for a time allowed many Americans to think they were richer than they really were. Most of us understand that an overabundance of cheap, easy credit created a housing bubble that artificially inflated the price of land and housing, produced too many homes and homeowners, and persuaded too many Americans to dip into their home equity to support a lifestyle their income could not sustain. Now that the bubble has burst, we are coming to accept the reality of lower prices, reduced production, declining homeownership rates and the wisdom that a house is not an ATM or a substitute for a retirement fund. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php

Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday May 28 2008 - (813)

Wednesday May 28 2008 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
Former White House Spokesman Writes That Bush Misled Public On Iraq 2008-05-28 01:27:12 Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war". McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA covert operative's name. The book, coming from a man who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, is certain to give fuel to critics of the administration, and McClellan has harsh words for many of his past colleagues. He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints. McClellan stops short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not "employing out-and-out deception" to make their case for war in 2002. In a chapter titled "Selling the War," he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush "managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option." Read The Full Story Commentary: The Fading Of The Mirage Economy 2008-05-28 01:26:43 Intellpuke: This commentary was written by Washington Post Business Columnist Steven Pearlstein, writing from Washington, D.C. Mr. Pearlstein's commentary follows: Suddenly, it seems, we're getting hit from all directions. Energy and food prices are soaring. The housing market continues to collapse. Government revenue is falling, and taxes are rising. Airlines are jacking up fares and fees while reducing service. Banks are pulling credit lines. Auto companies are cutting production once again. Even investment bankers are losing their jobs. The tendency is to see these as separate developments, each with its own causes and dynamic. Fundamentally, however, they are all part of the same story - the story of the global economy purging itself of large and unsustainable imbalances that for a time allowed many Americans to think they were richer than they really were. Most of us understand that an overabundance of cheap, easy credit created a housing bubble that artificially inflated the price of land and housing, produced too many homes and homeowners, and persuaded too many Americans to dip into their home equity to support a lifestyle their income could not sustain. Now that the bubble has burst, we are coming to accept the reality of lower prices, reduced production, declining homeownership rates and the wisdom that a house is not an ATM or a substitute for a retirement fund. Read The Full Story U.S. Home-Buying Season Could Be Even Worse Than Expected 2008-05-27 22:15:02 America’s home-buying season, when for-sale signs sprout like dandelions, is shaping up to be even worse than expected this year, with prices falling, sales slowing and few signs of a turnaround emerging. Two reports released on Tuesday captured the bleak picture. One showed that home prices nationally fell 14.1 percent in March from a year earlier. The other showed sales of new homes, although up slightly in April, remained mired near their lowest levels since 1991. While Wall Street is growing hopeful that the economy may dodge a recession, many economists warn that the pain in the housing market may last for several years. Even markets that once seemed immune to the slump, like Seattle, Washington, are weakening. Prices nationwide might fall as much as 10 percent more before a recovery takes hold, said economists. As the home-buying season enters what is traditionally its busiest period, there are simply too many homes in many parts of the country, and too few people with the means to buy them. Read The Full Story Obamamania Infects Germany 2008-05-27 22:14:26 Berlin political circles - both liberal and conservative - are fawning over U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. Many in Germany see him as a cross between John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., but expectations may be exaggerated. Frank-Walter Steinmeier had hoped to meet personally, but Barack Obama has a lot on his plate at the moment and Germany's foreign minister had to make do with a telephone conversation with the presidential candidate during his recent visit to Washington, D.C. Still, that's all it took to stir Steinmeier's enthusiasm for the candidate. The American may be deep in the midst of a campaign, but members of Steinmeier's entourage told Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine that Obama's foreign policy questions were very engaged, and he peppered his conversation with questions about the German foreign minister's views on Russia, Iran and Afghanistan. The conversation lasted about 15 minutes and was very focused. Obama's rhetorical "cruising altitude," was apparently quite high, said an advisor to Steinmeier. At the end of the conversation, the Democratic presidential candidate promised to come to Germany as soon as possible. The few minutes spent on the telephone gave Steinmeier the impression that Obama is prepared to fundamentally reconsider the course of US foreign policy. Steinmeier was impressed, and only a day later he publicly outed himself as the senator's latest fan. "Yes we can," the minister, not known for his emotional outbursts, chanted, evoking Obama's campaign slogan during a speech at Harvard University. Steinmeier used the term to express his desire for a renewal of trans-Atlantic relations. Read The Full Story Blackwater Grand Jury Hears From Iraqi Witnesses 2008-05-27 22:13:49 Three Iraqis, including the father of a slain 9-year-old boy, appeared Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating a deadly Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide contractors. The Iraqis were escorted to the closed-door session by federal prosecutors who are overseeing the U.S. investigation into whether Blackwater security guards illegally fired into a crowded Baghdad intersection, resulting in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. An Iraqi police major told The Associated Press in Baghdad that two of his officers were flown to the United States several days ago to testify. The major, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said they were expected to remain in the United States for two weeks. It was not known whether the officers, one of whom was identified as Serhan Dhiab, were among the three men meeting Tuesday with grand jurors at the federal courthouse in Washington. One of the three Iraqis was Mohammed Abdul-Razzaq, whose son Ali, 9, was killed in the shooting. He left court holding what appeared to be a child's plush toy and a family portrait. Read The Full Story Exposure To Lead As Children Leads To Violent Crime 2008-05-27 22:12:56 The first study to follow lead-exposed children from before birth into adulthood has shown that even relatively low levels of lead permanently damage the brain and are linked to higher numbers of arrests, particularly for violent crime. Previous studies linking lead to such problems have used indirect measures of both lead and criminality, and critics have argued that socioeconomic and other factors may be responsible for the observed effects. By measuring blood levels of lead before birth and during the first seven years of life, then correlating the levels with arrest records and brain size, Cincinnati researchers have produced the strongest evidence yet that lead plays a major role in crime. The researchers also found that lead exposure is a continuing problem despite the efforts of the federal government and cities to minimize exposure. The average lead levels in the study "unfortunately are still seen in many thousands of children throughout the United States," said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Read The Full Story E.U. Trade War With U.S. Looms Over Biofuel 2008-05-27 22:12:16 Peter Mandelson, the European commissioner, has fired the first salvo in a potential transatlantic trade war by agreeing to challenge the U.S. over its biofuel subsidies, which are chasing British and continental firms out of business. Confidential documents seen by the Guardian show that Mandelson and the European commission have put their signatures to anti-dumping complaints lodged by the European Biodiesel Board. Washington will be asked this week to answer allegations that subsidies amounting to 11 pence a litre on B99 exports from the U.S., plus "splash-and-dash" operations being conducted through the U.S., represent unfair competition. Industry figures who asked not to be named said they were "delighted" that their allegations that U.S. biodiesel is being dumped on the European market were being taken up by the European Union commission in Brussels, Belgium. "This is a huge step forward for us," said a producer. "It opens the way for us to finally put to an end practices that are contrary to the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO.)" Read The Full Story Report: Child Abuse Widespread In War Zones 2008-05-27 15:04:24 Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday that it has uncovered evidence of widespread sexual abuse of children at the hands of peacekeepers and international aid workers in war zones and disaster areas. The report said more than half the children interviewed knew of cases of coerced sex and improper sexual touching, and that in many instances children knew of 10 or more such incidents carried out by aid workers or peacekeepers. In some cases, children as young as 6 years old were abused, said the report. The study is based on research, confidential interviews and focus groups conducted last year in three places with a substantial international aid presence: southern Sudan, Haiti, and Ivory Coast. The group said it did not produce comprehensive statistics about the scale of abuse but did gather enough information to prove that the problem is severe. "The report shows sexual abuse has been widely underreported because children are afraid to come forward," Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK, told Associated Press Television News. "A tiny proportion of peacekeepers and aid workers are abusing the children they were sent to protect. It ranges from sex for food to coerced sex. It's despicable." Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Rules For Older Federal Workers 2008-05-27 15:03:48 The Supreme Court said Tuesday that a major anti-age bias law protects federal employees who faced retaliation after complaining about discrimination. The court ruled 6-3 that a U.S. Postal Service employee may pursue her lawsuit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The law does specifically bar reprisals against private sector employees who complain about discrimination. But it is silent as to federal workers. Justice Samuel Alito said the law indeed does apply to both categories of employees. The case involves Myrna Gomez-Perez, a postal worker in Puerto Rico who alleged she was being discriminated against because of her age. Gomez-Perez, who was then 45, said that after she filed a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, she suffered a "series of reprisals" from her supervisors. Read The Full Story Agribusiness Best Source Of Cash For Central California Congressmen 2008-05-27 15:03:03 San Joaquin Valley congressmen know how to harvest serious cash from the region's agribusiness leaders. It comes with the territory, so to speak. While none of the Valley's House members face a serious challenge, all have been diligently stockpiling their campaign war chests. For all four Valley incumbents, agribusiness remains the leading and most reliable source of funds. "You don't contribute to get something back," said Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers, a prominent association of California and Arizona farmers. "You contribute because you have a common interest in a subject." Roughly one out of every four dollars raised by the Valley's House members can be attributed to agribusiness, records compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics show. For instance, Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, has raised $534,564 in 2007 and 2008. Of this, agribusiness accounts for $157,122. Read The Full Story New York Businessman Says He Gave Israeli Leader Thousands In Cash 2008-05-27 15:02:25 A New York businessman Tuesday said that he gave Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert $150,000 in cash, checks and loans to finance overseas trips, posh New York hotel rooms and struggling political campaigns. In a rare public deposition before a three-judge panel, Morris Talansky said he got nothing in return from Olmert, but told Israeli prosecutors that he was "very, very uneasy" about the large amounts of cash he gave to Olmert over the years, but trusted a politician he revered. "Cash disturbed me," said Talansky. "I couldn't understand it, and I accepted the answer simply because I saw something bigger, hopefully, out there." Talansky, 75, is a key figure in the unfolding political corruption investigation into whether Olmert accepted bribes before he became prime minister in 2006, and his unusual testimony in open court exposed the depth of the Israeli leader's political troubles. Olmert has denied the allegations but said he'll step down if he's indicted. His departure under a cloud would be a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and it also could interfere with Israel's indirect negotiations with longtime enemy Syria. Read The Full Story	Bin Laden's Brother Wants To Build Bridge Across Red Sea 2008-05-28 01:26:58 Nobody has walked across the Red Sea since Moses parted the waters, but it could happen again under an audacious plan to build the world's longest suspension bridge between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. If built, the bridge would cross the Red Sea at an 18-mile-wide strait known as the Bab al-Mandeb, or Gate of Tears, connecting the southern tip of Yemen with the tiny East African country of Djibouti. Estimated price tag: $10 billion to $20 billion. The proposal is turning heads in the Middle East, and not just because it would make engineering history. The developer of the project is a Dubai-based firm headed by Tarek bin Laden, an elder brother of the world's most famous terrorist. The bin Laden family, from Saudi Arabia, has operated a construction empire for decades. In the mid-1990s, the clan cut its financial ties with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, around the time he declared war on the United States and called for the overthrow of the Saudi ruling family. Read The Full Story New Global Warming Report Foresees Big Changes 2008-05-27 22:15:13 The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says. The changes are unfolding in ways that are likely to produce an uneven national map of harms and benefits, according to the report, released Tuesday and posted online at climatescience.gov .  The authors of the report and some independent experts said the main value of its projections was the level of detail and the high confidence in some conclusions. That confidence comes in part from the report’s emphasis on the next 25 to 50 years, when shifts in emissions are unlikely to make much of a difference in climate trends. The report also reflects a recent, significant shift by the Bush administration on climate science. During Bush’s first term, administration officials worked to play down a national assessment of climate effects conducted mainly during the Clinton administration, but released in 2000. The new report, which includes some findings that are more sobering and definitive than those in the 2000 climate report, holds the signatures of three cabinet secretaries. Read The Full Story Bush Wants $600 Million For Iraqi Police, But Cuts Aid To U.S. Police 2008-05-27 22:14:41 At the same time the Bush administration has been pushing for deep cuts in a popular crime-fighting program for states and cities, the White House has been fighting for approval of $603 million for the Iraqi police. The White House earlier this year proposed slashing the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which helps local law enforcement officials deal with violent crime and serious offenders, to $200 million in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. In 2002, the year before the Iraq war, the program received $900 million. The administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are headed for a showdown over the domestic money, probably next month. When the Senate last week passed the emergency Iraq war funding bill, it allotted an immediate $490 million for the domestic grants while keeping the Iraqi police funds intact. Read The Full Story More Aftershocks Destroy Hundreds Of Thousands Of Homes In China Region 2008-05-27 22:14:12 More than two weeks after a catastrophic earthquake, a pair of powerful aftershocks collapsed hundreds of thousands of homes in central China on Tuesday, as soldiers and engineers worked feverishly to prevent a swelling lake from inundating nearby towns. No deaths were immediately reported in the aftershocks. Many of the more than 400,000 homes that collapsed, according to the official New China News Agency, were already badly damaged by a 5.9-magnitude quake that rocked the area shortly after the initial, May 12 earthquake. Still, the tremors in Qingchuan county, in Sichuan province, and Ningqiang county, in neighboring Shaanxi province, were a further reminder that the crisis in this region, and the attendant anxieties of its people, are unlikely to dissipate any time soon. More than 67,000 people have been reported dead, and about 21,000 are missing. The homes of as many as 14 million people were destroyed or severely damaged by the 7.9-magnitude quake, and the Chinese government is scrambling to establish shelters. Many survivors, after having been kept in tents, are now expected to be moved into semi-permanent, prefabricated homes. Others are not yet out of immediate danger. Read The Full Story Iowa Town Left Devastated By Tornado 2008-05-27 22:13:36 Half of this small town lay in ruins or showed heavy damage Monday, a day after a deadly tornado ripped through a stretch of northern Iowa. The tornado killed four in Parkersburg and two others in nearby New Hartford. In neighboring Minnesota, a child was killed by violent weather in a suburb of St. Paul. "You really are overwhelmed when you see it," Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) said at a news conference Monday after touring the Parkersburg area. "You can't imagine this kind of devastation, homes completely gone. And to see people trying to sort through their belongings is very difficult." Rescuers continued picking through the wreckage in search of possible victims, although officials said they were hopeful that no one else remained to be found. In addition to those killed, about 70 people were injured. Two of them were in critical condition Monday. Read The Full Story Broken Toilet Poses New Challenge For Space Station Crew 2008-05-27 22:12:30 Four words you do not want to hear in space: “The toilet is broken.” The crew aboard the International Space Station is working on a problem with the system for collecting solid and liquid waste, which is a trickier proposition without gravity than it is on the Earth. Space toilets use jets of fan-propelled air to guide waste into the proper container. A NASA status report noted that last week, while using the toilet system in the Russian-built service module, “the crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working.” The solid waste collector is functioning properly, but the system for collecting liquid waste was not. The crew tried replacing one device, an air/water separator, and then a filter, but nothing seemed to bring the toilet back to full operation. Russian mission control told the crew - Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, and Garrett Reisman, a NASA astronaut, to use the toilet on the Soyuz capsule that is attached to the station as a lifeboat, but that system has very limited capacity, and so repairing the system has become an increasingly urgent issue. Read The Full Story In May, U.S. Consumer Confidence Hits 16-Year Low 2008-05-27 15:04:37 Soaring gas prices and weakening job prospects left shoppers gloomier about the economy in May, sending a key barometer of consumer sentiment to its lowest level in almost 16 years. The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 57.2, down from a revised 62.8 in April. Economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR had expected a reading of 60. The May reading marks the fifth straight month of decline and is the lowest since the index registered 54.6 in October 1992 when the economy was coming out of a recession. Economists closely watch sentiment readings since consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation's economic activity. Read The Full Story Amid Food Crisis And Wheat Worries, Research Budgets Are Cut 2008-05-27 15:04:13 Dr. Yue Jin, a kind-faced man in a blue lab coat, is the nation's bulwark against a devastating new plant disease. He's the only federal scientist whose main mission is protecting the $17 billion U.S. wheat crop from annihilation. His budget's being cut - in part because money has been drained off by Congress' pet projects. Jin and other plant scientists have watched in alarm as mutant spores carried by the wind have spread a new strain of fungus from Africa across the Red Sea to infect wheat fields in Yemen and Iran, following a path predicted to lead to the rich wheat-growing areas of South Asia. Most of the wheat varieties grown worldwide - including the vast bulk of those planted in the United States - are vulnerable. The threat of an epidemic only adds to a global food crisis brought on by drought, floods, high food and fuel prices and a surge in demand. Despite the emergency, Associated Press interviews and a review of budget and research documents show that spending for Jin's laboratory and others where breeders develop disease-resistant wheat plants are being reduced this year, their money diverted to other programs and earmarked for special causes of members of Congress. Read The Full Story As Feds Crack Down On Illegal Migrants, Jail Growth Explodes 2008-05-27 15:03:29 Many in Congress are counting on border walls to discourage illegal immigration and dope smuggling from Mexico. Here in Del Rio, Texas, authorities are using prison walls instead. The ever-expanding Val Verde County jail is filled with would-be yardmen and maids, immigrants awaiting deportation. They've been caught in a law enforcement dragnet known as "Operation Streamline,'' a zero tolerance program that began here and has since spread both east and west along the Mexican border. Critics of the lock-'em-up approach question the skyrocketing costs, complain of poor conditions inside the detention facilities, and predict that ultimately the efforts won't stop immigrants and drugs from making their way north. Supporters say the approach is reducing crime and discouraging immigrants from trying to cross into the United States. The number of illegal immigrants caught in the Border Patrol's Del Rio Sector is at its lowest level since the early 1970s. "Enforcement works,'' said Val Verde County Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan. "We're definitely seeing a reduction in crime throughout the border area and a reduction in the number of aliens running loose in our community.'' Read The Full Story Pentagon: At Least 40,000 Soldiers Have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 2008-05-27 15:02:49 Pentagon figures show 40,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003. But officials believe many more are keeping their illness secret. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker says officials have no reliable figures on how many troops have PTSD or how many have sought treatment for it after serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's because officials are encouraging troops to get help - even if they go to civilian therapists and don't report it to the military. The 40,000 cases are only those the military knows of. Read The Full Story Poll Finds Low Opinion Of Military Medical Care 2008-05-27 15:02:10 A majority of Americans believe that wounded troops don't receive high quality medical care in military and Veteran's Administration hospitals, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health poll. Military families share that view, the poll found, and are slightly more pessimistic than non-military civilians when it comes to rehabilitation and mental health care. A reality check: Those polled didn't think care at major U.S. civilian hospitals was any better. Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, director of strategic communications for the Defense Department's military health system, said other recent polls show the same pessimism but, Kilpatrick added, they "do not respond to the reality of the situation and they certainly do not correspond to what the service members themselves think." A March 2008 Zogby poll, he said, found that 77 percent of a sample of 435 soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan were satisfied with the military health system. Read The Full Story
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