Morning News Roundup (26 Apr)

• The biggest non-secret of the week has been revealed: Fox News commentator Tony Snow was named White House press secretary today after top officials assured him that he would be not just a spokesman but an active participant in administration policy debates. The question of whether to take the job -- which includes a substantial cut from his media earnings, to $161,000 -- weighed so heavily on Snow (a cancer survivor) that he lost several pounds in a week. [WaPo]
  
  
• President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government's emergency reserve. [ABC News]
  
  
• Dan Froomkin of the WaPo's White House Briefing column pulls out his calculator:
  

  Dow Jones reports that the move would free up about 70,000 barrels a day otherwise destined for the reserve in the coming weeks. By my calculations, that's about one third of one percent of the total U.S. consumption of about 20 million barrels a day -- anyone want to call that a drop in the bucket?

  
  
• With oil companies expected to announce record first-quarter profits in coming days, Bush said the industry should invest its anticipated "large cash flows" in projects to foster alternative fuels. He also called for the repeal of some tax breaks that have long benefited energy companies. [LATimes]
  
  
• The rise in energy prices has undermined the administration's effort to build a case that its policies have led to economic prosperity and has given Democrats an opening to portray the White House and Congressional Republicans as allies of the oil industry. With Mr. Bush's poll numbers sagging and his party on the defensive over the Iraq war, Republicans have been scrambling to show they are trying to help consumers. [NYTimes]
  
  
• GOP negotiators have decided to knock out provisions in a major tax bill that would force the oil companies to pay billions of dollars more in taxes on their profits. House Republicans have raised strong objections to Senate-passed provisions that would raise nearly $5 billion in taxes over five years -- primarily by changing arcane accounting rules that have allowed oil companies to substantially lower their tax bills. [WaPo]
  
  
• At least seven US prisoners at Guantanamo Bay say they were transferred to countries known for torture prior to their arrival at the base, according to recently released transcripts from military commission hearings and other court documents. The transcripts represent the first accounts of rendition from prisoners who are still in US custody, and they contradict statements made last year by the Bush administration that all suspects who are ''rendered" to foreign countries are treated in accordance with international laws. [Boston Globe]
  
  
• Two suicide bombers struck just outside a Multinational Peacekeeping forces base in the Sinai near the Gaza border Wednesday, and a separate blast hit a police checkpoint in the Nile Delta in the north of the country. The string of explosions rattled Egypt just two days after terrorists exploded three bombs at a Sinai beach resort, killing 24 people, mostly Egyptians. [SFChronic]
  
  
• A man identifying himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, appeared in a video released Tuesday calling the American effort here a "crusader" campaign and denouncing the efforts to form a new Iraqi government. The video predicted American "defeat and humiliation" while praising the insurgents in Iraq and urging them on, saying at one point, "They are slaughtering your children and shaming your women." [NYTimes]
  
  
• To tolling bells and the salute of military guns, survivors of the Chernobyl disaster joined in somber memory Wednesday of the world's worst nuclear accident 20 years ago. The blasts at the Soviet-era plant created a cloud of radioactive dust that drifted over a large swathe of Europe and still haunts millions of people in Ukraine and its neighbours.
  
  Some five million people are believed to have been affected overall by the disaster in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, where millions of acres (hectares) of agricultural and forest land remain contaminated. UN agencies estimate up to 9,000 people could be expected to die overall as a direct consequence of the accident, and that the disaster will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace dismiss such figures as a whitewash and say up to 100,000 people could die. [AFP via TerraDaily]
  
  
• A method of creating super-nutritious but flatulence-free beans has been developed by scientists. A Venezuelan team says fermenting beans with certain friendly bacteria can cut the amount of wind-causing compounds, and boost beans' nutritional value. [BBC]