Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of Iraq’s biggest Shiite militia, complained Sunday that bombs “continue to explode” in Baghdad and that U.S.-led security crackdown is doomed to fail. Many Shiites believe that bombings have continued because the Shiite-led government bowed to American pressure and persuaded al-Sadr to take his Mahdi Army fighters off the streets.
A huge winter storm barreled toward the East Coast on Sunday after dumping more than a foot of snow on the Upper Midwest. It grounded hundreds of airline flights and closed major highways on the Plains. Seven traffic deaths in Wisconsin were blamed on the storm.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is ill and has flown to neighboring Jordan for medical treatment. His office said Sunday that there was “no cause for worry.” The brief statement said only that the 73-year-old Talabani had fallen ill because of “continuing hard work over the past few days.”
Genealogists have found that civil-rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. The New York Daily News said professional genealogists, working at the newspaper’s behest, had uncovered the ancestral ties between the well-known black leader and the senator who was once a prominent defender of segregation.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday his country’s disputed nuclear program was like a train without brakes or a reverse gear. It prompted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to respond that Iran needs “a stop button.” The International Atomic Energy Agency last week reported Iran had ignored a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Instead, the agency said, Iran had expanded the program by setting up hundreds of centrifuges.
