Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Kenya’s rival politicians have reached an agreement. Annan offered no immediate details on the deal Thursday. His announcement comes after weeks of talks between negotiators for President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga about sharing power. The two sides both claim to have won the country’s Dec. 27 presidential election, a dispute that has sparked deadly violence nationwide.
An Israeli air strike killed four Palestinian youths Thursday in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical officials said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Health Ministry official, said all the victims were civilians under the age of 16. The incident raised the death toll in Thursday’s fighting to 12 Palestinians, officials said. The Israeli army was looking into the report.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed to millions of Shiite Muslims Thursday to reconcile their differences and boost the country’s fragile political process in a speech marking a major religious holiday. The Iraqi leader, who is Shiite, painted a somewhat rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, saying the country had achieved stability and overcome sectarian strife, although he acknowledged the persistent violence in northern Iraq. “National reconciliation efforts have succeeded in Iraq and the Iraqis have once again become loving brothers,” he said in a speech broadcast live on television.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to raise $35 million in February, a campaign official said Thursday, a figure rival Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign said it would surpass. The $35 million would be Clinton’s biggest fundraising mark yet and represents a remarkable recovery for her campaign. Obama’s campaign reacted promptly, promising an even higher number, but divulging no totals. “We’ve raised considerably more than that,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the nation is “not anywhere near” the dangerous stagflation situation that prevailed in the 1970s. With the economy slowing and inflation rising, fears have grown that the country could be headed for the dreaded twin evils of stagnant growth and rising prices known as “stagflation.” “I don’t anticipate stagflation,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked for a grand jury investigation into whether White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress. Pelosi is demanding that misdemeanor charges be pursued against Miers for refusing to testify to Congress about the 2006 firings of federal prosecutors, and against Bolten for failing to turn over White House documents related to the purge. Her demands were spelled out in letters sent Thursday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor, whose office would oversee the grand jury.
