Gorbachev Worries About Missile Plan

29/11/2007 | Moscow News № 47 2007

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday that he viewed a U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense shield in Central Europe as targeting Russia, not Iran.

"(On Tuesday) Milos Zeman, the former Czech prime minister, said, ‘What kind of Iran threat do you see? This is a system that is being created against Russia,'" Gorbachev said. "I don't think Zeman is alone in seeing this. We see this as well as he sees it."

The United States wants to place a radar station in the Czech Republic and intercepter missiles in Poland, saying the components would defend European allies against a possible Iranian strike.

Gorbachev, 76, whose policies of glasnost and perestroika - openness and restructuring - helped end communism in the Soviet Union and its satellites, criticized the high level of military spending by the United States.

"Does America intend to fight the rest of the world, does America need to build a new empire? They will not succeed," Gorbachev said at the close of a meeting of the World Political Forum, a group he founded in 2003 that includes many former high-ranking politicians.

Gorbachev, who won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, said negotiations with Iran needed to continue with the involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, to ensure Iran did not produce nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev said he hoped the United States would not attack Iran during the remainder of the term of U.S. President George W. Bush.

"There still one year that President Bush has on his hands. Let's hope that he will not take the risk... of military action against Iran," Gorbachev said, adding that such an attack "at the very least" could provoke increased terrorist attacks, an energy crisis and "even result in a big war."

Asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev said that, while he initially had doubts about Putin being able to lead Russia, he now supported him.

"Putin is a very capable person, a wise person, a man of strong character, of few words but with good management skills," Gorbachev said. "Now he is more than just a manager, he has become a credible political leader."

Gorbachev added that he supported the Russian president because Putin's policies were consistent with his own social-democratic positions,

"Putin is pursuing policies that benefit the majority of the Russian people," Gorbachev said.

IMF: Mortgage Crisis May Cost $945 Billion

Veronica Smith
AFP
April 8, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the worldwide losses stemming from the US subprime mortgage crisis could hit 945 billion dollars as the impact spreads in the global economy.

The IMF, in a particularly stark biannual report, said that falling US housing prices and rising delinquencies on the residential mortgage market could lead to losses of 565 billion dollars.

Combined with other categories of loans originated and securities issued in the United States related to commercial real estate, the consumer credit market, and corporations “increases aggregate potential losses to about 945 billion dollars,” it said.

“The crisis is spreading beyond the US subprime market — namely to the prime residential and commercial real estate markets, consumer credit, and the low- to high grade corporate credit markets,” the IMF said in releasing its Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR).

Read entire article

FBI Has Spy Program Tracking IM, Emails, and Cell Phones

John Byrne
Raw Story
April 8, 2008

FBI also spies on home soil for military, documents show; Much information acquired without court order

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the United States — and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of a court.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post — which stuck the story on page three — show that the FBI’s massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive," the Post says.

But agents don’t need a court order to track to track the senders and recipients names, or how long calls or email exchanges lasted. These can be obtained simply by showing it’s "relevant" to a probe.

RAW STORY has placed a request to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for the new documents, and will post them upon receipt.

Some transactional data is obtained using National Security Letters. The Justice Department says use of these letters has risen from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to the Post.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released letters showing that the Pentagon is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance.

Documents show the FBI has obtained the private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, for the military, according to more than 1,000 Pentagon documents reviewed by the ACLU — also using National Security Letters, without a court order.

The new revelations show definitively that telecommunications companies can transfer "with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico" upon request.

A telecom whistleblower, in an affidavit, has said he help maintain a high-speed DS-3 digital line referred to in house as the "Quantico circuit," which allowed an outside organization "unfettered" access to the the carrier’s wireless network.

The network he’s speaking of? Verizon.

Verizon denies the allegations vaguely, saying "no government agency has open access to the company’s networks through electronic circuits."

The Justice Department downplayed the new documents.

A spokesman told the Post that the US is asking only for "information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for information "reasonably available" by the network.

The FBI’s budget for says the collection system increased from $30 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008, the paper said.

Human-to-Human Transmission of Bird Flu Confirmed in China

By Anna Boyd
13:29, April 8th 2008
EFLUX MEDIA

Chinese health officials confirmed the first case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu.

According to Beijing’s Chinese Center for Disease Control, a 24-year-old man spread the disease to his 52-year-old father in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu. The health agency conducted field and laboratory tests on both men, as well as 91 people who had had close contact with them.

The report concluded that the 24-year-old son was exposed to H5N1 virus while visiting a poultry market six days before he fell ill. His father, who survived, had had substantial contact with him while caring for him in the hospital. The father was not exposed to birds or other sick individuals.

The report found that the two men were infected with almost genetically identical strains of the H5N1 virus. It also found that 91 people who had come into close contact with the men had not been infected with the virus.

“Limited, non-sustained person to person transmission of H5N1 virus probably occurred in this family cluster,” wrote researchers at Beijing’s Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the medical journal The Lancet.

“There is no indication from this data that we are any nearer to a pandemic,” said Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, according to the Associated Press.

A genetic analysis of the Chinese case found no evidence to suggest the H5N1 virus had gained the ability to transmit itself from human to human. However, the report raises concern amid health experts who have long said that the H5N1 could mutate into a form that is more easily spread. So far, that has not happened. If the H5N1 bird flu virus does manage to mutate, a pandemic could take place, killing millions of people worldwide, experts fear.

“Whatever the underlying determinants, if we continue to experience widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well adapted to human beings might just be matter of time,” Dr. Jeremy Farrar of Vietnam’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases said in The Lancet.

According to the World Health Organization, at least 238 people worldwide have died from bird flu since 2003. Indonesia alone has 107 deaths from the bird flu.

Pending home sales index off 1.9% in February: NAR

By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch

Last update: 10:41 a.m. EDT April 8, 2008

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- In a sign that the U.S. housing market may weaken further, an index of sales contracts on previously owned homes fell 1.9% in February from the prior month, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday.

The index, considered a leading indicator of existing home sales, was down 21.4% from the February 2007 level.

"The slip in pending home sales implies we're not out of the woods yet, though an era of successive deep sales declines appears to be over," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, in a statement.

January's level was revised slightly higher.

By region, February's pending home sales index fell 9.8% in the West, while the South registered a 5.5% drop and the Midwest experienced a 3.7% decline. In the Northeast, the index rose 3.2%.

Mike Larson, a real-estate analyst at Weiss Research, wrote that there appears to be some signs of bottom fishing in the market emerging.

"But we'll have to see if these pending transactions can actually close," Larson wrote. "My concern is that stingier lending standards are leading to more deals falling apart."

The dip in the national index isn't large enough to signal "a further downward lurch," wrote said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

"At this level, pending sales are consistent with broadly stable existing home sales," Shepherdson wrote. "We still think the next move in the index will be a further decline, as it becomes clear that the accelerating drop in prices means bargain-hunting is seriously premature."

NAR expects the aggregate existing-home price to "ease" by 1.4% this year, to a median of $215,800.

"Exceptionally weak home sales related to jumbo loans' problems will depress home prices in the first half of the year, but steady liquidity improvements in the conforming jumbo-loan market will help prices recover in the second half," Yun said.

The trade group also sees existing-home sales rising to an annual pace of 5.9 million in the fourth quarter from 4.9 million in the first quarter. Existing-home sales this year are forecast at 5.39 million.

Russia demands permanent access to shield sites

By Oleg Shchedrov and Christian Lowe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian concerns over Washington's plan for a missile shield in Europe will only be eased if Russian officers have permanent access to the shield facilities, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

Russia says the planned shield is a threat to its own security and the row over the issue has helped to drive diplomatic relations with the United States to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Moscow has, however, agreed to consider a set of confidence-building measures proposed by Washington to allay Moscow's concerns.

"In all these many proposals we are interested only in two things: the permanent presence of our officers and reliable technological means of monitoring (activity at the sites)," Lavrov said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station.

"For us it is important that we should see second-by-second where that radar is looking, and what is happening at the interceptor (missile) base in the Czech Republic."

STICKING POINT

He said this demand was a sticking point in negotiations with Washington over the shield.

"In the proposals which we have received (from U.S. negotiators) ... there is no mention of a permanent presence, it says that officers can be posted to the Russian embassies in Poland and the Czech Republic and work at these sites on the basis of reciprocity," Lavrov said.

He said without permanent access to the sites, "this whole scheme of providing these measures for improving confidence is rendered worthless."

The United States plans to deploy a radar in Poland and interceptor missiles in the Czech Republic.

Washington says the missile shield in Europe is needed to protect from missile strikes by what it calls "rogue states," specifically Iran.

Moscow says it believes the radar will be used to monitor its territory and has called the U.S. plan a threat to the fragile balance of forces in Europe.

An informal summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush on Sunday failed to bridge the main differences on the shield.

But Putin said after the meeting he felt Washington had heard Moscow's concerns and expressed hope that adequate confidence-building measures would help allay them.

Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Program, Begins Installing 6,000 New Centrifuges

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Tuesday.

The U.S. immediately criticized the announcement as an example of Iran's continued defiance of international demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a weapon.

"Today's announcement reflects the Iranian leadership's continuing violation of international obligations and refusal to address international concerns," said Gregory Schulte, the U.S. representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating at its underground nuclear facility in Natanz, and the U.N. has passed three sets of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Tehran insists its nuclear program is focused on the peaceful production of energy, not the development of weapons as claimed by the U.S. and many of its allies.

"Iran has not only failed to suspend enrichment, but has chosen to ignore the will of the international community by announcing the installation of new centrifuges," said a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office on condition of anonymity in line with policy.

"This is despite the fact that Iran's enrichment program has no apparent civilian purpose, and shows that Iran is making no effort to restore international confidence in its intentions," he said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Iran's uranium enrichment effort is "dangerous" and continued sanctions may be necessary against Tehran.

Ahmadinejad made Tuesday's announcement as he toured the Natanz facility in central Iran.

"The president announced the start of the phase of installing 6,000 new centrifuges in Natanz," state television reported.

State television also quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that "we have reached new achievements" in Natanz that he would announce later Tuesday.

The president's trip was scheduled to coincide with Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, marking the second anniversary of Iran's first enrichment of uranium.

Ahmadinejad is widely expected to confirm for the first time Tuesday that Iran has installed hundreds of more sophisticated centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster.

The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Diplomats in Vienna told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iran has assembled hundreds of advanced centrifuges at Natanz.

One diplomat said more than 300 of the centrifuges have been linked up in two separate units in Iran's underground enrichment plant and a third was being assembled. He said the machines apparently are more advanced than the thousands already running underground.

But a senior diplomat said that while the new work appeared to include advanced centrifuges, they were not IR-2s.

Both diplomats are linked to the IAEA and asked for anonymity because their information was confidential.

A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that ultimately will involve 54,000 centrifuges.

----

Gov't says gas prices could hit $4

By JOHN WILEN
AP Business Writer
Apr 8, 11:15 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) -- Retail gas prices could climb as high as $4 a gallon this summer, but prices at such lofty levels will make many Americans think twice about hitting the road this summer, the Energy Department said Tuesday.

High prices and a weak economy are expected to cut demand for gasoline by about 0.4 percent during the peak summer driving season, the department's Energy Information Administration said in a monthly report on petroleum supplies and demand. Overall consumption of petroleum products will drop by 90,000 barrels a day this year. Previously, the EIA had projected petroleum consumption would rise by 40,000 barrels a day.

Average monthly gas prices will peak around $3.60 a gallon in June, the EIA said. However, prices could rise much higher than that at times.

"It is important to note ... that even if the national average monthly gasoline price peaks around $3.60 per gallon this summer, it is possible that prices at some point will cross the $4 per gallon threshold," the EIA said.

The government had previously estimated that average monthly prices would peak near $3.50 a gallon. Many analysts predict prices will peak close to $4 a gallon.

On Tuesday, gas prices slipped slightly to a national average of $3.331 a gallon from Monday's record of $3.339, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices are 55 cents higher than a year ago.

Diesel prices, which are already averaging more than $4 a gallon nationwide, will average $3.62 a gallon this year, up 74 cents from 2007, the EIA said. Diesel fuel is used to transport the vast majority of the world's food, consumer and industrial products. High diesel prices are one of the reasons food prices are soaring.

Crude oil prices are the biggest reason gas and diesel prices are rising, the EIA said. Oil is now expected to average $101 a barrel this year, up from the EIA's previous projection of $94. Next year, the EIA expects oil to average $92.50 a barrel, up from a previous projection of $86.

On Tuesday, light, sweet crude for May delivery fell 13 cents to $108.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But prices fluctuated as investors kept an eye on the dollar and on Iran, which announced plans to expand its uranium enrichment program. Prices rose to a trading record of $111.80 a barrel last month.

While high prices are damping demand in the U.S., petroleum consumption remains strong in China, India, Russia and the Middle East, the EIA said.

"The combination of rising world oil consumption and low surplus production capacity is putting upward pressure on oil prices," the EIA report said. "The flow of investment money into commodities has contributed to crude oil price volatility."

Indeed, the EIA acknowledged "significant uncertainty" in its oil price projections, noting that unexpected supply disruptions due to conflict in oil-producing nations, unusual weather or refinery outages could send prices spiraling sharply higher.

"Prices can fall as rapidly under a different set of circumstances, such as easing of geopolitical tensions or further weakening of U.S. and world economic growth," the EIA's report said.

The EIA report underscored the difficulties refiners are facing, despite high gas prices. Refiners have to buy the crude they process into fuel. But falling demand for gasoline prevents refiners from raising gas prices enough to keep up with the soaring price of crude.

"These projections indicate a narrowing of the difference between the gasoline retail price and the average cost of crude oil," EIA said.

The EIA also projected that OPEC oil production will average 32.3 million barrels a day this year, up about 100,000 barrels a day from previous forecasts.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

Purchase this AP story for reprint.

Absolut vodka pulls ad showing California in Mexico

Mon Apr 7, 9:36 PM ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The distillers of Sweden's Absolut vodka have withdrawn an advertisement run in Mexico that angered many U.S. citizens by idealizing an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as Mexican.

The billboard ad has the slogan "In an Absolut World" slapped over a pre-1848 map showing California, Arizona and other U.S. states as Mexican territory. Those states were carved out of what had been Mexican lands until that year.

Although it was not shown in the United States, U.S. media outlets picked up on the ad, and after a barrage of complaints, Absolut's maker said on Sunday the ad campaign would cease.

Defending the campaign last week, Absolut maker Vin & Spirit said the ad was created "with a Mexican sensibility" and was not meant for the U.S. market.

"In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," a spokeswoman wrote on Absolut's Web site.

"Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal," she wrote.

Absolut's blog cite has received more than a thousand comments since the ad campaign was launched a few weeks ago, with many calling for boycotts of the Swedish company.

"I have poured the remainder of my Absolut bottles down the sink," one blogger wrote.

A war between Mexico and the United States from 1846 to 1848 started with Mexico's refusal to recognize the U.S. annexation of Texas and ended with the occupation of Mexico City by U.S. troops.

At the end, Mexico ceded nearly half of its territory to the United States, forming the states of California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Mexicans remain sensitive about the loss and the location of the border. At the same time, the United States is fortifying barriers to keep out undocumented Mexican migrants.

Some Mexicans use the term "Reconquista" (reconquest) to refer to the growing presence in California of Mexican migrants and their descendants.

France's Pernod Ricard is taking over Absolut vodka, one of the world's top-selling spirit brands, after buying Vin & Spirit from the Swedish government at the end of March.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich, editing by Philip Barbara)