News Update Place

Several well-known companies have pulled ads from a popular online chat room service after an investigation by Houston television station KPRC revealed to them what their money was funding.
Yahoo! is facing a $10 million lawsuit that accuses it of cashing in on some disturbing chat rooms. The stations’ investigation showed what’s really going on in those rooms.
The companies are paying huge fees for their ads to appear on Yahoo!. But many are now canceling those ads because of the report. The discovery has prompted fast action in corporate America and a strong reaction at the nation’s capital.
“Yes, more legislation is required. The law has not kept up with this type of criminal activity,” U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told the station.
Among the thousands of chat room titles, where people can look for common interests like music or movies, there are other rooms with some disturbing titles, such as: 9-17-Year-Olds Wantin’ SexYounger Girls 4 Older GuysGirls 13 And Under For Older GuysGirls 13 And Up For Much Older ManGirls 8 to 13 Watch Boys (In A Particular Sex Act)The station found all of those rooms listed as education chat rooms, sponsored day in and day out by some major companies consumers have heard of — all paying money for their ads to be seen before a person enters the child-sex chat rooms.
“Children are the largest victimized group in this country, and we need corporations to do the right thing,” Child Rescue Network, Inc. spokesman Charles Clickman told the station.
Before entering the chat room titled “5 To 13-Year-Old Kiddies Who Love Sex” or “Girls 5 To 13 For Older Men,” guests were required to click on a Star Wars-themed ad from Diet Pepsi.
Inside the chat rooms, not only were men trying to meet children or even take them away from home to run away, the station found countless adult men using Web cameras to send children in the room lewd pictures or display live nude images of themselves.
However, the nation’s top law enforcement officers said it is all legal.
“Short of changes in the law in Congress, we may be limited about what we can do in this area,” U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.
Gonzales told the station he can’t use the laws now on the books to shut down Yahoo!’s child sex site. But back in 2002, the station broke the story when federal officials shut down a Web site called “Candyman” with those existing laws.
Pepsi, State Farm Insurance, Countrywide Mortgage and several other large corporations pull their ads from Yahoo after a Local 2 Troubleshooters investigation shows their ads appearing on sexually-explicit chat rooms promoting sex with children.
The “Candyman” site was geared only toward trading child sex pictures and stories, just like the Yahoo! rooms.
“By doing what they’re doing here with the advertising, this is endangering children and that’s serious. I’m offended as a parent and I’m offended as a child advocate,” Clickman said.
Sponsors around the country are reacting to what the investigation found.
The station called Pepsi for comment and the company quickly pulled its ads. A statement from Pepsi said, “We were completely unaware that our advertisements were associated with these chat rooms in any way.”
Countrywide Mortgage pulled its ad for refinancing because of the investigation. The company said, “We took measures to ensure that a situation like this could not occur again.”
State Farm Insurance also pulled its ads, not only from the chat room but also from all Yahoo! sites. The company said, “We will be suspending our online advertising with Yahoo! until it provides us a detailed explanation of how this situation was allowed to happen in violation of our contract, and until we receive sufficient assurance that our advertising will never again appear on inappropriate sites.”
The same goes for Georgia-Pacific, maker of Brawny paper towels. Its ads were pulled, and a spokeswoman said Yahoo! admitted it did not adhere to the advertising contract with Brawny. The Troubleshooters found Brawny ads in a Yahoo! chat room called “6 To 11 Year Old Girls Into Older Men.”
Another big sponsor, T-Mobile, did not respond to the station’s request for comment.
“Yahoo! is aware of the situation now. They are put on public notice by (KPRC) and other people about what is taking place, and they need to come up with a solution to the problem unless they want the government to get involved and hold them liable, either civilly or even criminally, for these types of activities,” Poe said.
Online ads just pushed Yahoo!’s income to more than double what it was a year ago — up to $205 million.
Yahoo! executives declined to answer the stations’ questions but issued a statement saying, “Yahoo! strongly supports law enforcements’ efforts to combat illegal activity on the Internet and works cooperatively with law enforcement to aid in their investigations.”
The statement also said Yahoo!’s terms of service do not allow illegal activities, but those same child sex chat rooms are being hosted by Yahoo!.
The lawsuit against Yahoo! accuses the company of capitalizing on child pornography when it hosted the Candyman site, and with the other sites like the ones the station found still in action.
The lawsuit by the family of one child porn victim said Yahoo! could have removed the sites, but instead chose to make money on them.
Source: NBCSandiego

Secret documents revealed yesterday show that, almost a year before the Iraq invasion, Tony Blair was privately preparing to commit Britain to war and topple Saddam, despite warnings from his closest advisers that it was unjustified.
The documents show how Mr Blair was told how Britain and the US could “create the conditions” for an invasion, partly, in the words of Jack Straw to “work up” an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein even though in the foreign secretary’s own words, “the case was thin”.

They also show how Mr Blair was planning to justify regime change as an objective, despite warnings from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, that the “desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action”.

In his legal advice on March 7 2003, released by the government last week, the attorney repeated his view that “regime change cannot be the objective of military action”.

In a classified document published by the Sunday Times, headed Iraq: Conditions for Military Action, Whitehall officials noted on July 19 2002: “When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford [the Bush ranch in Texas] in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change”.

The officials said “certain conditions” should be met and that efforts should be made to “shape public opinion”. Before and after his Texas meeting, Mr Blair insisted to MPs that no decision had been taken on military action.

That regime change was an objective of the prime minister appears clear from a document leaked last year. It records Sir David Manning, the prime minister’s foreign policy adviser, writing to Mr Blair about a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then President George Bush’s national security adviser, on March 14 2002, a year before the war. Sir David reported: “I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a parliament and a public opinion”.

Another document leaked last year records Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US at the time, as telling Sir David on March 18 2003, the eve of the invasion, about a meeting with the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. He said: “I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option.”

A second highly classified document published yesterday by the Sunday Times records Mr Blair on July 23 2002 as saying: “If the political context were right, people would support regime change.”

The document is a minute, drawn up by Matthew Rycroft, a Downing Street foreign policy adviser, of a high-level meeting at Downing Street on July 23 2002.

The meeting was attended by Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, Mr Straw, Lord Goldsmith, Sir Richard Wilson, the cabinet secretary, John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (now head of MI6), Francis Richards, then director of GCHQ, Lord Boyce, then chief of defence staff, Sir Richard Dearlove, Mr Scarlett’s predecessor, and three of Mr Blair’s close aides: Jonathan Powell, Baroness Sally Morgan, and Alastair Campbell.

After a discussion about military plans, Mr Straw said it seemed clear that President Bush had made up his mind on military action.

He added: “But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran.”

He continued: “We should work up an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.”

The meeting concluded that Downing Street “should continue to work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action” but “not ignore the legal issues”.

Pressed on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost, Mr Blair said: “The idea that we had decided definitively for military action at that stage is wrong, and disproved by the fact that several months later we went back to the UN to get a final resolution, and actually the conflict didn’t begin until four months after that.”

Michael Howard said the memo showed Mr Blair had tricked not just his cabinet, but the British people.

Iraq: new claims

· Minutes from a Downing Street meeting reveal that Tony Blair backed regime change in Iraq at a meeting in July 2002, nine months before the war. Meeting intelligence and military chiefs, Mr Blair discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush’s plans to oust Saddam

· Sir Michael Boyce, former chief of the defence staff, was not shown the attorney general’s opinion of July 7 2003, which questioned the legality of the war, but was later given assurance of legality without caveats. He said he did not have full cover from prosecution at the international criminal court