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(04/20/07 4:00am)
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Long before he snapped, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at over his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in the Washington suburbs, former classmates say.\nChris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.\nOnce, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho’s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded “like he had something in his mouth,” Davids said.\n“As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China,’” Davids said.\nThe high school classmates’ accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on Cho’s state of mind in the video rant he mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage Monday at Virginia Tech.\nHe shot 32 people to death and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.\nIn the often-incoherent video, the 23-year-old Cho portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids.\n“Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats,” says Cho, who came to the U.S. in 1992 and whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. “Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.”\nAmong the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out.\nStephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho’s graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school.\n“I just remember he was a shy kid who didn’t really want to talk to anybody,” she said. “I guess a lot of people felt like maybe there was a language barrier.”\nBut she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there.\n“There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him,” Roberts said Wednesday. “He didn’t speak English really well and they would really make fun of him.”\nVirginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus – Christina Lilick – found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick’s Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as “the question mark kid.”\n“I don’t know if she knew that it was him for sure,” Heck said. “I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door.”\nHeck added: “She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite.”
(04/20/07 4:00am)
FALLUJAH, Iraq – Defense Secretary Robert Gates slipped into Iraq on Thursday to warn Iraqi leaders that the U.S. commitment to a military buildup there is not open-ended.\nGates said the political tumult in Washington over financing the military presence in Iraq shows that both the American public and the Bush administration are running out of patience with the war.\n“I’m sympathetic with some of the challenges that they face,” Gates said of the Iraqis during his surprise visit. But, he said, “the clock is ticking.”\nGates added, “Frankly I would like to see faster progress.”\nHe said that the Iraqis need to push through legislation on political reconciliation and sharing oil revenues. “It’s not that these laws are going to change the situation immediately, but I think ... the ability to get them done communicates a willingness to work together.”\nHe said that, in turn, would create an environment in which violence could be reduced.\nUnderscoring the urgency in controlling the violence, police said a suicide car bomber rammed into a fuel truck in central Baghdad only hours before Gates’ arrival, killing at least a dozen people. The attack came a day after one of the bloodiest days in Baghdad since the U.S. troop increase began nine weeks ago, with four strikes killing more than 230 people.\n“It is very important they make every effort to get this done as soon as possible,” Gates said, noting that an attack last week by a suicide bomber on a cafeteria at the Iraqi parliament inside the U.S.-guarded Green Zone made people particularly nervous.\nAfter landing in Baghdad, Gates flew by helicopter to Camp Fallujah, for a briefing by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Gen. Peter Pace, the Joint Chiefs chairman. Fallujah, where U.S. Marines make up the bulk of the U.S. force, is a stronghold for Sunni insurgents. But commanders there have been saying violence has dipped and they are optimistic about progress in western Iraq.\nGates, who stopped in Iraq on a trip through the Middle East, also planned to meet with Iraqi political leaders. His visit, the third to Iraq since taking over as defense secretary in December, came a day after Bush met with congressional leaders to discuss the impasse over legislation to provide funds for the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.\nGates said the White House has not asked him whether there is a compromise on a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq that the U.S. military could accept.\nThree of the five brigades ordered into Iraq by President Bush to stem Baghdad violence have arrived, bringing the U.S. forces in the country to 146,000. Officials want the rest in place by June, for a total of 160,000.\nSoon after that they plan to assess how much longer the higher troop level – about 30,000 more than before the buildup – will be needed.\nOfficials have struggled to find troops from within the stretched U.S. military to sustain the increase. Gates last week took the difficult step of lengthening tours of duty to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan to 15 months from a year.\nDuring an hourlong meeting Wednesday at the White House, the president told lawmakers directly he will not sign any bill that includes a timetable for troop withdrawal, and they made it clear Congress will send him one anyway.\n“We believe he must search his soul, his conscience and find out what is the right thing for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters after the session. “I believe signing this bill will do that.”\nBut White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, “It appears that they are determined to send a bill to the president that he won’t accept. They fundamentally disagree.”\nDemocrats hope to complete work on a House-Senate compromise in time to send it to the White House by the end of next week, with Bush’s veto a certainty.\nGiven the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, it appears unlikely the compromise will include a mandatory date for a complete withdrawal.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
WASHINGTON – His job in jeopardy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted Thursday he played only a small role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. Skeptical senators reacted with disbelief.\n“We have to evaluate whether you are really being forthright,” Sen. Arlen Specter bluntly informed the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.\nThe Pennsylvania Republican said Gonzales’ description was “significantly if not totally at variance with the facts.”\n“I don’t want to quarrel with you,” Gonzales replied after Specter asked again whether his was a fair, honest characterization.\nThe exchange punctuated a long morning in the witness chair for Gonzales, who told the committee there was no impropriety in last winter’s firings and the decision was “justified and should stand.”\nGonzales conceded that “reasonable people might disagree” with the decision. He said the process by which the U.S. attorneys were dismissed was “nowhere near as rigorous or structured as it should have been.”\nOffering an apology to the eight and their families, he also said he had “never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the American people” on that or any other matter.\nMajority Democrats, too, expressed skepticism at the attorney general’s testimony.\n“Since you apparently knew very little about the performance about the replaced United States attorneys, how can you testify that the judgment ought to stand?” asked Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.\nSen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Gonzales whether he had reviewed the evaluation records of the dismissed prosecutors, who Justice Department officials initially said had been fired for inadequate performance. He said he had not.\nGonzales sat alone at the witness table in a crowded hearing room for the widely anticipated hearing. There was no doubt about the stakes involved for a member of President Bush’s inner circle, under pressure to resign since the dismissal of the prosecutors spawned a scandal that has yet to subside.\n“The moment I believe I can no longer be effective I will resign as attorney general,” Gonzales said, after first making it clear he did not believe it had come to that.\nThe attorney general began his turn as a witness after a tongue-lashing from Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee’s chairman.\n“Today the Department of Justice is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history,” said the Vermont Democrat. “There’s a growing scandal swirling around the dismissal” of prosecutors, he added.\nSpecter offered no more comfort in his opening remarks.\nHe said the purpose of the hearing was to determine whether the committee believes that Gonzales should remain in office. “As I see it, you come to this hearing with a very heavy burden of proof,” Specter said as Gonzales listened intently, lips pursed, a few feet away.\n“This is not a game of gotcha,” said Specter. In a reflection of the stakes, he told the attorney general he faced the equivalent of a “reconfirmation hearing.”\nProtesters wearing orange garb and pink police costumes were among the spectators. The words “Arrest Gonzales” were duct-taped to their backs.\nGonzales has provided differing versions of the events surrounding the firings, first saying he had almost no involvement and then later acknowledging that his role was larger – but only after e-mails about meetings he attended were released by the Justice Department to House and Senate committees.\nRepublicans had urged Gonzales to be more assertive and answer the questions more specifically than he had in his prepared testimony.\n“If he just answers the questions, he’ll be fine,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said before Leahy gaveled the hearing to order.\nAt points, Gonzales spoke in careful, lawyerly terms.\n“I now understand there was a conversation with myself and the president,” he said at one point.\nAnd responding to Specter, he seemed to differentiate between the formal bureaucratic process that led to the dismissals and his own involvement.\nDemocrats have stoked the controversy over the dismissals, suggesting there were political considerations involved. But the first few hours of the hearing produced few if any fresh details.\nGonzales acknowledged speaking with Bush and White House adviser Karl Rove about complaints over election fraud cases in New Mexico, where David Iglesias was the U.S. attorney.\nThe conversation with Bush occurred on Oct. 11, Gonzales said. Iglesias’ name was added to the list of those to be fired between Oct. 17 and Nov. 15 – a week after the November elections.\nCritics allege that some of the eight fired were dismissed to interfere with ongoing corruption investigations in ways that might help Republicans. Gonzales strongly denies that, but Democrats have maintained that a stiff denial is insufficient without more details.
(04/20/07 4:00am)
A suicide bomber breached Baghdad’s heavy security presence again Thursday, killing a dozen people in a mostly Shiite district a day after more than 230 people died in one of the war’s deadliest episodes of violence. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the violence in Baghdad an “open battle” – nine weeks into a U.S.-led effort began to pacify the capital’s streets.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
BAGHDAD – Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people – the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago.\nLate Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel who was in charge of security in the area around the Sadriyah market where at least 127 people died and 148 were wounded in the deadliest bombing of the day.\nIt was the second massive blast at the market since Feb. 3.\nNationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday was 233, which was the second deadliest day in Iraq since The Associated Press began keeping records in May 2005. Five car bombings, mortar rounds and other attacks killed 281 people across Iraq on Nov. 23, 2006, according to the AP count.\nInterior Minister spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf declined to comment when asked about the staggering number of deaths Wednesday, directing an Associated Press reporter to Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the military spokesman. His phone was turned off.\nU.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the bombings “horrifying” and accused al-Qaida of being behind them.\nAmong the dead in the Sadriyah market bombing were several construction workers who had been rebuilding the mostly Shiite marketplace after the February bombing that killed 137 people, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.\nThe laborers typically finish work around 4 p.m. each day. One of those wounded, 28-year-old Salih Mustafa, said he was waiting for a minibus to head home when the blast went off at 4:05 p.m.\n“I rushed with others to give a hand and help the victims,” he said. “I saw three bodies in a wooden cart, and civilian cars were helping to transfer the victims. It was really a horrible scene.”\nThe market is situated on a side street lined with shops and vendors selling produce, meat and other staples. It is also about 500 yards from a Sunni shrine.\nAbout an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital’s biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.\nThe explosion killed at least 41 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 76, police and hospital officials said.\nBlack smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were in a jam of carsstopped at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled over twisted metal to drag victims from the smoldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.\nEarlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.\nThe fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the central Rusafi area, area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.\nU.S. officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown was launched Feb. 14. But the past week has seen several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Between his first and second bursts of gunfire, the Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package to NBC News containing what authorities said were images of him brandishing weapons and a video of him delivering a diatribe about getting even with rich people.\n“This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation. We’re in the process right now of attempting to analyze and evaluate its worth,” said Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police.\nNBC said that a time stamp on the package indicated the material was mailed in the two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire in a high-rise dormitory and the second fusillade, at a classroom building. Thirty-three people died in the rampage, including the gunman, 23-year-old student Cho Seung-Hui, who committed suicide.\nThe package included digital images of him holding weapons and a manifesto that “rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even,” according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the case.\n“NBC Nightly News” planned to show some of the material Wednesday night, MSNBC reported. NBC said it immediately turned the package over to authorities on Wednesday.\nIf the package was indeed mailed between the first attack and the second, that would help explain where Cho was and what he did during that two-hour window.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
WASHINGTON – President Bush and Democratic leaders of Congress failed Wednesday to reconcile key differences over a disputed war-funding bill. Both sides held their ground, with Bush ready to veto any measure that calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq.\nThe president met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Cabinet Room for about an hour. Democrats said afterward they would send the president legislation soon and held hopes that Bush would sign it. But the White House said that would not happen.\n“It appears that they are determined to send a bill to the president that he won’t accept,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. “They fundamentally disagree.”\nSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to pressure Bush to sign the legislation. “We believe he must search his soul, his conscience and find out what is the right thing for the American people,” Reid said, standing outside the White House. “I believe signing this bill will do that.”\n“It gives the troops more than he’s asked for and leaves the troops there for considerable periods of time with some goals and benchmarks that have been called for by the American people, the Iraq Study Group and many, many military,” Reid said.\nRepublicans followed Democrats to the microphones to say there was no hope Bush would sign a bill resembling the Democrats’ legislation.\nRepublicans began calling any troop withdrawal timeline a “surrender date.”\nHouse Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, asked if anything had changed as a result of the meeting, replied: “No.”\n“Except that people were polite, people were open, they were honest,” Boehner said. “And there’s a willingness to try to get through this first phase.” He was referring to Democrats’ sending Bush a bill that he will veto.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program are working. And they should get a chance to succeed, he added. Gates said many nations are “united in telling Iran what it needs to do with respect to its nuclear program.” The United States and its allies have led efforts to pass two U.N. Security Council resolutions punishing Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, which can develop nuclear weapons.
(04/17/07 4:00am)
BAGHDAD – Cabinet ministers loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resigned on Monday to protest the prime minister’s refusal to set a timetable for an American withdrawal, raising the prospect that the Mahdi Army militia could return to the streets of Baghdad.\nThe number of bodies found dumped in Baghdad increased sharply on Sunday to 30 – from as low as five in recent days – in a possible sign of the militia’s resurgence, even ahead of the six resignations.\nThe bodies, most of them tortured before they were shot execution-style, are widely believed to be the victims of Shiite death squads associated with the Mahdi Army. Al-Sadr had ordered his fighters hide their weapons and stay off the streets shortly before the U.S. troop surge and security crackdown began on Feb. 14.\nThe departure of the six ministers, while unlikely to topple Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, deals a significant blow to the U.S.-backed leader, who relied on support from the Sadrists to gain office.\nEarlier in the day, Nassar al-Rubaie, head of the Sadrist bloc, declared that the ministers would “give the six Cabinet seats to the government, with the hope that they will be given to independents who represent the will of the people.”\nThe White House said al-Sadr’s decision to pull out his ministers does not mean that al-Maliki loses his majority.\n“I’d remind you that Iraq’s system of government is a parliamentary democracy and it’s different from our system,” said spokeswoman Dana Perino. “So coalitions and those types of parliamentary democracies can come and go.”
(04/17/07 4:00am)
Hundreds of people were evacuated from flooded homes Monday as a fierce nor’easter drenched the Northeast with record rainfall. Nine deaths were blamed on the huge storm. Power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses was knocked out, and refrigerators and trucks floated downstream.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
BAGHDAD – Six bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite sections of the capital Sunday, killing at least 45 people in a renewal of sectarian carnage that set back the U.S. push to pacify Baghdad.\nNorth of Baghdad, two British helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision, killing two service members, U.K. officials said.\nThe U.S. military announced three U.S. troop deaths – two soldiers and a Marine killed in separate incidents.\nAnd in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, health officials raised the toll from a bombing Saturday close to one of the sect’s most sacred shrines, saying 47 people were killed and 224 wounded.\nTwin car bombs exploded minutes apart in the busy market of Baghdad’s Shurta Rabia neighborhood, a mostly Shiite area in the city’s west. The first blast went off at midmorning in front of a kebab restaurant. Five minutes later, another car exploded nearby as rescuers were evacuating victims. Many women and children were among the casualties, police said.\nShortly after noon, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus near a courthouse in the mainly Shiite northwest Baghdad neighborhood of al-Utafiyah, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, officials said.\nMany of the victims were severely burned, an official at the Khazimiyah Hospital said.\nAbout three hours later, a minibus rigged with explosives detonated on a busy street of electronics shops in the predominantly Shiite central Karradah district, killing 11 people and wounding 15, authorities said.\nThe owner of a glass shop said he saw a suspect park the bus at the roadside and leave.\n“It was an ordinary thing because usually bus drivers stop there waiting for passengers, so we didn’t suspect anything,” said the witness, who gave only his nickname, Abu Jassim.\n“Five minutes later, the bus blew up – damaging the surrounded area and burning more than eight civilian cars that were passing by,” he said.\nIn the same district after nightfall, two roadside bombs exploded within five minutes of each other, killing at least eight civilians and wounding 23, police said.\nSix shops and several cars parked nearby were damaged by the blasts, which occurred about 20 yards apart, police said.\nThe two British helicopters crashed after an apparent collision 12 miles north of Baghdad, killing two British personnel. Four other personnel were injured in the crash, one very seriously.\nU.K. Defense Secretary Des Browne said that initial reports suggested the crash was an accident.\n“Sadly, two personnel have died and one is very seriously injured. All of these were UK personnel. My thoughts and sympathy are with them and their families,” Browne said, adding that the next of kin had been informed.\nBritish forces, headquarters in the southern city of Basra, rarely fly missions north of Baghdad, where the helicopters crashed.\n“I can’t talk about the particular mission they were involved in, but we do have units operating as part of the coalition across Iraq,” a British defense ministry official said on condition of anonymity, in line with government policy.\nOne U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire Sunday while trying to reach an Iraqi police unit under attack near a mosque in southern Baghdad, the military said in a statement. One civilian was wounded in the incident.\nAnother soldier died Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded during a foot patrol south of Baghdad, the military said. A Marine died the same day in combat in Anbar province.\nMeanwhile, dozens of Iraqi policemen demonstrated in front of their Baghdad station Sunday, accusing U.S. forces of treating them like “animals” and “slaves.”\nThe protest took place at Rashad station in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Mashtal.\nOfficers chanted “No, no to America! Get out occupiers!” while U.S. troops in two humvees and a Bradley fighting vehicle watched from a distance.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
YALA, Sudan – Unidentified gunmen killed a Ghanaian military officer in the African Union’s peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and hijacked his car within yards of the AU mission’s headquarters, the AU said Sunday.\nThe officer was traveling alone in his vehicle when he was ambushed in the town of El Fasher late Saturday, AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.\nThe ambush took place hours after Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte visited the peacekeeper headquarters during his trip to push Sudan’s government to let U.N. troops reinforce the AU mission. He was in the capital, Khartoum, on Sunday to meet with Sudanese officials.\nThe dead officer was the seventh peacekeeper slain this month, raising to 18 the number of AU soldiers killed since the mission deployed in 2004 to try to stop a brutal conflict between ethnic Africans and Arabs. An AU officer also has been a hostage since December.\n“If this growing hostility continues, truly the mission will be compromised and we will have to take the necessary measures,” Mezni told The Associated Press.\nMezni and other AU officials said they did not know the identity of the gunmen, who struck on the outskirts of El Fasher, a government-controlled town in North Darfur. The 7,000-soldier AU mission has had its headquarters there since deploying to Darfur in 2004.\nMezni said more than 90 vehicles have been hijacked from the AU since the beginning of the mission.\n“The AU will not let itself be dragged into the conflict,” he said. “This cannot happen. ... We came here to protect civilians. If this is becoming impossible, we will take appropriate measures.”\nLast week, one soldier from Rwanda’s contingent in the AU mission was slain during a patrol in North Darfur and an AU car was stolen during the assault, which took place in a zone controlled by the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, the AU said. Two other Rwandans were wounded.\nEarlier this month, five Senegalese peacekeepers were killed in an ambush a day after the deputy commander of the AU force narrowly escaped being shot down in his helicopter as he flew to a meeting with rebels.\nMore than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of discrimination against Darfur’s ethnic Africans.\nThe International Criminal Court says the government retaliated by arming militias of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, and has listed 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes against a Sudanese Cabinet minister and a suspected janjaweed chief.\nSome rebels also have been accused of abuses. There are almost daily reports of vehicles being hijacked, aid workers assaulted and refugees harassed throughout Darfur, an arid regions nearly the size of Texas where many areas are off limits to the weakly armed AU peacekeepers.\nThe Sudanese government blocked a plan by the United Nations to replace them with a 22,000-strong U.N. force. But Sudan and the U.N. are now edging toward a compromise that would allow some 3,000 U.N. soldiers to deploy in Darfur as reinforcement to the AU force.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Club-swinging riot police clashed Sunday with opposition supporters as an anti-Kremlin protest dispersed in Russia’s second-largest city, chasing small groups of demonstrators, beating some on the ground and hauling them into police buses.\nIt was not immediately clear what sparked the violence after the rally, which city authorities had authorized and took place under a heavy police presence with at least one helicopter hovering above.\nAlthough city authorities gave permission for the rally in a square on the edge of central St. Petersburg, they had banned plans for the demonstrators to march afterwards to the city government headquarters.\nPolice trucks and helmeted officers blocked the planned march route. At the end of the 90-minute-long rally, organizers did not exhort them to conduct the banned march but suggested they go on their own to the city government building over the next few days. When the rally dispersed, most participants went to a nearby subway station, where clashes broke out.\nIn one, police chased a group that included Sergei Gulyayev, a member of the city legislature who had been arrested at a protest in March. Police grabbed some members of the group and pounded them in the head with nightsticks before putting them on buses; it was not immediately known if Gulyayev was among those taken away.\nIn another clash, police charged a group holding a banner professing love for the city.\nThe violence came a day after clashes at a similar opposition protest in Moscow, where police detained at least 170 people, sometimes with harsh force.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said Sunday it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program.\nAhmad Fayyazbakhsh, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in charge of power plants, said the plants would be light-water reactors, each with the capacity to generate up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity.\nEach plant would cost up to $1.7 billion and take up to 11 years to construct, he told reporters during a news conference at his office.\nThe country has been locked in a bitter funding dispute with Russia, which is building Iran’s first nuclear power plant near the southern city of Bushehr.\nRussia delayed the launch of the plant, which had been set for September, and refused to ship uranium fuel for the reactor last month as earlier planned, citing Iran’s payment arrears. Iranian officials denied any payment delays under the $1 billion contract, and accused Russia of caving in to Western pressure.\nIran is already building a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak, central Iran, based on domestic technology. It is also preparing to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in southwestern Iran.\nFayyazbakhsh said the two new plants would be built near Bushehr. He also said he planned to travel to Russia next week to try to ease tensions and get the first Bushehr plant back on track.\nThe bids for the two plants, which will expire in early August, have been published on the nuclear organization’s Web site. Iran has already negotiated with several foreign companies that have expressed interest in the new project, Fayyazbakhsh said. He declined to name the companies.\nUnder Iranian law, the nuclear organization has been tasked with providing 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants during the next 20 years.\nThe U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons – a charge Iran denies.\nIran has insisted it has a right to develop enrichment and has pushed ahead with the process at a separate facility outside the central town of Natanz.\nThe U.N. Security Council last month voted to impose new sanctions on Iran as part of a second set of penalties in three months against Tehran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
Airlines canceled 300 flights Sunday as a hard-blowing nor’easter gathered strength along the East Coast and threatened to deliver some of the worst shore flooding in 14 years. The storm, already blamed for five deaths on the Plains, also flooded people out of their homes in the middle of the night in West Virginia.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A previously unknown Palestinian group said Sunday it had killed a British journalist kidnapped over a month ago by gunmen in Gaza City, but the claim could not be confirmed.\nIn a statement sent to news organizations, “The brigades of Tawheed and Jihad” said it killed BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, 42, to support demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. However, the BBC and the Palestinian government both said there was no evidence to back up the claim.\n“The BBC is aware of these reports,” the organization said in a statement. “But we have no independent verification of them.”\nThe group claiming to have killed him is unknown in Gaza, but the name has been used elsewhere in the Middle East by organizations linked to al-Qaida.\n“This party that issued the statement about the so-called killing is unknown to the security services,” Palestinian Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh told a news conference in Gaza City. “There is no information to confirm the killing of Johnston until now.”\nJohnston, from Scotland, was snatched at gunpoint in Gaza City on March 12. Since then there had been no demands from his captors or any word on his condition.\nHe has been missing longer than any other foreigner kidnapped in Gaza. The only foreign reporter still based in Gaza, he was snatched just weeks before he was scheduled to end his three-year stint there. Other news organizations withdrew their foreign-born reporters because of the deteriorating security situation there.\nMore than a dozen foreign journalists and aid workers have been abducted by gunmen in Gaza in the past 18 months, often in a bid by Palestinian militants to get money or jobs. Most have been released without major physical injury within hours or days. An exception was the abduction of two Fox News employees in August, who were held for two weeks before they were freed.
(04/16/07 4:00am)
JERUSALEM – The Vatican’s ambassador to Israel will attend a Holocaust memorial service at the Yad Vashem museum, reversing an earlier decision to boycott the event, officials said Sunday.\nVatican officials had said they would skip the Sunday event because of a caption at the Holocaust museum describing the wartime conduct of Pope Pius XII.\nOfficials from Yad Vashem, the Vatican’s Embassy and the Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed Sunday that the ambassador, Monsignor Antonio Franco, would attend.\nThe caption next to the picture of Pius reads, “even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the pope did not protest.”\nPius “maintained his neutral position” with two exceptions, the caption says, criticizing “his silence and absence of guidelines.” The exceptions were appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia toward the end of the war.\nThe boycott had threatened to upset fragile relations between Israel and the Vatican.\nThe memorial service is traditionally attended by all foreign ambassadors to Israel or their representatives. Yad Vashem had said this would mark the first case in which a foreign emissary deliberately skipped the ceremony.\nThe disputed photo caption first appeared in 2005, when Yad Vashem opened its new museum. Shortly after, the previous Vatican ambassador asked that the caption be changed.
(04/12/07 4:00am)
In 2003, Fountains of Wayne hit it big with the ultracatchy MILF anthem, "Stacie's Mom," transforming them from indie pop darlings into one-hit wonders. Now four years later, FOW put out their follow-up to Welcome Interstate Managers and their fourth album in their 11-year career, Traffic and Weather. The worldwide exposure the band has experienced has had no affect on their sound, sticking to their throwback power pop routine. While Traffic may not provide another mega hit, it is a likeable album from a band that has worked for more than a decade perfecting their pop. \nTraffic and Weather opens up with the undeniable disco of "Someone to Love," then slides nicely into the road-friendly "92 Subaru" and "Yolanda Hayes," which includes great horn and guitar interplay in its intermission. Distinguished moments like this keep the album from becoming mundane and repetitive. Another instance of a nice change is in the form of "Fire in the Canyon," a churning country tune that is Traffic's fifth track and highest peak. There is not a drop off after this point either. Strong tracks throughout the rest of Traffic keep the ball rolling, like the sly "Strapped For Cash" and the hopeful "Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim." In addition, the album closer, "Seatbacks and Tray Tables," which is reminiscent of Billy Joel, serves as a nice finish to the album.\nLyrically, Traffic and Weather covers all kind of strange and often humorous love stories. Adam Schlesinger writes mostly about breakups, covering everything from anchormen to potheads. He even throws in some very strange references. In "I-95," he references Barney DVDs and Guns N' Roses album covers seamlessly in the same sentence. While these oddball stories and references may not carry much weight, they do fit well into their brand of indie pop, as Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood do a great job making these odd tales into bright melodies.\nWhile Traffic is not a far cry from previous FOW albums, it is a decent effort for the pop veterans. One shortcoming is that the album lacks longevity, losing its luster after a few lessons. While there are better pop albums this year, like Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You A Destroyer?, there is no denying Fountains of Wayne have an eye for making good pop music and did so in Traffic and Weather.
(04/12/07 4:00am)
A Hundred Miles Or More is an odds and sods collection of songs that Alison Krauss has contributed to soundtracks, duets from other artists' albums and five previously unreleased tracks -- thus, the fact it's inconsistent is a given. Indeed, the only real constant is the sheer loveliness of Krauss' voice -- sweet and smooth and unpretentious, it elevates every song (even those that don't deserve it). Well, her voice, and that most of the tunes are incredibly depressing. To steal a Futurama joke: "Is there anything sadder? Only drowning puppies -- and there'd have to be a lot of them." So, what tracks should you buy from your favorite (legal) download service and what should you leave behind?\nThe finest moments are Krauss' famous a cappella version of the traditional hymn "Down To The River to Pray," from the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, and "The Scarlet Tide," from the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack. The former, if you haven't heard it already, builds from the ringing sincerity of Krauss' lone voice into a gospel choir of … well, heavenly beauty. The latter, a subtle, stripped-down anti-war ballad penned by Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett, is absolutely heart-wrenching. \nOther highlights include haunting Celt-inflected story ballads "Jacob's Dream" and "Molly Ban (Bawn)" (both reminiscent of Loreena McKennitt), pop-country tune "Simple Love" and torch-song "You're Just a Country Boy." Decent, but not great, are entertainingly over-the-top country weeper "Whiskey Lullaby" (with Brad Paisley), bluegrass standard "Sawing on the Strings" and "Baby Mine" (a cover of the song from Disney's "Dumbo").\nHowever, avoid "Missing You" at all cost. A duet with John Waite, covering Waite's 1984 classic radio staple, it sounds like karaoke despite Krauss' talents, and is the turd in Hundred Miles' crystal punch bowl. Krauss' other duet with Waite, a cover of country-legend Don Williams' "Lay Down Beside Me," is better but still rather pedestrian -- as is fellow slow-dance shuffle "Away Down The River," duet with James Taylor "How's The World Treating You," "I Give You His Heart" (from the "Prince of Egypt" soundtrack) and piano ballad "Get Me Through December." Meanwhile, all Krauss' efforts can't save "You Will Be My Ain True Love," another "Cold Mountain" track, this time written by Sting, which demonstrates why English-teachers-turned-rockers-turned-medieval-revivalists shouldn't try to write Irish folk-songs.\nIn sum: Don't get the whole thing unless you're a Krauss completist. But it does beat drowning puppies.
(04/12/07 4:00am)
The muscle behind Culture Shock
