A senior Justice Department official told Congress on Thursday that laws and other limits enacted since three terrorism suspects were waterboarded have eliminated the technique from what is now allowed. “The program as it is authorized today does not include waterboarding,” Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, told the House subcommittee on the Constitution. “There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding under any circumstances would be lawful under current law,” he added.
Legal but nonpermanent immigrants would again be able to receive Michigan driver’s licenses under a bill lawmakers have sent to the governor. The bill approved in the state House and Senate on Thursday would allow temporary U.S. residents including students and businesspeople to get licenses. They lost that privilege last month when a new state policy went into effect. Michigan’s attorney general had determined that state law prevents illegal immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses. But his opinion affects all immigrants who are not permanent residents, whether they are in the U.S. legally or not.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make a landmark visit to Iraq on March 2, the first-ever trip by an Iranian leader, the Iraqi government said Thursday. Ahmadinejad will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani during his two-day visit, according to an Iraqi government spokesman. “The two countries will discuss bilateral relations and joint projects,” spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
Serbia’s government proclaimed Thursday that any unilateral act by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership to declare independence would be invalid and illegal. Kosovo is expected to declare independence within days. “Such a (move) would represent a flagrant and unilateral act of secession of a part of the territory of the Republic of Serbia, and is therefore invalid and void,” the government said in a statement.
Political rivals trying to lead Kenya out of weeks of violence that left more than 1,000 people dead signed an agreement Thursday, a U.N. spokesman said. No details were released and the talks were to continue next week. Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who is mediating the discussions, will release a text of the agreement Friday afternoon, said the spokesman, Nasser Ega-Musa. Annan and the negotiators have spent two days trying to hammer out agreements following a dispute about who won the December presidential election.
Despite a soaring foreign oil bill and another record deficit with China, the overall U.S. trade deficit declined in 2007 after setting records for five consecutive years. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the deficit dropped to $711.6 billion last year, a decline of 6.2 percent. The trade deficit with China continued to rise, jumping by 10.2 percent to $256.3 billion. That was the largest gap ever recorded with a single country, as Chinese imports surged despite a string of high-profile recalls of tainted products.
