Top Story
Addressing Muslim World, Obama Calls for New Start.
President Obama pledged on Thursday to "seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," imploring America and the Islamic world to drop their suspicions of one another and forge new alliances to confront violent extremism and heal religious divides.
"We have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek," he said. "A world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God’s children are respected."
World reaction on the flip.
Meteor Blade’s Green Diary Rescue celebrates Daily Kos eco diarists 6 days a week!
The entire speech:
World impressed, except for Iraq and US GOP.
- Middle East views on Obama's speech. (More individual views at link.)
For me and all Arabs this speech was like a dream! Obama addressed all the sensitive issues for the Arab world and he showed a grasp of detail that I respect.
He didn't go too far on the Israeli or Palestinian side. He was moderate. However, I sense trouble ahead.
I think the Netanyahu government and Hamas will sabotage the peace process. Neither wants to change: Netanyahu wants to carry on building settlements and Hamas want to stay in power.
...I liked the way he didn't dictate about democracy. He acknowledged our traditions and that we can make our own minds up.
It was a great speech, so let's give Barack Obama a chance, not just criticise, or believe conspiracy theories.
- Obama's Cairo speech: Global views: Interactive map, click on location and "BBC correspondents sum up reaction to US President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo."
- Palestinian Hamas militants watched Obama’s televised speech.
- Arab Students Respond to Obama.
I like his positivity — the way he addressed the pros of Islam instead of the cons was a great and very logical way to start off. The way Islam is portrayed in the media right now is very one-sided and President Obama managed to acknowledge the distinction between extremism and Islam.
Now, this is very important and is something that was not touched upon by the Bush administration. Ever since 9/11 Islam has been portrayed in a very negative light, as the religion of terrorism, and no one had managed to change or at least begin to work on changing that view, until today.
What’s more was his quoting the Koran in the beginning, middle, and end of his speech. It’s obvious that the president is more than just an eloquent speaker, but a careful and thoughtful leader.
- Pakistan: Obama ’seems to know more about Islam than our own leaders’.
Pundits and politicians alike welcomed Obama’s quotations from the Koran, references to Islamic history, and the conciliatory tone. Though Obama made a few direct references to Pakistan, much of the talk focused on Obama’s declaration of an "unbreakable" bond with Israel.
Says Samad Khurram, a Harvard University student who watched the speech in his Islamabad home with four friends: "I thought he was on target on everything, except Israel. He mentioned the humiliation upon the Palestinian people but not the loss of life: It’s hard to ignore the disparity and the numbers speak for themselves."
Mr. Khurram, nevertheless, was impressed by the fact that "he spoke to Muslims like a Muslim.... He spoke as an insider and that was very welcome. As a speech, it was amazing, right down to the symbolism of the venue."
- Obama draws questions, praise from Muslims. (Photo: "Palestinians in East Jerusalam watch President Obama's speech at an electronics shop.")
It was magical inside the great hall of Cairo University, said Emad el-Din Adib, one of the Middle East's famous media personalities.
He was one of the 3,000 people invited to listen to President Obama's speech in person. Adib told an Egyptian TV show, "President Obama's charisma is unquestionable, but it's the substance and depth of his speech that made the hall roar."
- Cairo Speech Widely Hailed at Home.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic speech in Cairo Thursday elicited broad approval from around the U.S., with the notable exception of the neoconservative right.
The reactions of much of the U.S. pundit class were overwhelmingly positive - acknowledging that Obama tackled prickly subjects in the relationship between Muslims around the world and U.S. foreign policy goals.
- Iraqi Reaction to President Obama’s Speech -- Unimpressed.
But most people in Iraq, a country that has been exhaustively condemned, extolled, grieved over and celebrated by a succession of American presidents, seemed unimpressed.
As the president was making what the Western media described as an historic speech in Cairo, it was the sweltering lunchtime hour here in Iraq. The televisions in almost all the cafes were turned to sports or movies, or the usual background din of Arab music videos. When a man at a restaurant in Mosul tried to change the channel to the speech, diners shouted at him angrily: "What a stupid speech!"
- Fleischer criticizes Obama’s Cairo speech as being too ‘balanced.’
Today, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer told CBS that he disapproved of President Obama’s speech in Cairo about the U.S. relationship with Muslim communities around the world. His problem with the speech? It was too "balanced":
Fleischer bluntly told [CBS's Mark] Knoller, "bottom line — the speech was balanced and that was what was wrong with it. American policy should not be balanced. It should side with those who fight terror."
World News – Focus on Tiananmen Square Anniversary
National News
- Foreclosed homes could become hurricane shelters.
Trying to make the best of a bad situation, federal officials might use foreclosed homes as temporary housing for hurricane evacuees in Florida as soon as this summer.
The proposal would keep people close to their homes and communities instead of scattering them around the country, which happened when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans nearly four years ago. Thousands never returned.
- Swine Flu ‘Overwhelmed’ U.S. Health-Care System, Report Says.
The swine flu outbreak has overwhelmed the U.S. health-care system, a report said.
Communication between government agencies and doctors isn’t well coordinated and the World Health Organization’s six-step pandemic-alert scale causes confusion, according to an analysis released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Trust for America’s Health and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity. Worried citizens flood emergency rooms while undocumented immigrants and the uninsured delay getting medical care, the report said.
- Bankruptcy filings rise to 6,000 a day as job losses take toll.
Consumer and commercial bankruptcy filings are on pace to reach a stunning 1.5 million this year, according to a report from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records.
...Bankruptcy filings took a dramatic nose dive after a 2005 bankruptcy reform measure was signed into law to curb bankruptcy abuse and make it harder to erase debts.
- Study: Most Personal Bankruptcies Caused By Medical Bills, Illness.
Medical bills or illness contributed to more than 62 percent of personal bankruptcies in 2007, a new study says, showing a nearly 50 percent increase from 2001 and not even reflecting the growing number of people who are losing their jobs and insurance in the recession.
"The U.S. health care financing system is broken, and not only for the poor and uninsured... . Middle class families frequently collapse under the strain of a health care system that treats physical wounds, but often inflicts fiscal ones."
- U.S. Economy: Jobless Claims Decrease, Productivity Improves.
Fewer American workers filed claims for jobless benefits last week, signaling that the worst phase of the employment slump has passed.
Initial applications for unemployment insurance fell by 4,000 to 621,000 in the week ended May 30, in line with forecasts, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Another Labor report showed worker productivity rose more in the first quarter than previously estimated.
- States’ Unemployment Insurance Funds Founder After Years of Poor Planning.
Fourteen states have already run out of funds to pay unemployment insurance claims and taken out a total of more than $8 billion in federal loans to cover the shortfalls. At least 18 more states are in danger of exhausting their unemployment insurance trust funds.
States with empty unemployment insurance trust funds have pointed to the severe recession as the cause for their plight, but a closer examination of their trust funds shows underfunding and poor planning as the main culprit. Instead of building up reserves during good years, legislatures in these states yielded to political pressure for high benefits and low taxes. The result: dangerously low trust fund balances.
Environmental News
- Barack Obama seeks US-Chinese deal on global warming.
The Obama administration said yesterday that it was pursuing a joint US-Chinese deal on action against global warming to help push the rest of the world towards a global agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Todd Stern, the US climate change envoy, said a deal between the two countries – the world's largest polluters – would boost efforts to secure a crucial accord to avoid dangerous climate change. Those UN talks are just six months away.
- Pesticide may seed American infant formulas with melamine.
Infant formulas purchased from stores in Canada show widespread tainting with traces of melamine, a toxic constituent of plastics and other materials... .
...Sheryl Tittlemier and her colleagues do finger one key suspect: the insecticide cyromazine. It’s legal for use on food crops and animal forage — and melamine is one of its breakdown products.
...The peak tainting found, 346 ppb, is in the same ballpark that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported finding in a single domestic infant formula — one of 74 samples it tested last year. In November, Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, noted that at such concentrations U.S. infant formulas are "safe" for continued use as a sole source of nutrition for babies.
- Kids at risk by ground-up tires in playgrounds?.
The federal government is reconsidering whether sports fields and playgrounds made from ground-up tires could harm children's health after some Environmental Protection Agency scientists raised concerns, documents show.
The EPA is concluding a limited study of air and surface samples at four fake-surface fields and playgrounds that use recycled tires — the same material used under the Obama family's new play set at the White House.
Although the EPA for years has endorsed recycled-rubber surfaces as a means of decreasing playground injuries, its own scientists now have pointed to research suggesting potential hazards from repeated exposure to bits of shredded tire that can contain carcinogens and other chemicals, according to internal EPA documents.
- Revealed: the bid to corner world's bluefin tuna market -- Mitsubishi freezing fish to sell later as stock numbers plummet toward extinction.
Japan's sprawling Mitsubishi conglomerate has cornered a 40 per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna, one of the world's most endangered fish.
...In the forthcoming documentary film The End of the Line, Roberto Mielgo, a former bluefin fisherman who travels the world monitoring catches, claims that Mitsubishi buys and sells 60 per cent of the threatened fish and that it has expanded its freezer capacity to hold extra bluefin.
- Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment for first time, says UN.
Green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for the first time last year, according to figures released today by the United Nations.
The biggest growth for renewable investment came from China, India and other developing countries, which are fast catching up on the West in switching out of fossil fuels to improve energy security and tackle climate change.
- Key points of the climate-energy bill before Congress: Article discusses the objectives, how accomplished, renewable energy, price tag and who pays the most.
New climate-energy legislation advancing in Congress would mark the biggest shift in US energy policy in 30 years, thrusting the economy toward renewable energy and away from fossil fuels.
If the bill, which cleared a key House committee May 21, is approved by Congress, it would be the biggest step by the United States – the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter per capita – toward curbing climate change.
If President Obama signs the bill ahead of December climate talks in Copenhagen, as some suggest is possible, it would give the US a major role in shaping a multinational response to the climate problem.
- Earth Talk: Peat bogs – ecosystems that store C02: When peatlands disappear, stored carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere.
Peatlands are wetland ecosystems that accumulate plant material to form layers of peat soil up to 60 feet thick. They can store, on average, 10 times more carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas, than other ecosystems. As such, the world’s peat bogs represent an important "carbon sink," a place where CO2 is stored below ground and can’t escape into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming. When drained or burned, however, peat decomposes and the stored carbon gets released into the atmosphere.
A 2007 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) study of the role peatlands play in human-induced climate change found that the world’s estimated 988 million acres of peat (which represent about 3 percent of the world’s land and freshwater surface) are capable of storing some 2 trillion tons of CO2 – equivalent to about 100 years’ worth of fossil- fuel emissions. Because of this, many scientists say that the widespread conversion of peat bogs into commercial uses around the world is serious cause for alarm.
- Lawsuits filed over wolf hunting in Rockies.
Two federal judges will decide which states in the Northern Rockies have enough gray wolves to allow public hunting, as the bitter debate over the region's wolves heads to courts in Wyoming and Montana.
...The lawsuit could block regulated wolf hunts slated to begin this fall and scuttle a plan to remove all the predators from part of north central Idaho.
- Mountain range as big as Alps discovered under Antarctic ice.
The mountains have been mapped in detail for the first time by bouncing radar signals off their hidden surface and observing how long they took to return. The highest peak was found to be 2,434m (7,985ft) above sea level, about twice the height of Ben Nevis.
They predicted a flat plateaux but instead found a range similar in height and shape to the Alps - with massive peaks as high as Mount Blanc and deep valleys.
Scientists hope the findings will aid predictions about the effects of climate change on ice sheets and challenge long-held views that the ice sheet formed over millions of years.
This means any rapid fluctuation in global temperature could have a much faster effect on the formation of ice sheets than previously thought.
- Tickled apes yield laughter clue. (video of tickling gorilla at link.)
New research has given credence to the idea that laughter evolved in a common ancestor of the great apes and humans.
Researchers tickled 22 young apes and three humans and acoustically analysed the laughing sounds that resulted.
Though the vocalisations varied, the team found that the patterns of changes fit with evolutionary splits in the human and ape family tree.
- Heading home: 22 sea turtles released from rehab.
With the pageantry of a high school prom, nearly two dozen sea turtles were returned to their ocean home on Wednesday in the largest single release from the Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center since it opened more than a decade ago.
...All seven species of sea turtles alive today are listed as threatened or endangered. Once hunted for their meat and shells, they are now more often injured or killed by being unintentionally snared by fishing nets or hit by boats. Turtles can also become entangled in marine debris, including discarded nets. Heavy coastline development is another problem for sea turtles, which must lay their eggs in nests dug in dry sand.
- Captured on camera: 50 years of climate change in the Himalayas.
When Fritz Müller and Erwin Schneider battled ice storms, altitude sickness and snow blindness in the 1950s to map, measure and photograph the Imja glacier in the Himalayas, they could never have foreseen that the gigantic tongue of millennia-old glacial ice would be reduced to a lake within 50 years.
But half a century later, American mountain geographer Alton Byers returned to the precise locations of the original pictures and replicated 40 panoramas taken by explorers Müller and Schneider. Placed together, the juxtaposed images are not only visually stunning but also of significant scientific value.
Torture and Prosecution News
- Gitmo protest captured on film.
[F]ewer than a dozen journalists on the trip, including a Toronto Star reporter, witnessed a rare unscripted moment on the base when two Uighur (pronounced Wee-gur) detainees managed to hold an impromptu protest.
The group was at an Oceanside prison known as "Camp Iguana," where 16 Uighur and one Algerian detainee are imprisoned.
As the journalists neared the fence line, the captives held up messages written in crayon on prison-issued sketch pads, knowing the Pentagon prohibits journalists from speaking to detainees.
For a few minutes they silently turned the pages quickly, as journalists shot video, photos and scribbled down their messages.
"We are being held in prison but we have been announced innocent a corrding to the virdict in caurt," one message said. "We need to freedom (sic)."
- House Panel Rejects Funding To Transfer Guantanamo Inmates.
U.S. lawmakers dealt another blow Thursday to President Barack Obama's plans to close the Guantanamo prison, denying a request for extra funds and restricting the transfer and release of inmates. A House Appropriations subcommittee threw out a request for $60 million to help the department close the prison on the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba.
The bill would see the government barred from releasing any of the 240 remaining prisoners to the United States or to any other country until the administration has presented a plan to Congress.
- Where to put Guantanamo prisoners? They're welcome in Colorado.
Residents of Florence say they don't mind the supermax prison outside town. And a few more terrorism suspects there wouldn't bother them.
...Zacarias Moussaoui, known as "the 20th hijacker" for his attempts to join in the Sept. 11 attacks, resides at the supermax prison just outside the city limits. So do would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lives there too.
- Europe to take 'several dozen' from Guantánamo.
Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina, who chaired a meeting of the 27-nation bloc's interior ministers, said it will be up to each national government to decide whether to participate. He added the EU will coordinate security measures to make sure the former detainees do not pose a threat once they arrive.
''It's hard to give numbers because that is up to member states, but I think several dozen people'' could be admitted, Pecina said.
Political News
- S.C. High Court Tells Governor To Take Federal Cash.
South Carolina's high court is ordering Republican Gov. Mark Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus money that would head primarily to cash-strapped schools.
The state Supreme Court's ruling comes a day after hearing arguments in Sanford's legal fight to reject the money. The anti-bailout governor refused to take the cash even after legislators passed a budget requiring him to do so.
The arguments involved lawsuits filed by students and school administrators.
- Obama nominee tied to CIA interrogation.
The Obama administration's pick for a top intelligence post at the Homeland Security Department has ties to the CIA's harsh interrogation program, a congressional aide said.
This could become an issue during Philip Mudd's confirmation hearing, which is expected next week. Mudd was nominated to be under secretary of intelligence and analysis at Homeland Security.
The aide confirmed that Mudd, who was deputy director of the Office of Terrorism Analysis at the CIA during the Bush administration, had direct knowledge of the agency's harsh interrogation program. The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
- Rep. Lamar Smith: ‘The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.’
Yesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) launched the Media Fairness Caucus, made up of about a dozen House Republicans, aiming "to fight liberal media bias." The group will "point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias," Newsmax reported. Appearing on Fox News today, Smith declared that "liberal media bias" is a bigger threat to the United States than the recession or terrorism — and Fox’s Bill Hemmer seemed to agree.
- Holder overturns Bush immigration order.
Attorney General Eric Holder overturned on Wednesday an order by the Bush administration that made it more difficult for defendants to appeal the rulings on their immigration cases, Holder's office announced.
The order, enacted by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey 13 days prior to the end of then-President George W. Bush's term, limited immigrants' efforts to reopen their cases by claiming they had ineffective assistance of counsel.
The order and its abolishment focus on whether non-citizens have a constitutional right to effective counsel in deportation cases.
War News
- Taliban Kill 3 U.S. Soldiers In Afghanistan.
Taliban militants detonated a bomb and opened fire on a vehicle carrying U.S. soldiers on Thursday, killing three of them, as President Barack Obama said he did not want to keep American troops in Afghanistan longer than necessary.
The ambush took place not far from the main U.S. base in Bagram, just north of the capital Kabul. It was the third strike by insurgents in the region in less than a week, part of a surge in violence eight years after the U.S invaded to oust the Taliban regime.
- UN Human Rights Council Blasts US for Killing Civilians, Drone Attacks and Using Mercenaries.
The UN Human Rights Council has issued a report blasting the US for killing civilians, violating human rights and creating a "zone of impunity" for unaccountable private contractors to fight its wars. The UN group also criticized the US use of drones to attack Pakistan. The report, released this week was authored by Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
Alston called on the US to establish a national commission to investigate the killing of civilians and for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to criminally investigate government officials accused of crimes.
"The government has failed to effectively investigate and punish lower-ranking soldiers for such deaths, and has not held senior officers responsible," Alston said. "Worse, it has effectively created a zone of impunity for private contractors and civilian intelligence agents by only rarely investigating and prosecuting them."
- US objects to UN report on military killings, says beyond UN mandate.
The Obama administration charged Wednesday that a U.N. investigator violated his mandate by accusing the U.S. of failing to properly investigate allegations of unlawful killings by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We do not believe that military and intelligence operations during armed conflict fall within the special rapporteur's mandate," said Larry Richter, acting deputy at the U.S. mission in Geneva.
- Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico: Seeks white militias as allies.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.
The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.
- Marine recruiter charged with pimping girl, 14: Calif. police investigating whether he used teen to entice potential recruits.
A U.S. Marine Corps recruiter in Riverside County, Calif., has been accused of pimping a 14-year-old girl. Police were also looking into whether he used the girl to entice possible Marine recruits.
[T]hey discovered the teenage girl in a car with Cunningham and two other men, ages 18 and 19, described as potential Marine recruits.
The girl, who has since been returned to her parents, told police that she'd met Cunningham online and had sex with all three men, authorities said.
- Obama 'saddened' by attack on recruiters.
President Obama said Thursday that he was "deeply saddened" by the shootings at an Arkansas military recruiting station that left one soldier dead and another wounded.
Investigators are still digging into the background of Abdulhakim Muhammad [pictured in photo], a Muslim convert from Tennessee suspected of the attack on the Little Rock recruiting center on Monday.
"He was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.
Civil Rights & Justice
- Judge Rejects Obama DOJ Argument in Islamic Warrantless Wiretapping al-Haramain Case.
A federal judge rejected the U.S. government's argument that it was immune from prosecution on national security grounds in a lawsuit by an Islamic charity that claims it was the victim of warrantless wiretapping.
Though District Judge Vaughn Walker delayed any final decision on the case until September at the earliest, he told the attorney for the U.S. branch of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation to draft a motion that would be used to rule against the U.S. government in the case.
- Justice Department admits new prosecution mistakes, seeks release of 2 Alaska officials.
Attorney General Eric Holder asked a court Thursday to release two imprisoned former Alaska state lawmakers after the Justice Department found prosecutors improperly handled evidence in their trials on corruption charges.
The move is the second embarrassing retreat for Justice Department prosecutors since the conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was tossed out of court in April.
Now, Holder is asking a federal appeals court to send the cases of former Alaska House Speaker Peter Kott and former state Rep. Victor Kohring back to the trial judge. The attorney general made the request after finding prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence to the defense.
Human Rights News
- Tucson man faces prison for leaving water jugs along border for people crossing.
A Tucson man convicted of littering on federal land said he will continue to leave water out for illegal immigrants walking through the desert, even if that means risking further citations.
...Staton, a Web designer and volunteer with humanitarian group No More Deaths, was cited Dec. 4 for littering when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted him placing unopened gallon containers of water in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Tucson.