Armored U.N. vehicles guarded East Timor’s leaders Tuesday under a state of emergency declared after rebel soldiers critically wounded the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president and fired at the prime minister’s convoy. The army chief blamed the United Nations, which oversees a 1,400-member international police force, for failing to protect the country’s two top leaders and demanded an outside investigation.
Nearly 6.5 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. is preparing to prosecute \nsix of the men it says are responsible. But the trial and verdicts remain a long way off in the death penalty cases. Given the slow pace of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, verdicts on charges that were announced at the Pentagon on Monday are unlikely to come before President Bush leaves office in January 2009. The trials themselves might not even be under way by then — and the next president may be less keen on the military tribunal system.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s office on Tuesday condemned the kidnapping of two CBS journalists in the southern city of Basra, while Iraqi police said an intensive search was under way for the men. Iraqi police and witnesses said the kidnapping took place Sunday morning when about eight masked gunmen wielding machine guns stormed the Sultan Palace Hotel and seized a British reporter and his Iraqi interpreter. Separately, a 27-year-old Iraqi journalist who disappeared after leaving his offices two days ago to buy some supplies was found shot to death Tuesday in central Baghdad.
In its monthly review of the government’s finances, the Treasury Department said Tuesday the budget deficit through the first four months of this budget year totals nearly $88 billion. That is more than double the amount of red ink recorded during the same period in 2007. The Bush administration sent its final budget request to Congress last week. The administration projected that the deficit for all of 2008 will total $410 billion, very close to the all-time high –in dollar terms – of $413 billion in 2004.
Leaders of Pakistan’s two main opposition parties said Tuesday they would form a coalition government if – as expected – their groups win the biggest share of votes in next week’s parliamentary elections. The hour-long meeting of Benazir Bhutto’s widowed husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came one day after a survey by a U.S. government-funded organization predicted the opposition would score a landslide victory in the Feb. 18 ballot.
