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CORRUPTION UPDATES 69 June 7, 2007 The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 69
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1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE:
Rights Groups Call for End to Secret Detentions
By SCOTT SHANE
Nyt June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/world/07detain.html?pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, June 6 — Six human rights groups on Wednesday released a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown, calling on the Bush administration to abandon such detentions.
The list includes, for instance, Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who is accused of being a member of Al Qaeda and whose capture in northern Iraq in January 2004 was announced by President Bush. At the other extreme, two unnamed Somali nationals are on the list because they were overheard in 2005 by another prisoner who was later released, Marwan Jabour, in the cell next to his at a secret American detention center, possibly in Afghanistan.
Meg Satterthwaite, of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, one of the six groups, said the recent American practice mimiced “disappearances” of political opponents under Latin American dictators. “Enforced disappearances are illegal, regardless of who carries them out,” she said.
The other groups that compiled the list were Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and two British groups, Reprieve and Cageprisoners.
Even before the secret detentions were officially confirmed, the practice drew widespread objections, including from within the Bush administration. William H. Taft IV, legal adviser at the State Department from 2001 to 2005, opposed it while in office and on Wednesday said he had not changed his view.
“I believe the United States should always account for people in its custody,” said Mr. Taft, who had not reviewed the human rights groups’ report. “When our own people are missing, we want to be able to insist on an accounting from their captors,” Mr. Taft said. He added that keeping prisoners secret could tempt their jailers to abuse them and to cover up their deaths in custody.
In September, President Bush for the first time officially acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret overseas detentions, saying that the 14 prisoners then in the agency’s hands had been moved to Guantánamo. A 15th so-called high-level prisoner, an Iraqi Kurd named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, alleged to be a top aide to Osama bin Laden, was moved to Guantánamo in April after being held secretly by the C.I.A. for several months.
Mohammad Khan, 31, a Pakistani banker who was held in secret in Pakistan and questioned by Americans for 56 days in 2003, described the experience in an interview from Karachi on Wednesday. Mr. Khan’s brother, Majid Khan, who was arrested along with him but held in secret C.I.A. custody for the next three years, is among the high-level prisoners at Guantánamo. He is accused of plotting to blow up gas stations in the United States and planning other terrorist acts, charges his brother said he denies.
After their imprisonment, “Our family members had no idea where we were,” Mr. Khan said. He said his brother was questioned by Americans for up to eight hours while confined to a small chair and eventually signed false confessions.
Later, Mr. Khan said, he and other family members, including some who live in the Baltimore area, believed for a time that Majid Khan was dead and learned of his whereabouts only from President Bush’s September speech.
“How can there be any justification for this?” Mr. Khan said. “You can’t kidnap people and hold them somewhere in the world and torture them.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Kidnapping and Torture Disgraces America Around the World
Also See:
Corruption Updates 31, 7th article on page, "DETANIEE” TORTURE, HEARSAY, AND NO HABIUS CORPUS: THE CRIMINALS ARE RUNNING THE COURTS
Corruption Updates 36, 11th article on page, "Detainees seek legal rights guarantee: DETAINEES” ARE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE: AMERICA IS THE HOME OF RENDITIONS, NOT RIGHTS"
Search the Corruption Database under
Illegal Detentions
Illegal Trials
2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Pakistan Arrests 300 Workers From Opposition
NYT June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/world/asia/07pakistan.html?pagewanted=print
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 6 — The police have arrested more than 300 political party workers over the past few days in a crackdown before a protest planned this week against new government curbs on the news media, a government official acknowledged Wednesday.
Opposition parties have said hundreds of their workers have been rounded up in house raids in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.
The home secretary of Punjab, Khusro Fazal Khan, told the independent channel GEO Television that the police had arrested 312 local political leaders and workers throughout the province.
The president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, signed a decree on Monday giving a government regulating agency stronger powers over the news media and the ability to rewrite regulations without recourse to Parliament.
The decree added to the pressure on the three main private television channels, which have been told to stop live coverage and live political talk shows. Their transmissions were blocked for several days across much of the country.
(Karachi, May 12) Forty-eight people were killed there on May 12 as police officers and rangers stood by.
Opposition parties allege that much of the shooting was conducted by the Muttahida Quami Movement, a partner in the governing coalition, and television images backed up their claims.Dictator Musharaaf Fired Chief Justice, Shot Protesters in the Streets, Arresting Political Opponents, Closed Media:
US Says, Does, Nothing but Supply Arms and Cash to Musharraf
It is hard to ascertain what side we are on in this so called "War on Terror." Apparently it is not "terror" when our dictators seize total power, and kill the people who resist.
Apparently it is not "terror" when we bombed cities during the "blitzkrieg," I mean during "shock and awe." We continue to bomb residences and civilian buildings anywhere we suspect there are "terrorists," to this day.
Apparently it is not "Terror" when we secretly kidnap, imprison, and torture anyone we believe may be a "Terrorist."
"Terrorism" is a label reserved for the people who will not accept or acknowledge that we, or our friends have defeated them. Apparently, our claims to victory, and moral superiority, are premature.
The Palestinians have been militarily defeated, have had their country partitioned, and have lived under the iron fist of a vastly superior military. And still they will not accept the fact that we won.
Osama is in the same boat. He and his followers will not accept the American-Backed Saudi Ruling Family, the King of Jordan, nor the Pakistani or Egyptian dictators.
For us to get any type of grip on this situation, we need to excape the narrowness of our vision and rhetoric.
First, we are lying to ourselves and the world when we say our middle eastern goal is "democracy," and that our middle eastern allies are "friends of freedom."
All of our allies in the middle east are tyrants and dictators and we have put no real pressure on them to democratize during the last 50 years.
(to be continued...)
Also See:
Corruption Updates 44, 9rd article on page, "Police arrest more than 1,000 in protests against suspension of
chief justice"
Search the Corruption Database under
Pakistan
Supporting Dictators
3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
GOP activist charged in Abramoff probe
Environmental group founder Italia Federici is accused of tax evasion and obstruction of justice in the lobbying case.
By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer
June 7, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-federici7jun07,1,6759623.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
From the Los Angeles Times
Italia Federici, president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, allegedly failed to pay more than $77,000 in federal income taxes from 2001 to 2003. She was also cited for making "false and fictitious" statements before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005, which was investigating Abramoff's representation of Native American tribes.
Federici's lawyers said Wednesday that she would plead guilty to both charges. Federici "regrets her failure … to pay her individual income taxes" and "regrets her past trust and confidence in Jack Abramoff," said a statement by Jonathan N. Rosen and Noam B. Fischman.
Federal investigators have alleged that Federici acted as Abramoff's liaison to the Interior Department in helping tribes get meetings with top officials in return for high fees charged by the lobbyist. He is now serving a nearly six-year prison term.
According to the charges filed Wednesday, Federici founded the environmental council in 1997 in Colorado with the help of Gale A. Norton, who later became secretary of the Interior under President Bush.
The second charge dealt with her interview by Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigators in October 2005 and her testimony before the panel a month later. The committee was investigating the relationships among Federici, Abramoff and J. Steven Griles, then the Interior Department's deputy secretary.
Griles was convicted in March of lying in the Abramoff investigation. He acknowledged in a plea agreement that he had falsely told the committee Abramoff had no special access to his office. He also admitted failing to fully disclose his romantic involvement with Federici and said that it was she who introduced him to Abramoff.
In her testimony to the Senate panel, Federici insisted she believed Abramoff's tribal clients had donated $500,000 over three years to her organization because they were generous — not because they wanted to use her connections to help them beat competing tribes trying to win casino licenses.
She also insisted that Griles was not pushed to deny licenses to competing tribes. "I never asked Steve to put the kibosh on anything," she testified.
Federici also testified in support of Abramoff. "I had no reason … to believe that Mr. Abramoff was anything other than a truthful, friendly, charismatic, well-liked and well-respected Republican advocate in Washington," she testified.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Abramoff and Big Oil: The Interior Department Serves Wealth and Power
Abramoff had deep ties at Interior that he brutally exploited. But that was only a small part of his influence.
Abramoff met with Rove and other top officials over 100 times at the White House. Abramoff was deeply connected with DeLay, and Doolittle, as well as Ney, who was recently convicted of political corruption in cahoots with Abramoff.
Abramoff had deep relationships with Norquest and Reed, who are both experts at manipulating non-profit special interest front groups.
Also See:
Corruption Update 13, 2nd article on page, “Report Details Abramoff Ties to White House”
Corruption Update 13, 8th article on page, “Convicted lobbyist had several direct contacts with Rove
Report details White House links to Jack Abramoff”
Corruption Updates 18, 2 nd article on page, "NON PROFITS COVER FOR CRIMINAL LOBBYIST ABRAMOFF LOBBYIST-SPECIAL INTEREST FRONT GROUPS"
Corruption Updates 29, 3rd article on page, “Interior Dept. #2, Energy Lobbyist, Target in Abramoff Probe”
Corruption Updates 43, 1st article on page, "Griles, Abramoff: Justice Dept lets Political Crooks, Liars, Traitors off Hook"
Search the Corruption Database under
Abramoff (40 Abstracts)
Griles
Interior (26 Abstracts)
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Delta backup plans mulled
If pump shutdown continues, more drastic action to allow water deliveries will be needed.
By Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDTThursday, June 7, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/capolitics/v-print/story/209371.html
The state Department of Water Resources is weighing backup plans in case water export pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta remain idle more than 10 days, a prospect that looks increasingly likely.
The shutdown of pumps near Tracy began May 31 to protect the threatened Delta smelt, a tiny fish that began turning up dead at the facility.
About 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland get a portion of their water from the state pumps.
"I don't think we can go past 10 (days) without causing big problems," said DWR Deputy Director Jerry Johns.
The latest surveys for the smelt indicate little progress in moving the fish downstream. They are still mostly gathered in the central Delta, near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, where they remain vulnerable to the pull of the powerful pumps.
Cool weather has kept water temperatures below 77 degrees, a trigger that encourages smelt to move downstream.
River outflows also have not been sufficient to push smelt downstream to their summer habitat in Suisun Bay.
"The population status of this species is so dire now," said Swanson. "It is not just a question of minimizing our impact. We can't do anything that might kill these fish."
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Wednesday urged residents to cut water use 10 percent.
(Omitted was the story of Smelt movement in the Delta)
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Impending Water Crisis
We Don't have a Water Crisis, or an Energy Crisis, We Have Too Many People
We have grown beyond any limits that respect for nature demands. We have grown beyond the limits of social, political, and economic responsibility.
American profit is based on growth, and our pursuit of profit has out grown our environmental as well as our social resources.
This irresponsible growth will stop, and stop badly, unless we rethink our social policies, and change the direction our state, and our country is going down.
Growth must stop.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 55, 9th article on page, "Delta pumps halted: Smelt Halts Mighty Pumps"
Search the Corruption Database under
5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
F.D.A. Issues Strictest Warning on Diabetes Drugs
NYT June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/health/07drug.html?ref=
WASHINGTON, June 6 — The Food and Drug Administration has called for the toughest safety warning on two diabetes drugs, Avandia and Actos, whose health risks have become a focus of Congressional concern.
Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang, a drug safety supervisor for the agency, had said in an interview this week that she was reprimanded last year for advocating the very label change that Dr. von Eschenbach said the agency was now asking the drug companies to make.
. Avandia, a Type 2 diabetes treatment made by GlaxoSmithKline, has been the focus of most of the recent safety concerns, based on evidence that it can potentially cause heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems.
. The agency should have insisted years ago that Glaxo test whether Avandia increased the risks of heart attacks, Mr. Waxman said.
“Avandia is a case study of the need for reform of our drug safety laws,” Mr. Waxman said. “F.D.A. needs the will, the resources and the authority to be a more effective watchdog of drug safety.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Bribed Politicians Gutted FDA Long Ago: Only Hope is to End Pharmaceutical Industry Bribery
The bribes of the pharmaceutical industry has made it impossible for our politicians to protect our health and welfare at the FDA.
Political bribery has damaged pipeline safety, allowed unsafe imports into the country, reduced highway safety, altered or eliminated food safety labels, reduced farm safety, and worse of all, censored science across all of the executive branch agencies.
Until we eliminate political bribery, we cannot trust our government to protect our health and welfare.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 16, 4th article on page, "U.S. Rules Allow the Sale of Products Others Ban"
Corruption Updates 32, 2nd article on page, "Scientists Reject Chemical Rules
White House Plan to Change Risk Assessment Called 'Flawed'"
Search the Corruption Database under
Killing Safety Regulations (14 Abstracts)
6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Doctor Says He Was Assailed for Challenging Drug’s Safety
June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/health/07buse.html?pagewanted=print
...ask Dr. John B. Buse, a medical researcher who testified at a House hearing on Wednesday about the safety of the popular diabetes drug, Avandia.
Dr. Buse described name-calling and what he said was the veiled threat of a lawsuit by a high-ranking drug company executive in 1999 after he had criticized Avandia at a medical meeting.
He said the executive called him a “liar” and “scoundrel” in criticizing him to his supervisor at the University of North Carolina medical school, where Dr. Buse was an associate professor and has since become the chief of endocrinology.
Dr. Buse did not name the executive, but he was later identified at the hearing by another company official as Dr. Tadataka Yamada.
Dr. Yamada is a well-known scientist who left GlaxoSmithKline in June 2006 to become director of global health programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The committee released a letter Dr. Buse wrote in 1999 to Dr. Yamada in which he expressed anger and frustration. “Please call off the dogs,” Dr. Buse wrote. “I cannot remain civilized much longer under this kind of heat.”
. “We cannot have a post-regulatory environment where manufacturers intimidate scientists,” said Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky.
Dr. Buse recalled trying to squeeze two hours of scientific data into a 25-minute speech to the group, in which he said the data suggested Avandia raised the risk of chest pain and heart attacks by 50 percent.
Dr. Buse wrote, “I was not upset when my chairman called me into his office to tell me that some in your company perceive me as being ‘for sale,’ as he knows me well enough to doubt it.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
GlaxoSmithKline Censors Science with a Heavy Hand: Where was the FDA?
In the Pocket of the Pharmaceuticals
Search the Corruption Database under
7) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Campaign Funds for Alaskan; Road Aid to Florida
NYT June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/washington/07
earmark.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
...the twisted case of Coconut Road.
The road, a stretch of pavement near Fort Myers, Fla., that touches five golf clubs on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, is the target of a $10 million earmark that appeared mysteriously in a 2006 transportation bill written by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska.
Mr. Young, who last year steered more than $200 million to a so-called bridge to nowhere reaching 80 people on Gravina Island, Alaska, has no constituents in Florida.
The Coconut Road money is a boon, however, to Daniel J. Aronoff, a real estate developer who helped raise $40,000 for Mr. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel days before he introduced the measure.
Mr. Aronoff owns as much as 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The $10 million in federal money would pay for the first steps to connect the road to Interstate 75, multiplying the value of Mr. Aronoff’s land.
...a Republican commissioner of Lee County, Ray Judah, is campaigning against the interchange, calling it an example of Congressional corruption that is “a cancer on the federal government.”
“It would appear that Don Young was doing a favor for a major contributor,” Mr. Judah said.
The turmoil occurs at an awkward time for Mr. Young. A corruption scandal involving an Alaskan oil company has rattled the Republican Party in Alaska, and Mr. Young is among the biggest recipients of the company’s campaign donations.
One of his former top aides, Mark Zachares, has pleaded guilty to separate bribery charges involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Aronoffs, major Republican donors, gave more than $200,000 to Republican candidates and political committees in the 2006 election.
Arnold Aronoff was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud in a scheme to sell Florida swampland at an inflated price.
When he was approached near the House floor by a reporter, Mr. Young responded with an obscene gesture.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
$40,000 for $10,000,000, Earmark:
Political Bribery Best Investment in America
Also See:
Corruption Updates 5, 3rd article on the page, "Ownership of Alaska by Big Oil Contested by FBI"
Corruption Updates 51, 2nd article on the page, "Ex-House aide snared in Abramoff probe" (Zachares, Young's aid.)
Search the Corruption Database under
Alaska
8) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
China to Revise Rules on Food and Drug Safety
NYT June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/business/worldbusiness
/07safety.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
SHANGHAI, June 6 — Responding to growing international concerns about tainted food and counterfeit drugs, China said late Tuesday that it was overhauling its food and drug safety regulations and would introduce nationwide inspections.
But the challenges facing China are enormous because its regulatory system is weak and enforcement is difficult.
. The shipments of pet food ingredients, contaminated by the chemical melamine, set off one of the largest pet food recalls in United States history.
In recent weeks, several countries, including the United States, Panama and Nicaragua, recalled or issued warnings about toothpaste made in China because it contained a toxic chemical called diethylene glycol.
Last month, The New York Times reported that at least 100 people had died in Panama after taking medicine containing diethylene glycol that had been produced in China and exported as the harmless syrup glycerine.
And a spokesman for the European Commission said on Wednesday that food safety officials there were investigating after Greece and Poland reported finding traces of melamine in corn gluten and rice protein imported from China...
Last week, a Chinese court handed down a death sentence against Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of the Food and Drug Administration in China from 1998 to 2005, after he pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption charges.
But enforcement of the rules will be particularly difficult, partly because the economy is growing rapidly and because local officials accept bribes and sometimes allow small companies to flout regulations.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
China Trade Killing more than Wages and Jobs
Also See:
Corruption Updates 60, 8 th article on page, "Recall Is Issued for Frozen Fish"
Search the Corruption Database under
China (22 Abstracts)
9) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Taiwan Loses Another Friend to China
By REUTERS
June 7, 2007
World Briefing | Asia
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/world/asia/07briefs-taiwan.html?pagewanted=print
Costa Rica has switched its alliance from Taiwan to China and established full diplomatic relations with Beijing, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The switch leaves Taiwan with 24 allies, mostly small and poor nations, compared with more than 170 countries that recognize Beijing.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
China Tightens Noose around Taiwan's Neck a Little Tighter
Also See:
Corruption Updates 55 , 9th article on page, "China to U.S.: Halt Taiwan weapon sales"
Corruption Updates 61 , 3rd article on page, "Pentagon Worries About China Weapon Test"
Search the Corruption Database under
China (22 Abstracts)
10) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Racial shift plays out in Lynwood politics
As African Americans lose numbers and influence to Latinos, the friction can be felt at City Hall and beyond.
By John L. Mitchell
Times Staff Writer
June 5, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lynwood5jun05,0,2382573,print.story?coll=la-home-center
For years, the battle for control of the city of Lynwood has been shrouded in accusations of political corruption and cronyism.
A former mayor is serving a 16-year sentence in federal prison for embezzlement. Five current and former City Council members have been charged with padding their salaries with public funds. And an effort is underway to recall four of the five current City Council members.
But beyond the allegations of graft and corruption, a different war — rife with racial and ethnic stereotyping — is being waged in the working-class city south of Los Angeles.
A decade ago, when blacks controlled the city's political landscape, Latinos complained that they were being denied city jobs and lucrative municipal contracts. Now Latinos dominate and African Americans complain of being frozen out.
The problem is emblematic of emerging tensions throughout Los Angeles County, where the Latino population has surged as African American numbers have dwindled.
The tensions are playing out in cities such as Carson, Compton and Inglewood, where traditional black political muscle — concentrated largely among older working- and middle-class homeowners — is showing signs of weakening as a generation of Latinos reaches voting age.
Previous Corruption Updates: Page 68
Next Corruption Updates: Page 70
Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org
