TOP STORY
Judge Questions Justice Dept. Effort to Keep Cheney Remarks In Plame Probe Secret.
A federal judge yesterday sharply questioned an assertion by the Obama administration that former Vice President Richard B. Cheney's statements to a special prosecutor about the Valerie Plame case must be kept secret, partly so they do not become fodder for Cheney's political enemies or late-night commentary on "The Daily Show."
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed surprise during a hearing here that the Justice Department, in asserting that Cheney's voluntary statements to U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald were exempt from disclosure, relied on legal claims put forward last October by a Bush administration political appointee, Stephen Bradbury. The department asserted then that the disclosure would make presidents and vice presidents reluctant to cooperate voluntarily with future criminal investigations.
Meteor Blade’s Green Diary Rescue celebrates Daily Kos eco diarists 6 days a week!
IRAN NEWS
A blog posts pictures of government agents who are killing protesters.
- Who's behind Iran violence? Website posts video in name-and-shame campaign.
As Iran's protesters have been finding out this week, among the most dangerous men prowling the streets of Tehran are armed intelligence agents and pro-government vigilantes wearing everyday clothes.
When clashes erupt between riot police and protesters, these provocateurs materialize from nowhere to take part in the fight – brandishing pistols, knives, and clubs – before disappearing again.
[T]hese violent actions have been caught on film and are being put online in a name-and-shame attempt to stop them.
- Khamenei tells Mousavi to toe the line over election or be cast out.
The moderate Iranian leader who says that he was robbed of victory in last week’s presidential election faces a fateful choice today: support the regime or be cast out.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has told Mir Hossein Mousavi to stand beside him as he uses Friday prayers at Tehran University to call for national unity. An army of Basiji — Islamic volunteer militiamen — is also expected to be bussed in to support the Supreme Leader.
SEE ALSO, Protest updates with pictures and video.
- Fears for detainees held in Iran.
Human rights organisations have raised concerns that many people have been arrested in Iran in response to ongoing protests over the disputed result of the presidential election.
Amnesty International says at least 170 people have been detained in Tehran since the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as president was announced on 13 June.
Some are known to have been detained briefly, but the whereabouts of many other remains unknown.
- Iranian who leaked election results may have been assassinated.
An Iranian man said to have released the genuine result of last Friday's presidential election is reported to have been killed in a suspicious car accident.
Mohammad Asgari, who worked for the Iranian interior ministry to protect the security of its IT network allegedly released results showing that the government used new software to rig the result, reports the Guardian's Saeed Kamali Dehghan, citing unconfirmed reports.
- Masses mourn protesters in Iran.
More than 100,000 people have attended a "day of mourning" rally in Tehran to remember eight people killed while opposing Iran's election result.
Mr Mousavi had called supporters to take to the streets wearing black in memory of those shot by members of the pro-government Basij volunteer militia on Monday.
The protesters heeded the call, waving black banners and holding aloft placards asking, ''Why did you kill our brothers?'' Some banners carried pictures of the dead.
SEE ALSO, In pictures: Iran 'mourning' march.
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
- Obama administration criticised over failure to disclose coal dump locations: Administration turns down senator's request to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain arsenic and metals.
The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.
...Last Christmas, a retaining wall burst on a coal ash pond in Tennessee disgorging a billion gallons of waste and putting pressure on the authorities to bring in safety controls over the management of some 600 similar waste pools dotted across the country.
Some 44 of the most dangerous coal ash dumps are known to be located in populated areas in 26 separate locations. The high hazard designation means that a breach, like the one in Tennessee, could cause death and significant property damage if the sludge spills into surrounding neigbourhoods. But that is all the administration will disclose.
- EPA declares first public health emergency over asbestos illnesses in Montana: The federal government will grant $6 million for healthcare for residents of two towns where for decades mine workers were unknowingly poisoning themselves.
The declaration applies to the towns of Libby and Troy, where for decades workers dug for vermiculite, a mineral used in insulation. They were unknowingly poisoning themselves: The vermiculite was contaminated with a toxic form of asbestos, which workers carried home on their clothes.
The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are 500 people with asbestos-related illnesses such as lung cancer and asbestosis in the two towns, whose populations total about 3,900.
- Close House Vote On Nixing Eco Rules To Free Up Water Supplies: We will see more of this as water shortages force choices on allocation of dwindling supplies.
By a 218-208 vote Thursday afternoon, the House rejected an amendment by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, that would have blocked a federal decision steering more irrigation water into fish habitat protection.
"It's OK to value fish, that's OK," Nunes said during House debate, "but understand you're starving families while you value fish."
The vote Thursday was closer than some expected, with 37 Democrats joining all but two Republicans in supporting Nunes.
- New Russian Arctic Park to protect key polar bear habitat.
Russia will create a new 1.5 million hectare park in the Arctic, a central area for the Barents and Kara Sea polar bear populations.
"The only way these Arctic populations are going to survive the ecological havoc caused by global warming is by providing them with enough breathing room."
"We also need urgent global action on climate change to ensure that the parks stay cold enough for animals such as polar bears and wild reindeer."
- Artificial Sweeteners May Contaminate Water Downstream Of Sewage Treatment Plants And Even Drinking Water.
Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What’s more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water. Thanks to their new robust analytical method, which simultaneously extracts and analyses seven commonly used artificial sweeteners, Marco Scheurer, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Frank Thomas Lange from the Water Technology Center in Karlsruhe, Germany, were able to demonstrate the presence of several artificial sweeteners in waste water.
- NOAA Forecast Predicts Large "Dead Zone" for Gulf of Mexico this Summer.
A new study from NOAA was released and it predicts that the "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record. The dead zone is an area in the Gulf of Mexico where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. The research comes from NOAA-supported scientists at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University, and the University of Michigan. Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.
- The Pacific isn’t the only ocean collecting plastic trash: A swirling 'soup' of tiny pieces of plastic has been found in the Atlantic Ocean, and something similar may be present in other ocean areas as well.
New research shows that plastic has collected in a region of the Atlantic as well, held hostage by converging currents, called gyres, to form a swirling "plastic soup." And those fragments of plastic could also be present at the other three large gyres in the world’s oceans... .
Because the plastic has broken down into tiny pieces, it is virtually impossible to recover, meaning that it has essentially become a permanent part of the ecosystem. The full impact of its presence there – what happens if fish and other marine animals eat the plastic, which attracts toxins that could enter the food chain – is still unclear.
- Huge sperm of ancient crustaceans.
A new method for analysing the interior of fossils has shown that millimetre-long mussel-like crustaceans called ostracods used giant sperm to mate.
Sperm of modern ostracods can reach 10 times their body length.
...Ostracods are not the only animals that use giant sperm as a mating strategy - it has also been seen in the fruit fly Drosophila. However, because it costs a lot of energy to produce long sperm, it is still unclear to biologists why the strategy arises.
- Economic crisis decreases nuclear decommissioning funds, causing concern of environmental harm if cleanup shoddy.
The economic downturn has caused funds set aside for the safe closure of the Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom nuclear plants to drop dramatically in the last two years.
...The dangers listed by Epstein and echoed by anti-nuclear groups if decommissioning is not done promptly include groundwater and surface water contamination if there is a leak of stored nuclear fuel and the security risk from terrorists who might release or steal the highly radioactive stored used fuel.
- Protection Demanded for Jaguarundi.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refuses to protect two subspecies of jaguarondi, a wildcat whose habitat is being destroyed by brush clearing, farming and urbanization in South Texas, the WildEarth Guardians claim in Federal Court.
The shy, beautiful little cats are only slightly bigger than house cats, and prey to becoming roadkill. Plaintiffs say the survival of the two subspecies is at risk from human activities.
- The Arctic Thaw Could Make Global Warming Worse.
Today, nearly seven years after igniting that first bubble, Katey Walter finds herself center stage in an environmental drama playing out across the frozen north. Now a 33-year-old assistant professor at her alma mater, the University of Alaska–Fairbanks, Walter was the first to explain the mysterious methane emissions from Arctic lakes. She isn’t shy about touting their significance as a ticking time bomb. In a complete Arctic thaw, these lakes could discharge a whopping 50 billion tons of methane: 10 times the amount already helping to heat the planet.
- Warming may outstrip Africa's ability to feed itself: study.
By mid-century, climate change may have outrun the ability of Africa's farmers to adapt to rising temperatures, threatening the continent's precarious food security, warns a new study.
Growing seasons throughout nearly all of Africa in 2050 will likely be "hotter than any year in historical experience," reports the study, published in the current issue of the British-based journal Global Environmental Change.
Six nations -- Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone -- are especially at risk because they will face conditions that are today unknown anywhere in Africa.
TORTURE AND PROSECUTION NEWS
- Obama will ban release of torture photo evidence with EO if Congress fails to act.
A key US Senator said Wednesday that the White House had assured him that photographs allegedly showing US troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan will "not see the light of day."
"I have been personally assured by Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, that if Congress fails to do its part in protecting these photos from being released, President Obama will sign an executive order classifying the photos," said Graham.
SEE ALSO, Senate approves spending for wars "after the White House assured lawmakers that it would bar the release of photos of detained terrorism suspects by an executive order if necessary. The vote was 91-5."
- Senate OKs block of alleged abuse photos.
The Senate passed by unanimous consent Wednesday a bill that would prevent the release of controversial photos of alleged U.S. abuse of prisoners and detainees.
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had originally been part of the war funding supplemental bill passed Tuesday by the House.
But House Democrats stripped that part of the measure from the bill, and the senators proposed it as stand-alone legislation.
... A senior Democratic aide said it's "unclear at this point" what the House will do on the bill. The House may not take up the bill at all or take it up as an amendment to the Department of Defense funding authorization bill, the aide said.
- 3 Tourists upset by Guantanamo issue threaten to boycott Bermuda.
Outraged visitors have contacted The Royal Gazette to speak out against the Island getting involved in the high-profile international affair.
"We are upset at the Bermuda Government, along with our own government. Bermuda is a place that's noted for tourism. You don't want to go there thinking about these issues that now seem to be on everybody's lips."
POLITICAL NEWS
- Obama blocks list of visitors to White House: Taking Bush's position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs.
The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.
Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.
- Education secretary: States that cut school aid may not get extra stimulus money.
The Obama administration warned states Thursday it may withhold millions of dollars if they use stimulus money to plug budget holes instead of boosting aid for schools.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan made the threat in a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, but his words could have implications for Texas, Arizona and other states.
- Al Gore reaches 1 million Twitter followers.
Yesterday afternoon Al Gore achieved another landmark in his career as a politician and environmental campaigner as he clocked up his millionth follower on Twitter.
For a few days he'd been in a neck-and-neck race with a rather unlikely competitor to reach this milestone, professional gossip Perez Hilton. In the end, though, Gore's legion of followers saw him over the line first and he now joins the likes of Demi Moore, Oprah Winfrey, Ryan Seacrest, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres and Ashton Kutcher (who is now the only person past the two million mark) in this select club.
Besides Barack Obama, Gore is the only figure from the political arena troubling the top rankings at Twitterholic.com, the website that tracks the most popular Twitter users. This is extraordinary in itself given how celebrity-driven the world of Twitter appears to be.
WAR NEWS
- McChrystal Looks to Spin Afghan Civilian Deaths Problem.
At his confirmation hearings two weeks ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said reducing civilian deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan was "strategically decisive" and declared his "willingness to operate in ways that minimise casualties or damage, even when it makes our task more difficult."
... But there are growing indications that his command is preparing to deal with the issue primarily by seeking to shift the blame to the Taliban through more and better propaganda operations and by using more high-tech drone intelligence aircraft to increase battlefield surveillance rather than by curbing the main direct cause of civilian casualties.
- Pakistan faces limits as it widens war on Taliban.
The Pakistani military is preparing to open a new front in its fight against the Taliban, this time targeting South Waziristan, a tribal region and home base for Taliban factions fighting the Pakistani state.
..."We still aren't clear who the Pakistani military is fighting. Are they only fighting the Taliban who are actively fighting Pakistan, or will this go on to fight everybody who is with the Taliban and maybe fighting in Afghanistan?" says Moeed Yusuf, a security analyst at Boston University. "The public sentiment is surely with them at this point, but it's only with them for getting Pakistan back in order, not Afghanistan."
- DynCorp gets Blackwater's service contracts for U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
The State Department has contracted DynCorp International to provide aviation
and support services in Iraq. Under the award, DynCorp would replace the former Blackwater, which was the only major U.S. security contractor with an aviation fleet in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.
WORLD NEWS
- Will North Korea Fire a Missile Toward Hawaii?
North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile possibly in the direction of Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper said Thursday, citing an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry.
The conclusion was reached after analyzing North Korea's recent activities and looking at intelligence gathered by U.S reconnaissance satellites, according to the The Yomiuri Shinbun, one of Japan's major dailies.
Most analysts however doubt that a North Korean missile could reach Hawaii, which is roughly 4,500 miles from the Korean Peninsula, just out of reach of even an upgraded Taepodong-2 which has an estimated a range of 4,038 miles, the paper reported.
- US 'prepared' for N Korea missile.
The US is "in a good position" to protect its territory from a potential North Korean missile strike, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.
"We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the west in the direction of Hawaii," Mr Gates said.
The US has approved the deployment of missiles and radar to "provide support" in the event of an attack, he added.
- ‘US officials linked to AQ Khan’s N-network’.
Top US officials allowed Pakistan in the 1980s to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons and were aware that the A Q Khan nuclear network was violating American laws, a US based watchdog has told the US Congress, citing a former CIA whistleblower.
Danielle Brian, executive director of Project on Government Oversight, told a Senate panel that CIA officer Richard Barlow, who then worked for the Pentagon, was fired for suggesting that the Congress should be made aware of the situation relating to Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
- Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman to Clinton: Israel won't freeze settlements.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements.
...Still, he said, Israel "ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians."
CIVIL RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION & HATE NEWS
- Ohio teen sentenced in parking lot noose attack on ethnic intimidation charge.
A central Ohio teenager accused of putting a noose around a Hispanic boy's neck and dragging him in a parking lot has been sentenced to 10 days in jail.
...Seventeen-year-old Robert Cantu says in May 2008 he was dragged from a sidewalk to a parking lot with the noose wrapped around his neck by a group of teenagers shouting racial slurs. He says the teens threatened to hang him before a bystander intervened.
- Immigration Debate Tied to Rise in Hate Crimes.
U.S. civil rights leaders said yesterday that an increase in hate crimes committed in recent years against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants "correlates closely" to the nation's increasingly contentious debate over immigration.
Hate crimes targeting Hispanic Americans rose 40 percent from 2003 to 2007, the most recent year for which FBI statistics are available, from 426 to 595 incidents, marking the fourth consecutive year of increases.
- Senate to take up resolution apologizing for slavery.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday was scheduled to consider a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the wrongs of slavery.
The nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is similar to a House resolution adopted last year that acknowledged the wrongs of slavery but offered no reparations.
- 1968 Chicago riot cops to hold reunion.
The violent clashes between police and protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention aren't typically considered proud moments in Chicago history.
But some members of the Fraternal Order of Police want to change that. On June 26, the Chicago police union will hold a "Chicago Riot Cops Reunion" at its hall to set straight "what really happened," according to the reunion's Web site.
"The only thing that stood between Marxist street thugs and public order was a thin blue line of dedicated, tough Chicago police officers," the Web site says. "Chicago police officers who participated in the riots continue to endure unending criticism -- all of which is unwarranted, inaccurate and wrong."
- Supreme Court makes age bias suits harder to win: Justices, overturning a jury award won by a 54-year-old who was demoted, say workers bear the full burden of proof.
In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that these workers bear the full burden of proving that their age was the cause of their demotion or firing.
The court's conservative majority rejected the approach adopted by some judges who said that, because job decisions often are made for several reasons, a company or agency that is sued for age bias must show it had a good reason, besides age, for demoting an older worker.
- Michigan Supreme Court gives judges authority in how witnesses' dress, including veils worn by Muslim women.
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday voted to give judges authority over how witnesses dress in court after a Muslim woman refused to remove her veil while testifying in a small claims case.
A statewide court rule letting judges regulate the appearance of witnesses -- such as asking them to remove face coverings -- was approved by a 5-2 vote. The dissenters said there should be an exception for people whose clothing is dictated by their religion.
- Teachers File Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama Administration's School "Turnaround" Plan.
In May, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared the Obama administration's intent to close and "turn around" 5,000 "underperforming" public schools in poorer neighborhoods across the country. Duncan's last job was CEO of Chicago's public schools where he shut down dozens of neighborhood schools, practically all in lower income areas, and dismissed thousands of committed and experienced teachers, the vast majority of them African American women.
When the Chicago Teachers Union made no effort to reach out to parents, students or their communities, refused to organize teachers to oppose the wave of school shutdowns and privatizations, teachers organized what they call CORE, the Coalition of Rank & File Educators. CORE has now filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education, charging that the mass dismissal of hundreds of mostly black veteran teachers and their replacement with uncertified and generally underqualified white teachers is racially discriminatory.
HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS
- Images reveal full horror of 'Amazon's Tiananmen'.
First, the police fire tear gas, then rubber bullets. As protesters flee, they move on to live rounds. One man, wearing only a pair of shorts, stops to raise his hands in surrender. He is knocked to the ground and given an extended beating by eight policemen in black body-armour and helmets.
Demonstrators getting worked-over by the rifle butts and truncheons of Peru's security forces turn out to be the lucky ones, though. Dozens more were shot as they fled. You can see their bullet-ridden bodies, charred by a fire that swept through the scene of the incident, which has since been dubbed "the Amazon's Tiananmen".
- US Congressmen Tell Dow to Clean Up Bhopal.
A campaign in the United States led by two girl victims from Bhopal, highlighting lingering toxicity left behind by the 1984 gas disaster in their city, has paid off with a group of 27 members of the U.S. Congress asking Dow Chemicals to clean up the site.
... A runaway reaction at the Union Carbide plant - said to have been caused by gross negligence - resulted in cyanide gas spewing into the streets of Bhopal city on the night of Dec. 3, 1984, killing more than 3,500 people instantly and at least 8,000 people in the first week. Further chemical damage affected more than 200,000.