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(07/31/06 3:37am)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan police killed 20 suspected Taliban in the latest fighting to hit southern Afghanistan, as NATO on Sunday prepared to take command in the insurgency-wracked region.\nAfghan forces also killed six militants in southeastern Paktika province, an Afghan official said.\nOn Monday, the U.S. anti-terror coalition is to formally hand over control of security operations to a NATO-led force that has deployed about 8,000 mostly British, Canadian and Dutch troops in the south.\nThe deployment has coincided with the deadliest upsurge in fighting since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.\nOn a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said many Taliban fighters were crossing from Pakistan to stage attacks.\n"We need real cooperation from Pakistan, but it seems very difficult for them. The border is a very difficult region and we ask Pakistan to make some more effort to control it," she told reporters in Kabul.\nPakistan, a key U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, says it does all it can to patrol the porous Afghan border.\nOn Saturday, a joint force of coalition and Afghan troops killed 20 suspected Taliban militants who had attempted an ambush in Shahidi Hassas district of Uruzgan province, a coalition statement said. There were no casualties among coalition or Afghan forces.\nAfghan soldiers and police killed six Taliban fighters and captured eight Sunday during a clash in southeastern Paktika province's Waza Khwa district, said Said Jamal, spokesman for the provincial governor. No further details were available.\nIn Kandahar province, three militants blew themselves up Saturday as they laid an explosive on a road, said Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor. Another suspected Taliban died Sunday when a land mine he was planting north of Kandahar city exploded, Ahmadi said.\nTaliban-led fighters have escalated roadside bombings and suicide attacks this year, and have also mounted brazen attacks on several small towns and district police stations -- a tactic rarely seen in the previous four years.\nInternational forces, backed by the Afghan army, have meted out a tough response.\nAfghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said a 50-day operation dubbed Mountain Thrust has resulted in the deaths of at least 613 suspected militants. Some 87 others were wounded and about 300 arrested, he said.\nAzimi said between 13 and 16 civilians had also died.\nHe declined to give details of Afghan and coalition casualties. According to an Associated Press count of coalition figures, at least 19 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan during the same period.\nBritish Lt. Gen. David Richards, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said Saturday that Operation Mountain Thrust would wind down as NATO takes over in the south, but its force will "keep up the tempo" of operations against insurgents.\nNATO brings a new strategy to dealing with the Taliban rebellion: establishing bases rather than chasing militants, and is hoping to win the support of local people by creating secure zones where development can take place.\nBut questions remain whether they can quell the violence enough to allow aid workers to get to work in a lawless and impoverished region, where about a quarter of Afghanistan's huge opium crop is grown.\nAzimi dismissed concern that there would not be enough troops on the ground. He said the Afghan army would maintain three brigades of about 3,000 troops each in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul, supporting the NATO forces.
(07/31/06 3:36am)
QANA, Lebanon -- Israeli missiles hit several buildings in a southern Lebanon village as people slept Sunday, killing at least 56, most of them children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow" for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch rockets at Israel, and said he would not halt the army's operation.\nThe Lebanese Red Cross said the airstrike in Qana, in which at least 34 children were killed, pushed the overall Lebanese death toll to more than 500. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice postponed a visit to Lebanon in a setback for diplomatic efforts to end hostilities. She was to return to the U.S. Monday morning, abruptly breaking off her diplomatic mission in the Mideast.\nBefore the airstrike, Olmert told Rice he needed 10-14 days to finish the offensive in Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli government official. The two said they would meet again Sunday evening.\n"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," Olmert said during Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, according to a participant in the meeting. "We will continue the activity and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation."\nU.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called an emergency Security Council meeting Sunday at the request of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.\nThe council was expected to discuss a French-sponsored draft resolution spelling out a series of steps meant to resolve the crisis, including an immediate halt to fighting.\nRice said she had called Saniora to postpone her visit to Lebanon; angry Lebanese officials said it was their government that called off the meeting.\nIsrael said it targeted Qana because it was a base for hundreds of rockets launched at Israelis, including 40 that injured five Israelis on Sunday. Israel said it had warned civilians several days before to leave the village.\n"One must understand the Hezbollah is using their own civilian population as human shields," said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir. "The Israeli defense forces dropped leaflets and warned the civilian population to leave the place because the Hezbollah turned it into a war zone."\nRescuers aided by villagers dug through the rubble by hand. At least 20 bodies wrapped in white sheets were taken away, including 10 children. A row of houses lay in ruins, and an old woman was carried away on a plastic chair.\nVillagers said many of the dead were from four families who had taken refuge on the ground floor of a three-story building, believing they would be safe from bombings.\n"We want this to stop!" shouted Mohammed Ismail, a middle-aged man pulling away at the rubble in search for bodies, his brown pants covered in dust. "May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting."\n"They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees," he said.\nRice said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" in Israel's attack. But she did not call for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militias.\n"We all recognize this kind of warfare is extremely difficult," Rice said, noting it comes in areas where civilians live. "It unfortunately has awful consequences sometimes."\n"We want a cease-fire as soon as possible," she added.\nThe United States and Israel are pressing for a settlement that addresses enduring issues between Lebanon and Israel and disables Hezbollah -- not the quick truce favored by most world leaders.\nSaniora said Lebanon would be open only to an immediate cease-fire.\n"There is no place at this sad moment for any discussions other than an immediate and unconditional cease-fire as well as international investigation of the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now," he told reporters Sunday.\nMore than 5,000 people protested in central Beirut, denouncing Israel and the U.S., some chanting, "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv."
(07/24/06 12:44am)
ATLANTA -- Richard Jewell's fortunes changed in a split second.\nThe security guard was initially hailed as a hero for spotting a suspicious backpack in a park and moving people out of harm's way just before a bomb exploded during a concert at the 1996 Summer Olympics.\nThen the media called him a suspect and he became a public spectacle.\nAs the 10th anniversary nears of the July 27 blast that killed one and injured 111 others, the episode is still fresh in Jewell's mind.\n"The heroes are soon forgotten. The villains last a lifetime," Jewell told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. "I dare say more people know I was called a suspect than know I was the one who found the package and know I was cleared."\nJewell, 43, who now works as a sheriff's deputy in a rural county, says he never considered himself a hero for warning people.\n"All I did was my job," said Jewell, who is trimmer than the burly man caught in the media's glare a decade ago. "I did what I was trained to do."\nThe frenzy that changed Jewell's life started three days after the bombing with an unattributed report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that described him as "the focus" of the investigation.\nOther media, to varying degrees, also linked Jewell to the investigation.\n"There were thousands of reporters from all over the world here," Jewell said.\nHe was never arrested or charged, although he was questioned and was a subject of search warrants.\nEighty-eight days after the initial news report, then-U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander issued a statement saying Jewell "is not a target" of the bombing investigation and that the "unusual and intense publicity" surrounding him was "neither designed nor desired by the FBI, and in fact interfered with the investigation."\nEventually, it turned out the bomber was anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph, who also planted three other bombs in the Atlanta area and in Birmingham, Ala., that killed a police officer, maimed a nurse and injured several others. Rudolph was captured after spending five years hiding out in the mountains of western North Carolina, pleaded guilty to all four bombings last year and is serving life in prison.\nJewell said Rudolph's conviction helped, but he believes some people still remember him as a suspect rather than for the two days in which he was praised as a hero.\n"For that two days, my mother had a great deal of pride in me - that I had done something good and that she was my mother, and that was taken away from her," Jewell said. "She'll never get that back, and there's no way I can give that back to her."\nHe said the experience has made him distrustful of people and he rarely gives interviews.\n"I can tell you for sure I'm a different person," Jewell said. "I'm paranoid. I'm cynical."\nSince the Olympics, Jewell has worked in various law enforcement jobs, including as a police officer in Pendergrass, Ga., where his partner was killed in 2004 while pursuing a suspect. Jewell's lawyer, Lin Wood, confirmed that his client was honored by the city for bravery during the chase.\nHe gives speeches to college journalism classes about his experience with the media.\n"I hate knowing what's happened and then reading about it and seeing it on the news and it being wrong, because of what happened to me," Jewell said.\nHe sued several media companies and settled for undisclosed amounts, but his lawsuit against The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is still pending.\nPeter Canfield, a lawyer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said the paper to this day stands by its coverage of Jewell and it has not offered him a settlement.\n"The investigation did target him and the Journal-Constitution accurately reported that," Canfield said. "There's no question but that he was the focus of the investigation and its principal suspect."\nJewell insists the lawsuits were not about making money _ he bought his mother a place to live and 73 percent of the settlement money went to his attorneys and taxes _ but about making sure the truth was told.\n"I'm not rich by any means monetarily," he said. "I'm rich because of my family. If I never get there, I don't care. I'm gonna get my say in court."\nThese days, Jewell is married and is a sheriff's deputy in Meriwether County, about 53 miles from Atlanta, which has just 22,000 people, dusty roads and sprawling cattle pastures.\n"He brings a lot of experience. You could label him a hero," said Col. Chuck Smith, one of Jewell's superiors.\nThen, remembering he was talking to a reporter, Smith added with a smile: "I guess you could label him however you want"
(07/24/06 12:44am)
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting Sunday in southern Lebanon, killing three people, Lebanese security officials said, and Hezbollah rockets killed two civilians in northern Israel.\nSyria, one of Hezbollah's main backers, said it will press for a cease-fire to end the fighting - but only in the framework of a broader Middle East peace initiative that would include the return of the Golan Heights. Israel was unlikely to accept such terms but the remarks were the first indication of Syria's willingness to be involved in international efforts to defuse the Lebanese crisis.\nIsrael said it would accept a NATO-led international force to keep the peace along the border.\nThe top U.N. humanitarian official, touring Beirut, said billions of dollars will be needed to repair damage from the 12-day offensive, which began July 12 when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid.\nA member of the U.N. observer team in south Lebanon was wounded by guerrilla fire and a Lebanese photographer became the first journalist to die in the fighting when an Israeli missile hit near her taxi in southern Lebanon.\nIsraeli troops continued to hold a Lebanese border village that they battled into on Saturday, but did not appear to be advancing, Lebanese security officials said. Its warplanes and artillery, meanwhile, battered areas across the south.\nIn talking about a cease-fire, Damascus warned that it will not stand by if the Israelis step up their offensive in Lebanon.\n"Syria and Spain are working to achieve a cease-fire, a prisoners' swap and to start a peace process as one package," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal was quoted as saying by the Spanish daily newspaper ABC.\nBilal said Damascus would cooperate only within a broader peace initiative that would include a return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967.\nAsked about the comments from Syria, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said, "It's hard to see."\n"Syria doesn't need dialogue to know what they need to do," Bolton told "Fox News Sunday." "They need to lean on Hezbollah to get them to release the two captured Israeli soldiers and stop the launch of rockets against innocent Israeli civilians.\nIsraeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Cabinet that the current offensive is not an invasion of Lebanon, but rather a series of limited raids into the area.\nPeretz also said that Israel would accept a temporary international force, preferably headed by NATO, deployed along the Lebanese border to keep Hezbollah guerrillas away from Israel, according to officials in his office.\nIsrael hit the southern port of Sidon for the first time, destroying a religious complex linked to Hezbollah and wounding four people. More than 35,000 people streaming north from the heart of the war zone had swamped the city, which is teetering under the weight of refugees.\nIsrael also bombed a textile factory in the border town of al-Manara, killing one person and wounding two, Mayor Ali Rahal told The Associated Press.\nThe stricken minibus was carrying 16 people fleeing the village of Tairi, heading through the mountains for the southern port city of Tyre. A missile hit the bus near the village of Yaatar, killing three and wounding the rest, security officials said.\nOn Saturday, the Israeli military told residents of Taire and 12 other nearby villages to evacuate by 4 p.m.\nIn other violence, an 8-year-old boy was killed in a strike on a village in the mountains above Tyre, and another missile hit a vehicle right outside the Najem hospital, wounding eight, a hospital official said.\nHezbollah said three of its guerrillas were killed in fighting.\nAt least four other people were killed by strikes in the south, Lebanese television said, but the deaths were not confirmed by security officials. About 45 people were wounded in Israeli air raids that targeted villages and towns around Tyre, security and hospital officials said.\nThe deaths brought to at least 380 the official death toll provided by Lebanese authorities. Israel's death toll stands at 36, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 soldiers killed in fighting.\nA photographer working for a Lebanese magazine was killed when an Israeli missile exploded near her taxi, security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Layal Nejim, 23, worked for the Lebanese magazine Al-Jaras, the officials said. Her driver survived.\nA U.N. observer was wounded by Hezbollah gunfire during fighting with Israeli troops in south Lebanon, said U.N. spokesman Milos Strugar. The Italian chiefs of staff office identified the wounded U.N. official as Italian Capt. Roberto Punzo, adding he was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Haifa and that his life was not in danger.\nHe was the second member of the U.N. monitoring team injured in 12 days of fighting.\nIsraeli warplanes and helicopters bombed Nabi Sheet, near the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek, wounding five people, witnesses said. In Baalbek, strikes leveled an agricultural compound belonging to Hezbollah. Raids also targeted a factory producing prefabricated houses near the main highway linking Beirut to the Syrian capital of Damascus, witnesses said.\nTwo civilians died in early morning air raids on border villages, witnesses said. A 15-year-old boy was killed at Meis al-Jabal, and a man was killed at Blida.\nHezbollah rockets badly damaged a house and slammed into a major road in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, killing two people and wounding five. Across northern Israel, the militants' rockets wounded at least 13 others.\nPeretz said the 12-day-old offensive in Lebanon would continue as Israel tries to push Hezbollah guerrillas away from the border.\n"The army's ground operation in Lebanon is focused on limited entrances, and we are not talking about an invasion of Lebanon. We are beginning to see the army's successes opposite Hezbollah," he told the Cabinet, according to a participant in the meeting.\nPeretz also met with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, one of a series of diplomatic meetings aimed at ending the fighting. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was also on the schedule, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was headed to the region as well.\n"The goal is to create a situation in which we have as broad a space for diplomatic movement as possible," Peretz said after meeting Steinmeier. "The goals we set for ourselves will be achieved. We certainly see a combination of a military operation that is fulfilling its role plus broad international activity to complete the process."\nIn Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel had "pushed the button of its own destruction" by attacking Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.\nHe didn't elaborate, but suggested Islamic nations and others could somehow isolate Israel and its main backers led by the United States.\nU.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, meanwhile, inspected the destruction from Israeli air raids on south Beirut and he stressed need for a halt to the hostilities.\n"It's terrible, I see a lot of children wounded, homeless, suffering. This is a war where civilians pay a disproportionate price in Lebanon and northern Israel. I hadn't believed it would be block by block leveled to the ground," he said.\nHe said the "disproportionate response by Israel is a violation of international humanitarian law."\nOn Monday, the United Nations will release and international appeal for "more than $100 million" in aid for Lebanon, Egeland said.\nHe told AP the long-term cost of rebuilding the infrastructure would be "in the billions."\nEgeland also planned to travel to Israel for further coordination on opening aid corridors. The number of displaced people has grown to 600,000, according to the World Health Organization.\nHours after he left, three heavy blasts were heard and smoke rose over Dahiyah, the southern Beirut neighborhood that has been hit heavily.\nSome 35,000 refugees have swamped Sidon, which says it has yet to receive any aid shipments. The refugees were stretching supplies of fuel, food and medicines that already were tight for Sidon's own population of 100,000.\nThe Israeli military has said humanitarian aid could enter Lebanon through Beirut's port and determined a coastal route to Tripoli as a land corridor. But it did not define a safe passage route to the south -- where the bombardment is heaviest.\nAid supplies arrived Friday and Saturday on ships carrying Europeans fleeing the country. The exodus of foreigners continues, with tens of thousands -- including 7,500 Americans -- taken out by sea the past week.
(07/23/06 10:22pm)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Bombs exploded Sunday in Baghdad and the northern oil center of Kirkuk, killing more than 60 people and dramatically escalating tension as the prime minister left for Washington for talks on reversing the country's slide toward civil war.\nThe blasts occurred as Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition mounted a major crackdown on the country's most feared Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, blamed by Sunnis for many of the sectarian kidnappings and killings that threaten to tear the country apart.\nThe Baghdad bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated a minivan in the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City at the entrance to the Jameelah market, which was packed with shoppers and vendors on the first day of the Iraqi workweek.\nAn Iraqi army statement said 34 people were killed and 73 were wounded. Eight more people were killed and 20 wounded when a second bomb exploded two hours later at a municipal government building in Sadr City, the Iraqi army said.\nIn Kirkuk, a car bomb detonated at midday near a courthouse in the city market district, killing 20 and wounding more than 150, according to police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir. It was the fourth car bombing this month in Kirkuk, where tensions are rising among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen for control of the area's vast oil wealth.\nA wave of bombings, shootings and sectarian killings has plunged Iraq's new unity government into a deep crisis only two months after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office, pledging to pursue national reconciliation and to pave the way for a U.S. military withdrawal.\nInstead, the U.S. military is now planning to bolster its forces in Baghdad to cope with the security crisis.\nAl-Maliki and a large delegation left Sunday for Washington, where he will meet President Bush on Tuesday. Security is expected to dominate the talks.\nIn Sadr City, dazed and angry people milled about the car bombing site, many of them still reeling from the effects of a raid against what the U.S. military described as "death squad" members.\n"We could not sleep because of the raid, and today we woke up with the explosion of the car bomb," one man told Associated Press Television without giving his name. "How long is it going to be like this?"\nPolice searched through the wreckage of the car bomb for more victims and warned bystanders to leave or they would be arrested. An elderly man, his clothes soaked in blood, wept as he called out the name of a missing relative.\nIt was the second major car bombing in Sadr City this month. A blast July 1 killed 66 people, and set off a new wave of reprisal killings and kidnappings of Sunnis by Shiite extremists seeking revenge.\nKey to ending the reprisal attacks is to rein in sectarian militias and death squads that U.S. officials say are a greater threat to Iraq than the Sunni insurgents who have been fighting the coalition since 2003. The Mahdi Army is believed to be the biggest Shiite militia.\nBefore dawn Sunday, Iraqi troops and U.S. advisers raided Sadr City and the mostly Shiite district of Shula, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The sounds of explosions and bursts of automatic fire echoed through the heart of the capital.\nTwo hostages were freed in the Sadr City operation. Two people were arrested in Shula, officials said.\nLast weekend, British troops arrested the commander of Mahdi forces in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.\nOn Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi troops battled Mahdi fighters in Musayyib. 40 miles south of Baghdad in a three-hour gunbattle that killed 15 extremists and one Iraqi soldier.\nThe security crisis has diverted attention among the Shiite political establishment from the Israeli attacks against the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. Nevertheless, some Shiite politicians had urged al-Maliki to cancel his Washington trip to protest the Lebanon attacks.\nAl-Maliki, a former Shiite activist who spent years in exile in Syria, has condemned Israel's offensive and has complained that the United States and the international community have not done enough to stop it. He told reporters he would convey that message personally to Bush.\n--Associated Press correspondents Bushra Juhi, Qais al-Bashir and Bassem Mroue in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Kirkuk contributed to this report in Baghdad.
(07/17/06 2:56am)
WASHINGTON -- Congress embarks this week on the weightiest of debates on morality and the march of science, deciding whether to use public money for embryonic stem cell research and, in turn, setting up President Bush's first veto.\nNeither the House nor Senate has demonstrated enough support for the bill to override a veto, though the House probably will try, just to give Bush a definitive victory in the showdown.\nSupporters of the research hold out faint hope that Bush, presented with new data and pressured by election-year politics, might reverse course and sign the bill.\n"This would be his first veto in six years, on something that the vast majority of the public supports," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "What would come down on him would be all the scientists, all the Nobel laureates and everyone else who supports it."\nPolls show that 70 percent of the public supports the bill, which would expand federal aid for embryonic stem cell research. The process is believed by many scientists to hold the most promise for curing diseases such as juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's that strike millions of people.\nThe bill comes before the full Senate at the same time that Republicans, with their congressional majority at stake, are trying to energize their conservative base of voters during the fall elections.\nBills to encourage stem cell research from sources other than embryos also are expected to be voted on this week.\nBut it is the Senate's stem cell bill that probably will draw the most attention -- and Bush's first veto.\nIn 2001, Bush halted federal funding of new embryonic stem cell studies, comparing them to abortion because the process of extracting the crucial stem cells destroys the days-old embryo.\nHe said at the time that such federal support for research could continue on the 78 stem cell lines then thought to exist. But in the years since, the National Institutes of Health have confirmed that a fraction of that number of lines exist and that few, if any, are viable for clinical trials.\nSupporters hope that development might change Bush's mind. But the White House, struggling for election-year credibility with its conservative base, has left no wiggle room in its public and private statements of opposition.\nRove last week said Bush was "emphatic" about his intent to veto the bill. White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Friday the president would follow through if the bill came to him.\nThat could happen this week. Vote counters on both sides of the debate in the Senate say at least 60 votes for the bill exist -- perhaps as many as 64; that's enough to pass it. But 67 votes would be required to overturn a veto if all 100 senators are present.\nGOP Sen. Trent Lott, who said he will vote for the bill and predicted it will pass the Senate, said Sunday he believes "something could be worked out."\n"I think Congress has to go ahead and act, and then we'll take it from there," he told CNN's "Late Edition."\nThe House was 50 votes short of its two-thirds majority when it passed the bill last year, 238-194. House leaders were planning for a veto override attempt as soon as Bush vetoes it, probably before week's end.\nHouse sponsor Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., said he expects support for the bill to grow beyond last year's tally, but would not venture whether enough will switch to override a veto.\n"A number of (House) members have told me they regret voting against it last year," Castle said.\nScientific advances, public support and appeals for passage from former first lady Nancy Reagan have given the bill unprecedented momentum.\nIn numerous behind-the-scenes phone calls to lawmakers and a few public statements, President Reagan's widow generated more votes throughout debate in both houses and inspired Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to break a standoff with conservatives who have blocked a vote.\nShe is expected to weigh in again this week with calls to senators and perhaps a statement, said several officials with knowledge of her plans.\nOpponents of the bill are, like Bush, firm in their belief that destroying embryos for science is immoral. They say that adult stem cell research is closer to curing some diseases.\nSen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., last week withdrew his objection to the Senate debating the bill this week in response to an appeal from Frist and other senators. But he made clear he thinks the timing of the debate hurts Bush.
(07/17/06 2:49am)
HAIFA, Israel -- Lebanese guerillas fired a relentless barrage of rockets into this northern Israeli city during morning rush hour Sunday, killing eight people at a train station and wounding seven in a dramatic escalation of a five-day-old conflict that has shattered hopes for Mideast peace.\nHezbollah's firing of at least 20 rockets at Haifa and 30 elsewhere came after Israel unleashed its fiercest bombardment yet of the Lebanese capital, starting after midnight Saturday. The attack reduced Beirut apartment buildings to rubble and knocked out electricity in many areas of the city.\nWithin two hours of the 8 a.m. Haifa assault, Israel warplanes retaliated with at least six airstrikes on southern Beirut, blasting the Hezbollah headquarters building and sending a thick smoke cloud over the city.\nU.S. officials were monitoring violence in Lebanon hour-by-hour to decide whether to evacuate an estimated 25,000 Americans, possibly to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus. About 350 people -- most of them Europeans -- were evacuated Saturday night and early Sunday from Lebanon to Cyprus aboard Italian military flights.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would be "far-reaching consequences" for the Haifa attack. Black smoke rose over the city. Air-raid sirens wailed as the dead and wounded were evacuated. Rockets also hit near an oil refinery, gas storage tanks and a busy street during morning rush hour.\nIsraeli authorities put residents across the north and in the central city of Tel Aviv on heightened alert, reflecting the longer range of the missile attacks. They blamed Syria and Iran for providing guerrillas with more sophisticated weaponry, raising the specter of a wider regional confrontation.\nAt the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed grave concern over the escalation of fighting in Lebanon and denounced terrorism and retaliation in the Holy Land.\nSunday brought the fiercest attacks since the conflict erupted Wednesday after Hezbollah guerillas penetrated Israel in brazen raid, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.\nThe fighting opened a second front for Israel, which was already battling Hamas-linked Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip following the capture of an Israeli soldier June 25. Israel has since expanded its mission from the immediate need to free the three soldiers to a campaign to halt rocket fire from Gaza and to neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon.\nIsraeli troops, tanks and helicopter gunships re-entered northern Gaza on Sunday, firing missiles and exchanging gunfire with armed Palestinians. The raid killed five Palestinians, including three militants.\nMasked militants in Gaza vowed Sunday to launch more rockets at Israel "to show solidarity with the twin of our resistance," referring to Hezbollah.\nThe Haifa attack raised Israel's death toll in the fighting to at least 24, half of them civilians. At least 130 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, most of them also civilians.\nIran and Syria are prime supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal warned that any aggression against it "will be met with a firm and direct response whose timing and methods are unlimited."\nIran on Sunday again denied Israeli claims that it had troops in Lebanon and that it helped Hezbollah attack an Israeli warship Friday, saying the guerrilla group could fend for itself.\nInitially, it was believed that an unmanned drone laden with explosives had hit the Israeli warship; it later became clear that Hezbollah used what Israel described as an Iranian-made, radar-guided C-802 missile.\nThe army said Sunday that three sailors missing after the gunship attack were dead, raising the number of Israeli sailors killed in the attack to four.\nThe Islamic Republic also warned that expanding Israel's bombing raids to neighboring Syria would bring the Jewish state "unimaginable damages."\n"Iran stands by the people of Syria," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.\nHezbollah said it hit Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, with dozens of Raad-2 and Raad-3 missiles. But Israeli officials said Hezbollah -- previously using relatively small Katyusha rockets -- also launched at least four Iranian-made Fajr missiles, its first use of the weapons. The missiles have a range of 28 miles and a far larger warhead than Katyushas.\nShaul Mofaz, an Israeli Cabinet minister and former army chief of staff, blamed Syria. "The ammunition that Hezbollah used this morning ... is Syrian ammunition," he said. He compared Hezbollah to al-Qaida, saying Israel should mount its operation accordingly.\nOne of the rockets hit the section of the Haifa station where crews perform maintenance on the trains, tearing a huge hole in the roof. About 30 people were working at the time, Ofer Litzevski, a train company official, said.\nAt the scene a body lay on a stretcher in a white bag.\nHaifa Mayor Yona Yahav warned people against holding large gatherings and canceled all cultural events. Trains and buses were halted across northern Israel.\nHezbollah said it intentionally avoided hitting petrochemical installations in Haifa, according to a statement read on Al-Manar television, the Islamic guerrillas' main voice to the world.\n"But the next time, it (Hezbollah) will not spare anything in Haifa and its surroundings," the statement said.\nIsrael had deployed a Patriot missile battery in Haifa on Saturday to protect against surface-to-surface missiles. But the Patriot was not built to combat the kind of missiles that hit on Sunday, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a member of the army's General Staff.\nRockets fired by Lebanese militants also struck Acco, Nahariya and several other northern towns, and residents of the region were told to head to bomb shelters. Israeli rescue teams said 20 people were wounded in Haifa and Acco, four of them seriously.\nIsrael's overnight attacks on Lebanon briefly knocked Al-Manar TV off the air. The Jiyeh power plant was in flames after being hit at about 6 a.m., cutting electricity to many areas in Beirut and south Lebanon.
(07/10/06 5:22am)
MOSCOW -- A Russian passenger plane carrying at least 201 passengers skidded off a rain-slicked runway in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Sunday and plowed through a concrete barrier, bursting into flames. At least 122 people were killed, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.\nFifty-eight people were injured in the accident, the second major commercial airline crash in two months in Russia. The commission investigating the crash said preliminary information indicated that the braking system on the Airbus A-310 operated by airline S7 had failed, Russian news agencies reported, citing officials it did not identify.\nThe plane was carrying 193 passengers and eight crew members on a flight from Moscow. At least 14 passengers were younger than 12, airline spokesman Konstantin Koshman said.\nMany of the children were headed to nearby Lake Baikal on vacation, according to Russian news reports.\nEmergency Ministry spokeswoman Natalia Lukash said three people whose names were not on the passenger list were pulled unconscious from the wreckage. It was not clear if they had been on the ground at the time of the crash or were flying as unregistered passengers.\nSome of the survivors owed their lives to a flight attendant, who opened an escape hatch, the ministry said.\nThe plane veered off the runway on landing and tore through a 6-foot-high concrete barrier. It then crashed into a compound of one-story garages, stopping a short distance from some small houses.\nA witness said he heard a bang and the ground trembled.\n"I saw smoke coming from the aircraft. People were already walking out who were charred, injured, burnt," Mikhail Yegeryov told NTV television.\n"I asked a person who was in the Airbus what happened, and he said the plane had landed on the tarmac but didn't brake. The cabin then burst into flames."\nThe aircraft's two flight recorders, or "black boxes," were recovered and were being deciphered.\nTransport Minister Igor Levitin suggested the rainy weather was a factor but did not rule out a technical problem.\n"The landing strip was wet. So we'll have to check the ... technical condition of the aircraft," he told Russian state television.\nLevitin added that the pilot had radioed ground control to say the aircraft had landed safely before communication was cut off.\nAirline official Alexander Zyubr said the plane was in good condition, according to RIA-Novosti.\nS7, formerly known as Sibir, is Russia's second-largest airline, having been carved out of Aeroflot's Siberian wing after the collapse of the Soviet Union.\nCash-strapped and saddled with aging aircraft, regional airlines whittled out of Aeroflot were once notorious for their disregard for safety but their records have improved in recent years.\nIrina Andrianova, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, said it took firefighters more than two hours to put out the blaze. There were two explosions caused by the ton of fuel in the plane, Moscow radio reported.\nRussian television showed smoke rising from the wreckage and firefighters clambering on top.\n"It was traveling at a terrific speed," the spokeswoman said. She said the front end of the plane was crumpled in the crash 2,600 miles east of Moscow.\nDetails began to emerge of the chaotic aftermath of the crash. One flight attendant opened the rear escape hatch and let a number of passengers out, the ministry's regional branch said.\nTen passengers managed to escape this way and other survivors, including a pilot, were saved by firefighters and rescuers, ITAR-Tass reported.\nPresident Vladimir Putin conveyed his condolences to the victims' relatives, who gathered at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, where the plane took off.\nA man who said his brother, sister-in-law and their 4-year-old son were on the plane sat on a curb outside a crisis center near the airport fighting back tears.\n"They're not on the list" of people in hospital, said the man, who gave his name only as Vyascheslav.\nHis friend Larissa Kolcheva, a 27-year-old Muscovite, said the three had flown to Moscow from the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Saturday morning and had been on their way to visit relatives in Irkutsk.\n"We met them yesterday morning at this very airport. It was great. We spent the day with them seeing Moscow ... Everything was beautiful," she said starting to cry.\nSunday's disaster was the fourth air crash in Irkutsk in the past 12 years.
(07/10/06 4:57am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Four more U.S. soldiers have been charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the alleged rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya, the military said Sunday.\nThe five were accused Saturday following an investigation into allegations that American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division raped the teenager and killed her and three relatives at her home south of Baghdad.\nEx-soldier Steven D. Green was arrested last week in North Carolina and has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of murder.\nThe U.S. statement said the five soldiers still on active duty will face an Article 32 investigation, similar to a grand jury hearing in civilian law. The Article 32 proceeding will determine whether there is enough evidence to place them on trial.\nOne of the soldiers was charged with failing to report the attack but is not believed to have participated in it directly, the statement said.\nThe names of the four soldiers were not released.\nThe March 12 attack on the family was among the worst in a series of cases of U.S. troops accused of killing and abusing Iraqi civilians. U.S. officials are concerned that the alleged rape-slaying will strain relations with the new U.S.-backed government and increase calls for changes in the agreement that exempts American soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts.\nPrime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demanded an independent investigation into the case, which followed a series of allegations that U.S. troops killed and mistreated Iraqi civilians.\nAccording to an FBI affidavit filed in Green's case, Green and at least two others targeted the teenager and her family for a week before the attack, which was not revealed until witnesses came forward in late June.\nThe soldiers drank alcohol, abandoned their checkpoint, changed clothes to avoid detection and headed to the victims' house, about 200 yards from a U.S. military checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death," a Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad known for its violence, the affidavit said.\nThe affidavit estimated the rape victim was about 25. But a doctor at the Mahmoudiya hospital gave her age as 14. He refused to be identified for fear of reprisals.\nGreen is accused of raping the woman and killing her and three relatives, an adult male and female and a girl estimated to be 5 years old. An official familiar with the investigation said he set fire to the rape victim's body in an apparent cover-up attempt.\nIraqi authorities identified the rape victim as Abeer Qassim Hamza. The other victims were her father, Qassim Hamza; her mother, Fikhriya Taha; and her sister, Hadeel Qassim Hamza.
(07/10/06 4:56am)
TOKYO -- A top U.S. envoy arrived Sunday in Tokyo to rally a united international front against North Korea's recent missile tests, but cracks were already appearing over a Japanese proposal for sanctions against the communist state.\nThe visit comes ahead of a pivotal U.N. Security Council showdown over the stern wording of the proposed resolution, which Japan vowed Sunday not to temper -- despite resistance to sanctions from China and apparent wavering by South Korea.\nAmid the diplomatic wrangling, North Korea repeated threats that attempts to rein in its military exercises could spark a war.\nIn Washington, a top U.S. diplomat said Sunday the Bush administration would resist one-on-one talks with North Korea and insist that other nations in the region participate in any negotiations over its nuclear weapons and missile programs.\n"The goal of the current diplomacy should be to use the combined leverage of China and Russia, of South Korea, Japan and the United States to force the North Koreans back to the negotiating table," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.\n"We really don't see the logic of turning this into a test of wills between two countries -- the United States and North Korea," Burns told NBC's "Meet the Press."\nSix-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear agenda have been stalled since September.\nChina and Russia, traditional allies of the North, are veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council. Both have voiced opposition to Japan's resolution, which would impose sanctions and order the communist regime to stop developing ballistic missiles. Japan hopes to put the resolution to a vote Monday.\nBut U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the major players are presenting a unified message to Pyongyang, which triggered an international furor by test-firing seven missiles into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday. At least one missile was believed to be capable of striking U.S. shores.\n"I don't see any splintering. On the contrary, I see a very clear message," Hill said, arriving in Tokyo after visits to Seoul and Beijing. "All countries are showing resolve in the ways that they can."\nYet Song Min-soon, South Korea's presidential security adviser, told The Associated Press that Seoul was not convinced sanctions would stop North Korea's missile efforts.\n"We first need to determine if such measures will be effective in preventing the North's missile proliferation," Song said, refusing to clarify whether Seoul supported or opposed the resolution.
(07/10/06 4:56am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Masked Shiite gunmen stopped cars in western Baghdad Sunday and grabbed people off the streets, singling out the Sunni Arabs among them and killing at least 37, police said.\nThe attack in the Jihad neighborhood apparently was retaliation for the car bombing of a local Shiite mosque the night before.\nPolice Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said 37 bodies were taken to hospitals and police were searching for more victims reportedly left dumped in the streets. He also said U.S. and Iraqi forces had sealed off the area.\nDeputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, a Sunni, called the attack "a real and ugly massacre."\nHe blamed Iraqi security forces that are widely believed to have been infiltrated by Shiite militia.\n"There are officers who instead of being in charge should be questioned and referred to judicial authorities," al-Zubaie told Al-Jazeera TV. "Jihad is witnessing a catastrophic crime."\nAt about 10 a.m. gunmen pulled up in four cars in the dangerous Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad and began seizing pedestrians and people in vehicles, according to police and witnesses.\nAn Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Shiite militiamen wearing masks and black uniforms were roaming the neighborhood, checking people's identity cards, presumably for Sunni names. "They are killing civilians according to their identity cards," he said.\nThe Sunni Arabs were singled out and driven away. Their bodies were found later dumped on streets throughout the neighborhood, Abdul-Razzaq said, adding that police had collected at least 37 bodies.\nClashes also broke out in northwestern Baghdad between U.S. forces and members of the Mahdi army, the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Three militia members were killed, police said. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.\nIn other violence Sunday, gunmen killed an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, one of several deadly shootings targeting security forces.
(07/03/06 2:17am)
Positions of the three main candidates in Mexico's presidential election on issues of importance to the United States:\nIMMIGRATION\nFelipe Calderon of the conservative, ruling National Action Party: Espouses temporary guest work programs and job creation in Mexico so people will not have to leave.\nAndres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party: Promises to use Mexican consulates to defend immigrants' rights in the United States and wants the U.S. government to contribute to job creation in Mexico.\nRoberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party: Promises to reduce migration by helping more Mexicans survive on their farms through subsidies and aid programs.\nCRIME\nCalderon: Advocates U.S.-style trials, extraditing criminals to face charges abroad and life sentences for kidnappers.\nLopez Obrador: Says poverty is the root cause of crime, advocates more education and social programs for youths and favors using the army to fight drug traffickers.\nMadrazo: Calls for tougher sentencing and more coordination and intelligence work among police agencies.\nTRADE AND ECONOMY\nCalderon: Favors trade and economic stability and proposes reducing tax burdens to stimulate private investment.\nLopez Obrador: Favors protecting Mexican industries and agricultural sector and boosting Mexico's oil and construction industries; says he will not obey North American Free Trade Agreement clause requiring Mexico to lift tariffs on U.S. corn and beans in 2008.\nMadrazo: Takes a middle ground, proposing more private investment but also increased state support to farmers.
(07/03/06 2:15am)
MEXICO CITY -- After a campaign that split open Mexico's deep class divisions, voters were deciding Sunday whether to elect a free-spending leftist who pledges to put the poor first or a conservative politician who says private investment and free markets are the keys to prosperity.\nThe presidential election is the first since Vicente Fox's stunning victory in 2000 ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The vote will determine whether Mexico becomes the latest Latin American country to move to the left.\nPolls predict a close race between conservative Felipe Calderon of Fox's party and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor. The PRI's Roberto Madrazo was running a distant third, ahead of two minor candidates.\nAlso being elected were five governors and both houses of Congress.\nAccompanied by his two children, Lopez Obrador showed up early to vote in his middle-class Mexico City neighborhood. He made no comments.\nWaiting in the line was Armando Juarez, 46, a high school teacher, who said he would vote for Lopez Obrador, who has promised to govern for the poor first.\n"I believe he represents hope, especially for people with low salaries who are looking for a more egalitarian country," Juarez said.\nOfficials hoped to announce a winner within hours of the 9 p.m. EDT closing of the last poll, based on a quick count. But they cautioned they would wait if the race was too close.\nThe election capped months of mudslinging and angry rhetoric. Lopez Obrador accused Calderon of catering to the rich, while Calderon warned that Lopez Obrador would put at risk the low-interest loans and other gains that helped swell the middle class during Fox's tenure.\nCalderon compared Lopez Obrador to Venezuela's radical President Hugo Chavez, but Lopez Obrador named a conservative economic team that reassured investors, even as he spent his campaign reaching out to the 50 million Mexicans who scrape by on a few dollars a day.\nAs he launched his campaign in a dusty mountain town with the lowest standard of living in Mexico, Lopez Obrador promised: "I'm going to listen to everyone. I'm going to respect everyone. But the poor and forgotten of Mexico will get preferential treatment."\nCalderon promised to be the "jobs president" and distanced himself from Fox even as he pledged to stay the course of economic stability.\nMadrazo painted himself as the alternate to the "radical left and intolerant right." But many questioned how long his party, which suffered infighting and defections during the campaign, would survive past the election.\nAll three candidates promised to strengthen relations with the United States while opposing increased border security measures unpopular in Mexico, including building more border walls and President Bush's deployment of National Guard troops.\nMexican law limits presidents to one term, and Fox plans to retire to his ranch in December after his replacement is sworn in. He was casting his vote at a school near the presidential residence.\nThe estimated 10 million Mexicans living in the United States were allowed to vote from abroad for the first time, but the 41,000 ballots they requested were not likely to make much of a difference. The effort, thrown together last year to beat electoral deadlines, was not well publicized in the United States.\nThousands of those who missed out were heading south Sunday to cast votes at ballot centers set up along the border.
(07/03/06 2:14am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Slain terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been buried in a "secret location" in Baghdad, Iraq's national security adviser said.\nMouwafak al-Rubaie would not say when the Jordanian-born militant, who was killed June 7 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad, was buried, or give any specifics on the location of the grave.\nThe U.S. military confirmed the burial but declined to give details.\n"The remains of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi were turned over to the appropriate government of Iraq officials and buried in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions," the military said in an e-mailed statement. "Anything further than that would be addressed by the Iraqi government."\n"Bush took his body to the United States," Sayel al-Khalayleh, 50, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in the Jordanian city of Zarqa.\n"Even if he is buried in Iraq, we will continue to ask for the body to be transferred and buried in Jordan," al-Khalayleh said. "He should be buried in his own country."\nJordan's government had refused to let al-Zarqawi's body back for burial because of the triple suicide bombing his al-Qaida in Iraq organization carried out in the capital, Amman, last year.\nAl-Zarqawi, 39, was killed after an intense two-week hunt that U.S. officials said first led to the terror leader's spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, then to him.
(07/03/06 2:06am)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier.\nPrime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet that the military had been ordered to "do all it can" to return the captured 19-year-old corporal, and cautioned that arrests of senior Hamas officials could spread to Gaza, the Islamic militant group's power base, a government official close to the prime minister said.\nDefense Minister Amir Peretz told the Cabinet meeting that Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future -- a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories, a high-ranking political official said.\nIsraeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats have been pounding Gaza for the past week in an effort to win the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized June 25 in a cross-border raid that left two comrades dead. Thousands of troops also were sent into the coastal strip for Israel's first ground invasion since quitting Gaza nine months ago.\nLate last week, Olmert called off plans to broaden the incursion in deference to intense diplomatic efforts involving Egypt and other regional players.\nThere has been no direct evidence of the soldier's condition since he was seized by Hamas-linked militant groups.\nSo far, the ground invasion has been focused on southern Gaza, where Israel believes Shalit was taken. On Sunday, officials decided to invade northern Gaza if rocket fire on southern Israel resumes from that area, security officials said.\nThere has been no rocket fire since Saturday night, the military said.\nPalestinians said two missiles fired by attack helicopters set Haniyeh's office ablaze, but it was empty because of the early hour -- 1:45 a.m., witnesses said. One bystander was injured slightly, hospital officials said.\nHaniyeh, inspecting the burning office building, called the Israeli attack senseless.\n"They have targeted a symbol for the Palestinian people," he said.\nLater, before meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Haniyeh vowed, "This will not break the will of the Palestinian people."\nAfter the meeting, the two men surveyed Haniyeh's damaged office together, waving through a hole in the wall.\n"The world must understand that this is a dirty, criminal act," Abbas said.\nIsraeli Cabinet minister Roni Bar-On said the objective of the attack on Haniyeh's office was to "compromise the Hamas government's ability to rule."\n"We will strike and will continue to strike at (Hamas') institutions," said Bar-On, an Olmert ally. "They have to understand that we will not continue to let them run amok."\nHamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, took power after winning January parliamentary elections. The group has a military wing and a political wing, and its political leadership is divided between more moderate elements in the West Bank and Gaza, and the more radical top leadership based in Syria.\nThe gunmen holding Shalit are believed to take their orders from Hamas' Damascus-based political chief, Khaled Mashaal.\nIn other airstrikes after midnight, Israeli aircraft hit a school in Gaza city and Hamas facilities in northern Gaza, where a Hamas militant was killed and another wounded, Palestinian officials said. The military said they were "planning terror attacks against Israel."\nThe 34-year-old Hamas gunman, Shaaban Manoun, was the second militant killed in the five-day Israeli operation.\nIsraeli artillery also fired at open spaces near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the military said. It denied Palestinian radio reports that Hamas training camps were the target. No injuries were reported.\nExerting pressure on Hamas from various directions, Israel continued to hold 64 Hamas leaders, including eight Cabinet ministers, rounded up in the West Bank on Thursday night.\nHamas' roots are in Gaza, and that is where Haniyeh and most other Cabinet ministers live.\n"I don't promise that the arrests of senior Hamas officials will be limited to Judea and Samaria," the official close to the prime minister quoted Olmert as saying, using the biblical names for the West Bank. "Wherever there is a proven terror infrastructure, there will be arrests. There will be immunity for no one."\nThe official spoke on condition of anonymity because the Cabinet session was confidential.\nMilitary officials said the government would bring the detainees before a court this week to seek permission to extend their detention.\nIsrael, meanwhile, reopened its main cargo crossing with Gaza to allow food, medical supplies and fuel to be sent in to the impoverished area from Israel, Israeli officials said.\nWhile food shortages have not been reported, human rights groups have cautioned that Gaza could face a humanitarian crisis because about 43 percent of the territory's electricity supply was knocked out after Israeli missiles struck Gaza's only power station. Israel has increased its supply of electricity to Gaza, the Israeli army said Saturday, but fuel for generators has been scarce.\nOn Saturday, Hamas demanded the release of more than 1,000 prisoners held by Israel, but Israel rejected that out of hand.\nOlmert again said Sunday that Israel would not yield to Hamas' demands.\n"Israel doesn't intend to give into blackmail of any sort," Olmert told his Cabinet. "Giving in today would be an invitation to the next act of terror."\nHamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad urged Israel to be more flexible.\n"I think that if the Israeli government will understand that it's possible to release prisoners, things will end OK," Hamad told Army Radio. "If not, I think the situation will be very difficult for us and for you, too. ... Maybe there will be a (military) escalation and people will die."\nPeretz met with senior security officials Saturday night and then called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to urge the Bush administration to step up pressure on Syria to work for Shalit's release, Israeli officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make a formal statement.
(07/03/06 2:06am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq released a most-wanted list of 41 names Sunday, including Saddam Hussein's wife and eldest daughter, as well as the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and one of the ousted president's closest allies.\nThe government also announced a bounty for several figures on the list.\n"We are releasing this list so that our people can know their enemies," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said at a news conference. He added that countries hosting those on the list and Interpol had been informed.\nThe largest reward was $10 million for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former top official in the Saddam regime who has eluded capture since the U.S.-led invasion more than three years ago. Al-Douri was believed to have played a major role in launching the insurgency.\nThe government also offered a $50,000 reward for Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who replaced al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after his death in a June 7 U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad. The announcement came just two days after the U.S. administration approved a reward up to $5 million in exchange for al-Masri, whose real name is Abu Hamza al-Muhajer.\n"Those people are carrying out bombings and random killings as they aim to inflict damage on the Iraqi people and ignite a sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis," al-Rubaie said in announcing the list.\nSaddam's wife, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah, who is believed to be in Qatar and his eldest daughter, Raghad, who has been living in Jordan, also were named, but no reward was offered for information on them.\n"We have contacted all the neighboring countries and they know what we want. Some of these countries are cooperating with us," he said. "We will chase them inside and outside Iraq. We will chase them one after the other."\nThe national security adviser also said authorities were closing in on the Egyptian-born al-Masri.\n"We were able to infiltrate his network. You will hear news within the coming weeks," he said.\nAl-Rubaie stressed the list was separate from that issued by the U.S. military. Most of its members have been either captured or killed.
(06/26/06 2:52am)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A former driver for Osama bin Laden may help decide the fate of dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and perhaps all of them, as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on his legal challenge to the first U.S. war crimes trials since World War II.\nThe court, which is expected to rule as early as Monday, is considering a range of issues in Salim Ahmed Hamdan's case, including whether President Bush had the authority to order military trials for men captured in the war on terror and sent to the Navy base at \nGuantanamo Bay, Cuba.\nBush recently suggested the ruling will help him determine what should be done with all the prisoners at Guantanamo, where the U.S. holds about 450 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.\nAmnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that Bush doesn't need a court decision to close the prison, which has drawn intense international criticism. The case has \nnothing to do with the prison itself, they said.\n"Bush can close Guantanamo, but this (court) decision can't," said Ben Wizner, an ACLU attorney who monitors Guantanamo. "That's not a question before this court."\nThe ruling, however, could determine whether the government can proceed with military trials for Hamdan and nine other detainees who have been charged with crimes.\nAir Force Col. Morris Davis, the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, said about 65 more detainees being held at the U.S. base are likely to be charged with crimes if the Supreme Court upholds the process. Prosecutors are preparing additional charges, including some that could incur the death penalty, Davis told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from \nWashington.\n"We're pressing on, anticipating a favorable decision," he said.\nHamdan's attorneys argued that the conspiracy charge filed against him is not legitimate. The government has charged each of the 10 detainees with conspiracy, and seven of them -- including Hamdan -- currently face no other charges.\nIf the Supreme Court upholds Hamdan's challenge, the government could "relatively quickly" file new charges such as aiding the enemy, Davis said.\nHamdan, a 36-year-old native of Yemen, admits working as a driver for bin Laden but denies conspiring to commit terrorist attacks on the United States. He fled Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured in Pakistan and turned over to U.S. forces.\nThe U.S. military says Hamdan was also a bodyguard for bin Laden and would have at least had knowledge of al-Qaida attacks. They also say he delivered weapons to members and associates of the terror network. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
(06/26/06 2:46am)
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall and it's a good bet the milestone baby -- or immigrant -- will be Hispanic.\nNo one will know for sure because the date and time will be just an estimate.\nBut Latinos -- immigrants and those born in this country -- are driving the population growth. They accounted for almost half the increase last year, more than any other ethnic or racial group. White non-Hispanics, who make up about two-thirds of the population, accounted for less than one-fifth of the increase.\nPhil Shawe sees the impact at his company, Translations.com. The New York-based business started in 1992, when it mainly helped U.S. companies translate documents for work done overseas. Today, the company's domestic business is booming on projects such as helping a pharmacy print prescription labels in up to five languages or providing over-the-phone translation services for tax prepares.\n"It's been a huge growth area for our business," said Shawe, the president and chief executive. "Not only is the Hispanic market growing faster than the average, but it is also growing in purchasing power."\nWhen the population reached 200 million in 1967, there was no accurate tally of U.S. Hispanics. The first effort to count Hispanics came in the 1970 census, and the results were dubious.\nThe Census Bureau counted about 9.6 million Latinos, a little less than 5 percent of the population. The bureau acknowledged that the figure was inflated in the Midwest and South because some people who checked the box saying they were "Central or South American" thought that designation meant they were from the central or southern United States.\nMost people in the U.S. did not have any neighbors from Central America or South America in the 1960s. The baby boom had just ended in 1964, and the country was growing through birth rates, not immigration, said Howard Hogan, the Census Bureau's associate director for demographic programs.\nIn 1967, there were fewer than 10 million people in the U.S. who were born in other countries; that was not even one in 20. White non-Hispanics made up about 83 percent of the population.\nToday, there are 36 million immigrants, about one in eight.\n"We were much more of an insular society back then," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It was much more of a white, middle-class, suburban society."\nAs of midday Sunday, there were 299,061,199 people in the United States, according to the Census Bureau's population clock. The estimate is based on annual numbers for births, deaths and immigration, averaged throughout the year.\nThe U.S. adds a person every 11 seconds, according to the clock. A baby is born every eight seconds, someone dies every 13 seconds, and someone migrates to the U.S. every 30 seconds.\nAt that rate, the 300 millionth person in the U.S. will be born -- or cross the border -- in October, though bureau officials are wary of committing to a particular month because of the subjective nature of the clock.\nHispanics surpassed blacks as the largest minority group in the 2001, and today make up more than 14 percent of the population.\nThe growth of the Latino population promises to have profound cultural, political and economic effects.\n"I think we've already seen these changes," said Clara Rodriguez, a sociology professor at Fordham University.\n"I think the music has been influenced by the Caribbean rhythms and the Latino singers," Rodriguez said. "I think economically, clearly immigrants are coming to work."\nDon't forget the salsa-ketchup wars, well-publicized since salsa surpassed ketchup in U.S. sales in the 1990s, pitting the two condiments in a seesaw battle for supremacy ever since.\nMany people are embracing the changes, but some are not, as evidenced by the national debate on immigration. The growing number of Hispanics is closely tied to immigration because about 40 percent are immigrants.\n"I think there is a little bit of a culture shock effect, especially with the language," said Frey, the demographer. "But as people get to know their new neighbors, they find they are not that different from them."\nThe U.S. added 2.8 million people last year _ a little more than a million from immigration and about 1.7 million because births outnumbered deaths.\nThe U.S. is the third largest country in the world, behind China and India. America's population is increasing by a little less than 1 percent a year, a pace that will keep it in third place for the foreseeable future, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau.\nThe world, with a population of 6.5 billion, is growing a little faster than 1 percent a year.\nBy the time the U.S. population hits 400 million, in the 2040s, white non-Hispanics will be but a bare majority. Hispanics are projected to make up close to one-quarter of the population, and blacks more than 14 percent. Asians will increase their share of the population to more than 7 percent.\nThose percentages, however, are just projections. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or man\nmade disasters.\n"In terms of projecting out a year or two, we're not too bad," said Hogan of the Census Bureau. "In 2043, I don't think anybody here would think they are particularly accurate."\nOne thing is certain: A lot more people who say they are Central American or South American will actually be from those places.\n"The over 40 population dominated by the baby boomers, they're the ones in power now," said Frey. "But when we get to 2043, a lot of them will not be with us anymore. Those under 40 will be in power and we will be even more of a global society."\nSee the U.S. and world population clocks at http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html.
(06/26/06 2:46am)
WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.\nRep. Peter King cited The New York Times in particular for publishing a story last week that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-\ntransfer records.\nKing, R-N.Y., said he would write Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urging that the nation's chief law enforcer "begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times -- the reporters, the editors and the publisher."\n"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King told The Associated Press.\nA message left Sunday with Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis was not immediately \nreturned.\nKing's action was not endorsed by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, GOP Sen. \nArlen Specter of Pennsylvania.\n"On the basis of the newspaper article, I think it's premature to call for a prosecution of the New York Times, just like I think it's premature to say that the administration is entirely correct," Specter told "Fox News Sunday."\nStories about the money-monitoring program also appeared last week in The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. King said he thought investigators should examine those publications, but that the greater focus should be on The New York Times because the paper in December also disclosed a secret domestic wiretapping program.\nHe charged that the paper was "more concerned about a left-wing elitist agenda than it is about the security of the American \npeople."\nWhen the paper chose to publish the story, it quoted the executive editor, Bill Keller, as saying editors had listened closely to the government's arguments for withholding the information, but "remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."\nLucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the paper acted responsibly, both in last week's report and in reporting last year about the wiretapping program.\n"Its pretty clear to me that in this story and in the story last December that the New York Times did not act recklessly. They try to do whatever they can to take into account whatever security concerns the government has and they try to behave responsibly," Dalglish said. "I think in years to come that this is a story American citizens are going to be glad they had, however this plays out."\nAfter the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Treasury officials obtained access to a vast database called Swift -- the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The Belgium-based database handles financial message traffic from thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 \ncountries.\nDemocrats and civil \nlibertarians are questioning whether the program violated \nprivacy rights.\nThe service, which routes more than 11 million messages each day, mostly captures information on wire transfers and other methods of moving money in and out of the United States, but it does not execute those transfers.\nThe service generally does not detect private, individual transactions in the United States, such as withdrawals from an ATM or bank deposits. It is aimed mostly at international transfers.\nGonzales said last month that he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security. He also said the government would not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so \nroutinely and randomly.\nIn recent months, journalists have been called into court to testify as part of investigations into leaks, including the unauthorized disclosure of a CIA operative's name.\nHe said the First Amendment right of a free press should not be absolute when it comes to \nnational security.
(06/21/06 11:17pm)
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Wednesday it wants direct talks with the United States over its apparent plans to test-fire a long-range missile, a day after the country issued a bristling statement in which it declared its right to carry out the launch.\nPresident Bush said North Korea faces further isolation from the international community if it test-fires the missile believed capable of reaching U.S. soil.\n"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said at a meeting with European leaders in Vienna, Austria. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."\nTensions in the region have soared following intelligence reports that the North was fueling a ballistic missile believed capable of reaching U.S. territory. The United States and Japan have said they could consider sanctions against the impoverished country if it goes ahead, and Washington was weighing responses that could include attempting to shoot the missile down.\nA spokesman for former South Korean President Kim Dae-jungcited the missile crisis as the reason for canceling a trip next week to the North that could have offered a rare chance for talks to soothe tensions.\nSouth Korea also said that its humanitarian aid to North Korea might be affected by such a test.\n"If North Korea test-fires a missile, it might have an impact on aid of rice and fertilizer to North Korea," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told opposition lawmakers, according to his spokesman.\nSouth Korea has shipped 150,000 tons of fertilizer this year and had planned to send another 200,000 tons. Pyongyang has asked for 500,000 tons of rice this year, but Seoul has yet to agree.\nAt the Vienna summit, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said that if North Korea fires the missile, Europe would join the United States in condemning it.\n"There will be a strong statement, strong answer from the international community and Europe will be part of it," Schuessel said.\nAs countries urged Pyongyang not to conduct the test, the chief of staff of China's military met Wednesday with an army commander from North Korea and the North's ambassador to China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.\nThe Chinese military chief, Liang Guanglie, told North Korean army commander Ri Yong Hwan that China was eager to expand cooperation between the two armed forces, Xinhua said.\nThe brief report did not mention the apparent missile test plans.\nNorth Korea said in comments published Wednesday that its self-imposed 1999 moratorium on testing long-range missiles no longer applies because it's not in direct dialogue with Washington, suggesting it would hold off on any launch if Washington agreed to new talks.\n"Some say our missile test launch is a violation of the moratorium, but this is not the case," Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency in an interview from New York.\n"North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to develop, deploy, test-fire and export a missile," he said. "We are aware of the U.S. concerns about our missile test-launch. So our position is that we should resolve the issue through negotiations."\nPyongyang has consistently pressed for direct dialogue with the United States, while Washington insists it will only speak to the North at six-nation nuclear talks. The North has refused to return to those nuclear talks since November because of a U.S. crackdown on the country's alleged illicit financial activity.\nOn Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Thomas Scheiffer, called on Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks but did not address the possibility of bilateral negotiations.\n"They have the opportunity to do that through the six-party talks," he said. "They don't have to undertake bad policies in order to talk to the United States."\nHe also said the United States has means of responding to a North Korean missile test that it didn't have the last time Pyongyang carried out a launch in 1998, and is considering "all options."\nScheiffer didn't specify what those options were, but defense officials in Washington told The Associated Press that the White House was weighing responses to a missile launch that could include attempting to shoot it down while in flight over the Pacific. However, such a move was considered unlikely.\nOn Tuesday, North Korea asserted its right to test-fire missiles in a sharply worded statement to Japanese reporters in Pyongyang.\n"This issue concerns our autonomy. Nobody has a right to slander that right," the Kyodo News agency quoted North Korean Foreign Ministry official Ri Pyong Dok as saying.\nU.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said signs of a possible North Korean launch remained uncertain.\n"They seem to be moving toward a launch, but the intelligence is not conclusive at this point," Hadley told reporters on Air Force One on the way to Europe, where President Bush was meeting Wednesday with European leaders.\nBad weather at the launch site Wednesday dimmed chances of an immediate test.
