A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck filled with sand struck a police station north of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a week of bombings that have killed nearly 80 people. The truck was allowed through the main gate of the complex in Beiji, the site of Iraq’s largest refinery, after the driver told the guards he was delivering the sand to a construction site inside. The driver detonated his payload when two policemen approached him as he tried to enter a parking lot, police said. The blast, which damaged nearby homes and sent shards of glass flying through the air, killed eight people and wounded 16, police said.
Skiers, fire-eaters and an ice sculptor joined in worldwide demonstrations Saturday to draw attention to climate change and push their governments to take stronger action to fight global warming. From costume parades in the Philippines to a cyclist’s protest in London, marches were held in more than 50 cities around the world to coincide with the two-week U.N. Climate Change Conference, which runs through Friday in Bali, Indonesia. In Taipei, Taiwan, about 1,500 people marched through the streets holding banners and placards saying “No to carbon dioxide.” Hundreds marched outside the conference center in Bali. At a Climate Rescue Carnival held in a park in Auckland, New Zealand, more than 350 people lay on the grass to spell out “Climate SOS.”
The Justice Department and CIA announced a joint inquiry Saturday into the spy agency’s destruction of videotapes of interrogations of two suspected terrorists. The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. The CIA’s acting general counsel, John Rizzo, is preserving all remaining records related to the videotapes and their destruction, according to Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general. Justice Department officials, lawyers from the CIA general counsel’s office and the CIA inspector general will meet early this coming week to begin the preliminary inquiry, Wainstein wrote Rizzo on Saturday.
Pentagon chief Robert Gates lashed out at Iran on Saturday for seeking to cause chaos “everywhere you turn” regardless of the blood spilled and said its neighbors must demand that Tehran renounce any intention of pursuing nuclear weapons. At the same time, the defense secretary endorsed the idea of setting up an independent consortium that, under controlled circumstances, would give countries access to uranium enrichment for civil or development purposes. In his speech, Gates appealed to Persian Gulf nations to support penalties designed to force Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment. Iran says its program is aimed at using nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
Oprah Winfrey said worry about the direction of her country and a personal belief in Barack Obama’s ability to lead it pushed her to make her first endorsement in a presidential campaign, support with incalculable value in a tight race for the Democratic nomination. Winfrey said she felt nervous and “out of my pew” as she addressed a gathering hall packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the largest gathering of Iowans in the campaign this year. But she did not hide her political convictions, making an argument for change from the Bush administration rather than another Clinton in the White House. The talk show queen did not mention the current president or Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, but was not subtle about her feelings for Clinton’s argument that Obama doesn’t have the experience to be president when she voted to authorize the war in Iraq.
