Mediator Kofi Annan said he has suspended talks between Kenya’s government and the opposition to end the country’s deadly postelection crisis. The talks have dragged on for weeks with no tangible progress. Annan said he will speak to the rival leaders personally to try to rejuvenate them.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got a verbal assurance Tuesday from China to use its influence to help jump-start the stalled process of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programs. Yet it was unclear when or how the Chinese would follow through. In broad discussions with Chinese officials, Rice also won an agreement from China to resume an on-again, off-again human rights dialogue with the U.S. and she pleased her Chinese hosts by restating firm U.S. opposition to a Taiwanese referendum on United Nations entry that has infuriated Beijing.
The Marine Corps has asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to examine allegations that a nearly two-year delay in the fielding of blast-resistant vehicles led to hundreds of combat casualties in Iraq. The system for rapidly shipping needed gear to troops on the front lines has been examined by auditors before and continues to improve, Col. David Lapan, a Marine Corps spokesman, said Monday night. Because of the seriousness of the allegations, however, “the Marine Corps has taken the additional step” of requesting the investigation by the inspector general, Lapan said.
President Bush predicted Monday that voters will replace him with a Republican president who will “keep up the fight” in Iraq. “I’m confident we’ll hold the White House in 2008,” Bush told donors at the Republican Governor’s Association annual dinner, which raised a record $10.6 million for GOP gubernatorial candidates. “And I don’t want the next Republican president to be lonely,” Bush said. “And that is why we got to take the House, retake the Senate, and make sure our states are governed by Republican governors.”
Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday to face charges alleging he arranged the marriages of two teenage girls to older men. He has already been convicted in Utah in connection with an arranged marriage involving a 14-year-old girl. Jeffs, 52, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is scheduled to appear in court to enter a plea Wednesday in Kingman, in northwestern Arizona.
Florida’s largest utility says equipment failure and a fire at a Miami substation led to power outages that affected up to 3 million people. Florida Power & Light is still trying to determine what caused the failure and fire. The company said such equipment failure should not have caused the widespread blackouts. Officials with the company said about 20,000 people remained without power by 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Most of those were because of outages caused by storms.
