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(04/10/08 3:37am)
American Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights Wednesday, more than one-third of its schedule, as it spent a second straight day inspecting the wiring on some of its jets – the same issue that caused it to scrub hundreds of flights two weeks ago. The nation’s biggest airline had already canceled 460 flights on Tuesday, stranding thousands of travelers. Federal inspectors found problems with wiring work done two weeks ago, although the airline says passenger safety was never jeopardized. Airline officials said the flights would have averaged more than 100 passengers, meaning that more than 100,000 travelers could have been left scrambling to book new flights.
(04/10/08 3:36am)
WASHINGTON – The top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Wednesday that he is unlikely to call for another troop buildup in Iraq, even if security deteriorates after the extra American soldiers return home this summer.\nGen. David Petraeus told a House panel that such a move would be considered the last resort, in part because of the strain it would place on the Army. First, the military could try to reallocate existing troops to respond to any hotspots. It also would rely more on Iraqi forces, which are improving in capability, he said.\n“That would be a pretty remote thought in my mind,” he said of reinstating last year’s influx of troops.\nPetraeus has recommended to President Bush that the U.S. complete, by the end of July, the withdrawal of the 20,000 troops that were sent to Iraq last year to calm the violence there. Beyond that, the general proposed a 45-day evaluation period, to be followed by an indefinite period of assessment before he would recommend any further pullouts.\n“We think it makes sense to have some time to let the dust settle, perhaps to do some adjustment of forces, re-evaluation,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.\nBush is to address the nation on his decision about troop levels in Iraq at 11:30 a.m. EDT Thursday from the Cross Hall of the White House. Aides signaled – as the president has for weeks – that he would likely embrace Petraeus’ recommendations. White House press secretary Dana Perino also said it is “within the realm of possibility” that Bush would discuss the length of soldiers’ tours of duty in Iraq. She wouldn’t be specific, citing the ongoing testimony and Bush’s meeting Wednesday afternoon with congressional leaders.\n“I think the president has gotten a lot of advice,” she said. “I think he’s pretty far down the path of what he’s going to say tomorrow.”\nWednesday’s hearing marked the second day of testimony by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq. Both described Iraq as a fragile state and warned that hard-fought security gains could slip if troops leave too soon.\nDemocrats said pausing troop reductions would signal to the Iraqis that the United States was committed to the war indefinitely.\n“Political reconciliation hasn’t happened, and violence has leveled off and may be creeping back up,” said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House committee. “So how can we encourage, if not force, the intransigent political leaders of Iraq to forge a real nation out of their base sectarian instincts?”\nRepublicans were considerably more optimistic about the situation in Iraq than last year.\n“No one can deny that the security situation in Iraq has improved,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the No. 1 Republican on the committee.\nWhen pressed by Skelton, the four-star general said he can envision more troops leaving after July.\n“I can foresee the reduction beyond the 15” Army brigades that will be left behind in Iraq this summer, he said. \nBut like Tuesday, he refused to give senators any kind of timetable: “The question is at what pace that will take place,” he said.\nPetraeus said the health of U.S. ground forces was a “major strategic consideration” in his recommendation and will continue to be a factor in his assessments. The Bush administration is expected to announce this week that combat tours will be reduced from the current 15 months to 12 months, regardless of the 45-day pause in troop withdrawals.\n“I am keenly aware of the strain,” Petraeus said. Having been deployed himself since 2001, “this is something that my family and I do know a great deal about personally.”
(04/07/08 4:52am)
Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces battled Shiite fighters in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood in clashes that killed 22 people and wounded dozens despite a cease-fire between the government and the militia, officials said Sunday. To the north, police said gunmen seized 42 students off a bus near the city of Mosul – al-Qaida’s last major urban stronghold – but later released them unharmed. The U.S. military said that fighting broke out overnight in Sadr City, a stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militants. Officials at two local hospitals said 22 people were killed and 92 wounded.
(04/07/08 4:51am)
HARARE, Zimbabwe – President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party demanded a vote recount and a further delay in the release of presidential election results, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported, prompting outrage from the opposition party.\nMeanwhile, militant supporters of the ruling party invaded eight of the few remaining white-owned commercial farms, the farmers reported, another sign Mugabe plans to use violence to stay in power.\nAt least four cattle ranchers were driven off their land, and equipment and livestock were seized, the farmers said.\n“I’ve got one farmer and his wife with two young children, and people banging on windows, ululating and beating drums and telling them to vacate the farm,” in northern Centenary, Hendrik Olivier, the head of the Commercial Farmers’ Union told The Associated Press.\nHe said police had persuaded militants to leave six farms in southeast Zimbabwe, but others invaded two farms in Centenary.\nThe opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which claims its leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the March 29 presidential ballot outright, said it would not accept a recount, did not want a runoff and pressed ahead with legal attempts to force publication of the results.\n“How do you have a vote recount for a result that has not been announced? That is ridiculous,” said opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa.\nHe accused the ruling ZANU-PF party of vote fraud, saying that police have told opposition leaders that the ruling party has been tampering with ballots since early last week.\n“These claims are totally unfounded and they are only meant to justify ZANU-PF’s rigging,” he said.\nThe ruling party cited “errors and miscalculations in the compilation of the poll result” and asked the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to defer announcement of the presidential election results because of the “anomalies,” the Sunday Mail reported.\nThe report came a day after Tsvangirai called on Mugabe to step down and accused the 84-year-old longtime ruler of plotting a campaign of violence to bolster his chances of winning an expected runoff.\nEight days after the election, the commission has yet to announce the results. Unofficial tallies by independent monitors show Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe –but fewer than the 50 percent plus one vote required to avoid a runoff.\nThe high court heard testimony Sunday afternoon from opposition party lawyers who lodged an urgent petition demanding publication of the election results. Reporters were not admitted to the court hearing. Armed police prevented opposition lawyers from entering the court on Saturday but there was no police presence Sunday.\nOpposition party lawyer Andrew Makoni said the high court judge would rule Monday on the petition.\nThe Movement for Democratic Change maintained its resistance to a runoff.\n“We are not going to accept the so-called runoff. It is going to be a ‘run-over’ of Zimbabwe. People are going to be killed,” Chamisa said. “We are not so naive a leadership to lead our people to slaughter.”
(04/07/08 4:50am)
WASHINGTON – Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey – and government auditors are investigating, citing past spending abuses.\nAll told, VA staff charged $2.6 billion to their government credit cards.\nThe Associated Press, through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained the VA list of 3.1 million purchases made in the 2007 budget year. The list offers a detailed look into the everyday spending at the government’s second largest department.\nBy and large, it reveals few outward signs of questionable spending, with hundreds of purchases at prosthetic, orthopedic and other medical supply stores.\nBut there are multiple charges that have caught the eye of government investigators.\nAt least 13 purchases totaling $8,471 were charged at Sharper Image, a specialty store featuring high-tech electronics and gizmos such as robotic barking dogs. In addition, 19 charges worth $1,999.56 were made at Franklin Covey, which sells leather totes and planners geared toward corporate executives.\nGovernment reports in 2004 said these two companies, by virtue of the types of products they market, would “more likely be selling unauthorized or personal-use items” to federal employees.\nMany of the 14,000 VA employees with credit cards, who work at headquarters in Washington and at medical centers around the nation, also spent tens of thousands of dollars at Wyndham hotels in places such as San Diego, Orlando, Fla., and on the riverfront in Little Rock, Ark. One-time charges ranged up to $8,000.\nOn at least six occasions, employees based at VA headquarters made credit card charges at Las Vegas casino hotels totaling $26,198.\nVA spokesman Matt Smith said the department was reviewing these and other purchases as part of its routine oversight of employee spending. He noted that many of the purchases at Sharper Image and other stores included clocks for low-vision veterans, humidifiers, air purifiers, alarm devices and basic planner products.
(04/07/08 4:50am)
PHILADELPHIA - Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are hustling for the youth vote in Pennsylvania as if they’ve never heard this is a state where the old hold sway.\nCampuses in the cities and mountainsides are alive with political activism, stirred most notably by Obama in student registration drives aimed at replicating his success with young voters dating to the Iowa caucus in January.\nHow motivated are his youthful supporters? So motivated that Alyssa Beasley, 20, endured an encounter with the DMV so she could switch her driver’s license from New Jersey and register to vote at the same time.\nAnd how high are their expectations? In Beasley’s case, very.\n“I feel like my entire hope and dream for America lies on this man’s shoulders,” she said on the tree-lined campus of the Jesuit-run University of Scranton.\nThat heady courtship is matched by a vigorous effort on Clinton’s side. Altogether, the April 22 primary is becoming more of a can’t-miss event for the young instead of just another why-bother one on the political calendar.\nDoug Jones, 19, got so caught up in the excitement that he registered as a Democrat to vote for Clinton, even though he’ll probably vote Republican in the fall.\n“I’m not doing it out of sneaky and scheming motives to down the Democratic nominee,” said the University of Scranton student. “I’d like to take part in the process.”\nPennsylvania ranks third in the nation in the percentage of people 65 and older, a group that has favored Clinton elsewhere and appears strong for her here.\nObama is counting on a big showing from the state’s nearly 700,000 college students on more than 150 campuses.\nThe Illinois senator has received the support of about 60 percent of voters aged 18-24 in competitive states, exit polls indicate, and his advantage with that group doesn’t appear to be waning in Pennsylvania.\nThe question is whether that will be enough to prevail in a state where polls have found Clinton consistently ahead, if by shrinking margins.\n“We have a long way to go in Pennsylvania and maximizing the votes of young voters is critical if we’re going to be able to close the gap,” said Sean Smith, an Obama spokesman.\nPennsylvania makes voting easy for students from other states because it only requires 30 days residency to register. However, no one who voted in an earlier primary elsewhere can vote again here.\nMia Prensky, 21, of Harrisburg, said Obama supporters have been on her campus at Bryn Mawr Colleg – a women’s school with stone buildings nestled in Philadelphia’s wealthy Main Line – handing out stickers, distributing information about the Iraq war and encouraging students to vote. They struck a chord with her.\n“I still don’t really like the fact that Hillary voted for the war,” she said.\nIn Philadelphia, where more than 100,000 college students live, Obama volunteers with voter registration forms in hand have been on campuses and at train stations around Philadelphia’s bustling University City district, encouraging their peers to register.\nAmong them was Seth Dean, 23, a University of Pennsylvania student who said he decided in January to register as a Democrat in Pennsylvania. At home in Florida, he was a registered independent.\n“I kind of thought from the beginning it was going to be kind of a long, drawn-out fight and it might come down to Pennsylvania, so I just made a tactical decision,” Dean said.\nAside from Obama’s strong base among black voters, young voters are probably his strongest group, said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center.\n“I cannot recall another candidate in the past couple of decades that had such consistent support from young people,” Keeter said.\nA recent Quinnipiac University poll found Obama leading Clinton 51 percent to 42 percent among likely Democratic voters ages 18-44 in Pennsylvania, but trailing nine points overall.
(04/07/08 4:48am)
SOCHI, Russia – President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to overcome sharp differences over a U.S. missile defense system, closing their seven-year relationship Sunday still far apart on an issue that has separated them from the beginning.\n“Our fundamental attitude toward the American plan has not changed,” Putin said at a news conference with Bush at his vacation house at this Black Sea resort. “We got a lot of way to go,” Bush said. \nDespite the impasse, the two leaders agreed that Moscow and Washington would work together closely in the future on missile defense and other difficult issues.\nBush also conferred with Putin’s hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, but did not claim gaining any insight into his soul, as he had with Putin upon their first encounter. He pronounced Putin’s protege “a straightforward fellow” and said he was eager to work with him.\nPutin was asked whether he – or Medvedev, the president-elect – would be in charge of Russia’s foreign policy after May 7, when Putin steps down as president and is expected to be named prime minister.\nPutin said Medvedev would be in charge, and would represent Russia at the Group of Eight meeting of industrial democracies in July in Tokyo. “Mr. Medvedev has been one of the co-authors of Russia’s foreign policy,” Putin said. “He’s completely on top of things.”\nNational Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, when asked later whether he thought Putin actually was going to cede authority on Russian foreign policy to Medvedev, said, “My guess is that these two men who have worked very closely together for now almost two decades will have a very collaborative relationship. That seems to be a good thing, not a bad thing.”\nHadley, who spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One on the way home to Washington, also said he didn’t see any prospect of a breakthrough on missile defense before Bush leaves office next January. “They can leave that to their prospective successors,” he said.\nAt their 28th and presumably final meeting as heads of state, Bush and Putin sought to emphasize their good personal relations, praising each other extensively. But they also both acknowledged remaining strong disagreements, principally missile defense and NATO’s eastward expansion.\nRussia remains adamantly opposed to the expansion of the alliance into its backyard, an enlargement that Bush has actively championed over Putin’s vocal objections.\nThe Sochi meeting came just days after NATO leaders agreed at a summit in Romania to invite Albania and Croatia to join the alliance. However, the alliance rebuffed U.S. attempts to begin the process of inviting Ukraine and Georgia, both former Soviet republics, to join, although their eventual admission seems likely.\nPutin called the U.S. missile plan – which envisions basing tracking radar sites in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland – the hardest of US-Russian differences to reconcile. “This is not about language. This is not about diplomatic phrasing or wording. This is about the substance of the issue,” he said.\nBush reiterated his insistence that the plan – designed to intercept and destroy approaching ballistic missiles at high altitudes – should not be viewed as a threat to Russia. In a clear reference to Iran, he said the system would help protect Europe from “regimes that could try to hold us hostage.”\n“I view this as defensive, not offense,” Bush said. “And, obviously, we’ve got a lot of work to convince the experts this defense system is not aimed at Russia.”
(04/03/08 4:05am)
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland but couldn’t survive a scandal over his collection of cash from businessmen, announced Wednesday he will resign. Ahern said at a surprise news conference he would step down May 6 after 11 years as Ireland’s leader. He denied ever receiving a corrupt payment but conceded that 18 months of growing criticism of his financial ethics had taken a toll on the effectiveness of his government.
(04/03/08 4:04am)
HAVANA - Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.\nCombined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.\nAnalysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.\n“Cuban people can’t survive on the salaries people are paying them. Average men and women have been screaming that at the top of their lungs for many years,” said Felix Masud-Piloto, director of the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. “Now after many years, the government is listening.”\nMany of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn. But that didn’t stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.\n“They should have done this a long time ago,” one man said as he left a store with a red and silver electric motorbike that cost $814. The Chinese-made bikes can be charged with an electric cord and had been barred for general sale because officials feared a strain on the power grid.\nOn Monday, the Tourism Ministry announced that any Cuban with enough money can now stay in luxury hotels and rent cars, doing away with restrictions that made ordinary people feel like second-class citizens. And last week, Cuba said citizens will be able to get cell phones legally in their own names, a luxury long reserved for the lucky few.\nThe land initiative, however, potentially could put more food on the table of all Cubans and bring in hard currency from exports of tobacco, coffee and other products, providing the cash inflows needed to spur a new consumer economy.\nGovernment television said 51 percent of arable land is underused or fallow, and officials are transferring some of it to individual farmers and associations representing small, private producers. According to official figures, cooperatives already control 35 percent of arable land – and produce 60 percent of the island’s agricultural output.\n“Everyone who wants to produce tobacco will be given land to produce tobacco, and it will be the same with coffee,” said Orlando Lugo, president of Cuba’s national farmers association.\nThe change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba’s revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the significance of program, which began last year but was announced only this week.\n“If this means all land that’s not being used, like for private farmers, cooperatives and state farms, is available, that’s positive,” said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert at the University of Pittsburgh. “Assuming, of course, they have the freedom to sow and sell whatever they want.”\nLines formed before the doors opened at the Galerias Paseos shopping center on Havana’s famed seaside Malecon Boulevard, and shoppers wasted little time once inside. But there was no sign yet of computers and microwaves, highly anticipated items that clerks across Havana insisted would appear soon on store shelves, with desktop computers retailing for around $650.\nCuba’s communist system was founded on promoting social and economic equality, but that doesn’t mean Cubans can’t have DVD players, said Mercedes Orta, who rushed to gawk at the new products.\n“Socialism has nothing to do with living comfortably,” she said.
(04/02/08 4:38am)
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Advisers of President Robert Mugabe and his chief rival are discussing the possibility of Zimbabwe’s longtime leader relinquishing power, a businessman close to the electoral commission and a lawyer close to the opposition told The Associated Press on Tuesday.\nThe businessman said Mugabe has been told he is far behind Morgan Tsvangirai in preliminary results of Saturday’s presidential elections and that there could be an uprising if Mugabe were declared the winner. The lawyer said advisers to both men were discussing a “transitional arrangement.”\nBoth spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.\nThe secretary-general of Tsvangirai’s party, Tendai Biti, dismissed the reports, saying “It’s rubbish” before hanging up.\nHowever, Martin Rupiya, a military analyst at South Africa’s Institute for Strategic Studies and a former lieutenant-colonel in the Zimbabwe army, said he had heard of the military’s involvement in negotiations for Mugabe to step down.\nThe election outcome “has compelled the military, the hawkish wing and the other moderate, to begin to reconsider accommodating the opposition,” he said. “Because of the nature of the wins they have been forced to reassess.”\nIndependent observers say trends indicate Tsvangirai won the most votes in the presidential race, but not enough to avoid a runoff – a prospect that could be humiliating to the 84-year-old president.\nNo returns from the presidential vote have been made public, fueling fears of rigging. Mugabe has been accused of stealing past elections, though that was before Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed and leading members of his own party openly defied him.\nThe businessman said Zimbabwe’s security chiefs have told the Electoral Commission to issue results portraying a close race, to prevent celebrations that could ignite violence.\nThe commission has released results for 142 of the 210 parliamentary seats – giving Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change 72 seats, including five for a breakaway faction, and 70 for Mugabe’s party.\nJohn Makumbe, a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe, said he had learned from military sources that they would honor the results of the elections. The security chiefs last week warned they would not serve anybody but Mugabe and would not tolerate an opposition victory.\nTsvangirai on Tuesday postponed his first public statement since the elections until later in the day. His spokesman, George Shibotshiwe, said that was because the opposition party had received “a tremendous breakthrough in the numbers coming in” from the elections.\nThe opposition already has claimed victory in the elections based on results posted outside polling stations, including in several rural strongholds of Mugabe. The initiative to display the results on voting station doors was part of an agreement between the parties negotiated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, and could make it more difficult to cheat.\nThe European Union said it wants Mugabe to step down to spare his nation political turmoil.\n“If Mr. Mugabe continues, there will be a coup d’etat,” said Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitri Rupel, whose country holds the EU presidency. He said he hoped Mugabe “is on his way out.”\nBritish Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the immediate release of election results.\n“Results should be published immediately and the elections must be seen to be fair,” Brown told reporters in London. “It’s very important that the democratic rights of the Zimbabwe people be respected and upheld and recognized.”\nThe Netherlands hailed the possibility of an opposition victory.\n“I get the impression that the Zimbabweans have voted for change and democratic forces have the upper hand,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen. “Now, finally, the people of Zimbabwe have the prospect of a better life.”\nTsvangirai has vowed not to entertain an alliance with Mugabe but has said previously that he is ready to negotiate an exit package for Zimbabwe’s ruler for 28 years. He also has said that Mugabe should be tried for human rights abuses, possibly in an international court.\nIt appeared Mugabe was persuaded into talks by the possibility of a runoff presidential race, which the businessman said he would find too demeaning.\nThe Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of 38 Zimbabwe civil society organizations, said its random representative sample of polling stations showed Tsvangirai won just over 49 percent of the vote and Mugabe 42 percent. Simba Makoni, a former Mugabe loyalist, trailed at about 8 percent.\nA presidential candidate needs at least 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff.
(03/31/08 3:46am)
A declaration Sunday by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to pull his Mahdi Army fighters off the streets may help bring an end to the wave of violence that swept Baghdad and Shiite areas after the government launched a crackdown against militias in Basra. That will ease the violence which has claimed more than 300 lives. And it could leave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki politically weakened because he put his prestige on the line with promises to crush Basra’s “criminal gangs,” some of which he said were “worse than al-Qaida.”
(03/31/08 3:45am)
WASHINGTON – Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have diagnosed the swooning U.S. economy and have come up with rival plans to revive it. If the downturn lasts as long as some economists predict, one of the three will get a chance to try to sell his or her proposal to Congress as president.\nOr if the economy hits bottom before Inauguration Day and then turns up, the victor may be handed a rare gift: the chance to begin a presidency presiding over the early stages of a rebound.\nTake your pick. Who knows where the economy will be in nine and a half months?\nAs economic clouds darkened last week, all three candidates delivered major speeches on the economy while the Bush administration prepared a plan to give the Federal Reserve new regulatory powers over the financial system.\nDemocrats Clinton and Obama outlined competing $30 billion stimulus packages to help homeowners facing foreclosure and other victims of the financial crisis. This would be on top of the $168 billion stimulus package of rebates and temporary tax cuts passed by Congress last month and signed by President Bush. Both Clinton and Obama also called for broader financial regulation.\nRepublican McCain advocated voluntary action by lenders, more transparency in the lending process and the convening of a national conference of accountants and mortgage lenders to review how real estate is valued. He opposed large, taxpayer-financed bailouts but backed cuts in corporate tax rates and making permanent expiring Bush tax cuts.\nThe two Democrats are calling for a more activist role for the U.S. government to protect individuals. McCain is echoing standard GOP dogma of protecting markets and opposing bailouts.\nAll three praised recent intervention by the Fed and the Treasury Department to calm the financial storm, including sharp Fed interest rate cuts and a $29 billion rescue plan for investment giant Bear Stearns.\nSince all three are members of the U.S. Senate, they can influence congressional action now. But political reality being what it is, their time for impact – \nat least for one of them – probably lies in the future, not \nthe present.\nAnd there already is a welter of antirecessionary proposals pending in Congress – including major bills by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to let the government step in and back up to $400 billion in troubled loans. Both Clinton and Obama have endorsed \nthis legislation.\nEconomic statistics last week painted a bleak picture, reflecting continuing housing, credit and financial woes.\nThe Commerce Department reported the gross domestic product increased at an anemic 0.6 percent annual rate from October through December, and that consumer spending slowed to a crawl last month, edging up just 0.1 percent for the poorest showing in 17 months.\nConsumers – whose spending traditionally accounts for about two-thirds of the overall economy – have been reeling under the credit crisis, job cuts and soaring energy costs. Many – if not most – economists say the country already is in \na recession.\n“It’s clear the economy is in a slowdown,” said Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He said the slowdown “has been sharper than I had expected” and that “the recovery in growth I had expected in the second half of this year may \nbe delayed.”\nPolls show an interesting disconnect, however.\nA recent survey by the Pew Research Center showed that only 11 percent of those questioned said the U.S. economy was in “good or excellent” shape. But when asked about their own finances, 47 percent said they were “good \nto excellent.”\nAn AP-Ipsos poll in February produced similar results – with only 14 percent saying their personal finances were in poor shape but 61 percent agreeing the U.S. was in \na recession.
(03/27/08 4:33am)
WASHINGTON – Russia has failed to shoot down the Bush administration’s missile defense ambitions. But the high-priced project – a derivative of the “Star Wars” plan that President Reagan unveiled 25 years ago this week – still faces hostile political forces at home and abroad.\nThe aim of developing a missile shield is at the core of President Bush’s defense policy, although the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, showed that an enemy does not need rocket science to penetrate U.S. defenses.\nAfter high-level meetings in Moscow last week, the Russians remained opposed to the newest twist in U.S. missile defense – extending the network of missile interceptors and radars to central Europe. But there also were strong signs that Moscow is now resigned to living with it on its doorstep.\nOn Wednesday Bush announced he had accepted an invitation to meet with President Vladimir Putin in Russia next week, after Bush attends a NATO summit in Romania, to further discuss missile defense.\n“Hopefully we could advance our dialogue so that at some point in time we could reach agreement on this important matter,” Bush said.\nThis week a Russian delegation is in Washington to hold follow-up talks with officials from the Pentagon and State Department – a further indication that Moscow is taking a less confrontational approach. On Wednesday the State Department said those talks are expected to continue on Thursday.\nLess clear are answers to other key questions: Will the next U.S. president keep the project on track? And, if the system eventually is completed, will it work in the event of a real attack by long-range missiles?\nOf the three leading presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain is a clear supporter of missile defense. He has described it as critical to protection of the United States from adversaries like North Korea and Iran, and as a “hedge against potential threats” from Russia and China.\nSen. Barack Obama has spoken skeptically of missile defense as developed during the Bush administration, saying it requires much more vigorous testing to ensure that it would work and be cost-effective. He has not said he would stop the planned European sites, but he has questioned the timing.\n“If we can responsibly deploy missile defenses that would protect us and our allies, we should – but only when the system works,” Obama said last summer.\nSen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has questioned the technological progress.\n“Senator Clinton has expressed concern about the Bush administration’s expenditure of billions of dollars on an unproven ballistic missile defense system that has not been adequately tested or proven to work,” said Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines.\nHistory has shown that a change of administrations in Washington can have a profound effect on missile defense. Reagan’s speech outlining the strategy came on March 23, 1983. When President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 his first defense secretary, Les Aspin, quickly dismantled the program, declaring that he was taking the “star” out of “Star Wars.”
(03/27/08 4:26am)
MADRID, Spain – A small piece of jawbone unearthed in a cave in Spain is the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor in Europe and suggests that people lived on the continent much earlier than previously believed, scientists say.\nThe researchers said the fossil found last year at Atapuerca in northern Spain, along with stone tools and animal bones, is up to 1.3 million years old. That would be 500,000 years older than remains from a 1997 find that prompted the naming of a new species: Homo antecessor, or Pioneer Man, possibly a common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern humans.\nThe new find appears to be from the same species, researchers said.\nA team co-led by Eudald Carbonell, director of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleo-Ecology and Social Evolution, reported its find in Thursday’s issue of the scientific journal Nature.\nThe timing of the earliest occupation of Europe by humans that emerged from Africa has been controversial for many years.\nSome archeologists believe the process was a stop-and-go one in which species of hominins – a group that includes the extinct relatives of modern humans – emerged and died out quickly only to be replaced by others, making for a very slow spread across the continent, Carbonell said in an interview.\nUntil now the oldest hominin fossils found in Europe were the Homo antecessor ones, also found at Atapuerca, but at a separate digging site, and a skull from Ceprano in Italy.\nCarbonell’s team has tentatively classified the new fossil as representing an earlier example of Homo antecessor. And, critically, the team says the new one also bears similarities to much-older fossils dug up since 1983 in the Caucasus at a place called Dmanisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. These were dated as being up to 1.8 million years old.\n“This leads us to a very important, very interesting conclusion,” Carbonell said. It is this: that hominins which emerged from Africa and settled in the Caucasus eventually evolved into Homo antecessor, and that the latter populated Europe not 800,000 years ago, but at least 1.3 million years ago.\n“This discovery of a 1.3 million-year-old fossil shows the process was accelerated and continuous; that the occupation of Europe happened very early and much faster than we had thought,” Carbonell said.\nChris Stringer, a leading researcher in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London and not involved in the project, said Carbonell’s team had done solid dating work to estimate the antiquity of the new Atapuerca fossil by employing three separate techniques – some researchers only use one or two – including a relatively new one that measures radioactive decay \nof sediments.\n“This is a well-dated site, as much as any site that age can be,” Stringer said.\nCarbonell says that with the finding of human fossils 1.3 million years old in Europe, researchers can now expect to find older ones, even up to 1.8 million years old, in other parts of the continent.
(03/27/08 4:25am)
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed Republican presidential rival John McCain on Wednesday for what he called a “sit back and watch” approach to the economic troubles gripping the nation.\nBack campaigning after a brief family vacation in the Caribbean, the presidential candidate focused on the housing crisis that has rocked Wall Street and the economic downturn that has forced the Federal Reserve to intervene. And after days of sniping with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, Obama turned his attention to McCain.\nOn Tuesday, McCain derided government intervention to save and reward banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly and offered few immediate alternatives for fixing the country’s growing housing crisis.\n“John McCain has admitted he doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should, and yesterday he proved it in giving a speech on the housing crisis,” Obama told an auditorium of supporters.\nObama pointed out that McCain “said the best way for us to address the fact that millions of Americans are losing their homes is to just sit back and watch it happen. In his entire speech yesterday, he offered not one policy, not one idea, not one bit of relief to the nearly 35,000 North Carolinians who are forced to foreclose on their dreams in the last three months.”\nNorth Carolina holds its primary May 6 with 115 delegates at stake.\n“John McCain may call helping struggling homeowners pandering, but I don’t think the families in North Carolina who are losing their homes would see it that way,” said Obama, who is due to give what aides are billing as a major economic speech Thursday in New York.\nIn response, McCain said he clearly is in favor of doing more for homeowners.\n“I’ll do whatever’s necessary to help the homeowner, the legitimate homeowner, and we may have to do more,” McCain told reporters in California. “But raise taxes as Senator Obama wants to do or some kind of massive bailout that is a needless expenditure of taxpayer dollars is obviously something that I don’t support.”\nIn California on Tuesday, McCain said he wants to leave the door open to an array of proposals to address the problems and seemed to suggest he might even be open to solutions that stray from the GOP line.\n“I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis,” he said, adding he would evaluate all proposals. “I will not allow dogma to override commonsense.”\nBut the small-government advocate and four-term Arizona senator also put restrictions on how far he was willing to go, saying: “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”\nIn Greensboro, Obama used a question about his Christianity to again address the incendiary comments made by his former Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright.\n“We can’t afford to be distracted ... every time somebody somewhere says something stupid that everybody gets up in arms and we forget about the war in Iraq and we forget about the economy,” Obama said.\nMany in the crowd Wednesday were college students, in a town where students once played a defining role in U.S. history. In 1960, a year before Obama was born, black students staged sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter at a Woolworth’s five-and-dime in downtown Greensboro, an act of civil disobedience that spread throughout the South.
(03/27/08 4:23am)
President Bush called China’s President Hu Jintao on Wednesday and raised concerns about the crackdown in Tibet, joining a growing chorus of international protests about Beijing’s tough tactics. The White House said Bush encouraged Hu to engage in “substantive dialogue” with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. The president also called on China to allow access for journalists and diplomats in Tibet.
(03/27/08 4:23am)
LOS ANGELES – Republican John McCain on Wednesday called for the United States to work more collegially with democratic allies and live up to its duties as a world leader, drawing a sharp contrast to the past eight years under President Bush.\n“Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed,” the likely presidential nominee said in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. “We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies.” \nComing days after his trip to the Middle East and Europe, McCain’s speech was intended to signal to leaders abroad – and voters at home – that he would end an era of what critics have called Bush’s cowboy diplomacy. McCain never mentioned Bush’s name, though he evoked former Democratic Presidents Truman and Kennedy.\nIt was, in effect, a fresh acknowledgment from the Arizona senator that the United States’ standing on the world stage has been tarnished and that the country has an image problem under Bush. Critics at home and abroad have accused Bush of employing a go-it-alone foreign policy in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when the administration spurned internatiwonal calls for caution and led the invasion into Iraq.\n“The United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone,” McCain said, noting that the United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War or other conflicts in its history. Instead, he said, the country must lead by attracting others to its cause, demonstrating the virtues of freedom and democracy, defending the rules of an international civilized society and creating new international institutions.\nHe renewed his call for creating a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared values and defend shared interests, and said the United States must set an example for other democracies.\n“If we lead by shouldering our international responsibilities and pointing the way to a better and safer future for humanity ... it will strengthen us to confront the transcendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” said the four-term senator and member of the Armed Services Committee.\n“Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House, for he or she does not take seriously enough the first and most basic duty a president has – to protect the lives of the American people,” McCain added, suggesting that neither of his Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, understand the stakes at hand.\nDemocrats, in turn, chastised McCain as offering the same policies as Bush – even though McCain’s foreign policy pitch stood in contrast to Bush’s sometimes unilateral approach.\n“John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of George Bush’s failed policies,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.\nMcCain also staked out anew his position on Iraq, staunchly defending his support for a continued U.S. military mission as the war enters its sixth year and the U.S. death toll tops 4,000. He derided calls for withdrawal from Clinton and Obama.\nRecalling his father’s four-year absence after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his grandfather’s death a day after returning from war, and his own imprisonment in Vietnam, McCain said: “I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.”\nWithout naming them, McCain said both Democratic candidates “are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date.”
(03/20/08 3:48am)
Iraq’s presidential council approved a law Wednesday that paves the way for provincial elections, giving a major boost to U.S.-backed efforts to promote national reconciliation on the fifth anniversary of the war. The move came two days after Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad to press Iraqi leaders to overcome their differences and take advantage of a lull in violence to make political progress. Many Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 election in which Iraqis chose a parliament and provincial councils. The vote ushered in representational government, but it also gave majority Shiites and minority Kurds the bulk of power, including at the provincial level.
(03/20/08 3:47am)
WASHINGTON – Five years after launching the invasion of Iraq, President Bush strongly signaled Wednesday that he won’t order troop withdrawals beyond those already planned because he refuses to “jeopardize the hard-fought gains” of the past year.\nAs anti-war activists demonstrated around downtown Washington, the president spoke at the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of a war that has cost nearly 4,000 U.S. lives and roughly $500 billion. The president’s address was part of a series of events the White House planned around the anniversary and next month’s report from the top U.S. figures in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. That report will be the basis for Bush’s first troop-level decision in seven months.\n“The battle in Iraq has been longer and harder and more costly than we anticipated,” Bush said.\nBut, he added, before an audience of Pentagon brass, soldiers and diplomats: “The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory.”\nDemocrats took issue with Bush’s stay-the-course suggestion.\n“With the war in Iraq entering its sixth year, Americans are rightly concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “Democrats will continue to push for an end to the war in Iraq and increased oversight of that war.”\nBush repeatedly and directly linked the Iraq fight to the global battle against the al-Qaida terror network. And he made some of his most expansive claims of success. He said the increase of 30,000 troops that he ordered to Iraq last year has turned “the situation in Iraq around.” He also said that “Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out.”\n“The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,” the president said. “We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.”\nBush appeared to be referring to recent cooperation by local Iraqis with the U.S. military against the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown, though foreign-led, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely – \nor even whether – the group is connected to the international al-Qaida network. As for bin Laden, he is rarely heard from and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.\nThe U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year’s increase.\nBush, who has successfully defied efforts by the Democratic-led Congress to force larger and faster withdrawals, said they could unravel recent progress. \n“Having come so far and achieved so much, we are not going to let this happen,” he said.\nHe criticized those who “still call for retreat” in the face of what he called undeniable successes.\n“The challenge in the period ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists’ defeat,” he said. “We have learned through hard experience what happens when we pull our forces back too fast – the terrorists and extremists step in, fill the vacuum, establish safe havens and use them to spread chaos and carnage.”\nThis sort of cautionary rhetoric is consistent with all the president’s recent statements about Iraq.\nIt has been widely believed for weeks that Bush will endorse an expected recommendation from Petraeus next month for no additional troop reductions, beyond those already scheduled, until at least September. This so-called pause in drawdowns would be designed to assess the impact of this round before allowing more.\nThe surge was meant to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq so that the country’s leaders would have time to advance legislation considered key to reconciliation between rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. But the gains on the battlefield have not been matched by dramatic political progress, and violence again may be increasing.\nWith just 10 months before he hands off the war to a new president, Bush is concerned about his legacy on Iraq.\nBoth Democratic candidates have said they would begin withdrawing forces quickly if elected. Only expected GOP nominee John McCain has indicated he planned to continue Bush’s strategy of bringing troops home only as conditions warrant.
(02/25/08 4:59am)
BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber struck Shiite pilgrims as they were resting Sunday during a days-long walk to a Shiite shrine, killing at least 40 people and wounding 60.\nThe attack in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, was the second of the day against pilgrims traveling to the holy city of Karbala. The pilgrimage marks Arbaeen, the 40th day following the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, one of two revered Shiite figures buried there.\nThe suicide bomber detonated at a tent where pilgrims stop to eat and drink, police said.\nAt least 40 people were killed and 60 were wounded, the U.S. military said.\n“The blast devastated the entire tent,” which was up by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Dawa political party, local official Saleh al-Massoudi said.\nIraqi police and U.S. troops quickly responded to the attack, which occurred on a two-lane highway outside a residential area south of Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. It said about 42,000 pilgrims had previously traveled through the area without incident.\nEarlier, extremists attacked another group of pilgrims with guns and grenades in the predominantly Sunni Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three and wounding 36,\n police said.\nThe attacks heightened tension around Arbaeen, when millions of pilgrims descend on Karbala, about 50 miles south of the capital.\nEarlier in the day, a steady stream of pilgrims – some carrying green, black or red banners – walked along a highway out of Baghdad en route to the shrine. Among them were many families, including black-robed women and children.\nIn Karbala itself, crowds already choked the streets though the culmination of event is Wednesday. Four million pilgrims were already in the city as of a couple of days ago, police said.\nPolice Chief Raid Shakir Jawdat has said 40,000 police officers and military troops are being deployed during this period because Shiite holidays have frequently been targeted by suspected Sunni insurgents.\nFor example, a parked car loaded with explosives was discovered and put out of action near Karbala, one of several potential attacks that have already been averted, \nJawdat said.\nFour million pilgrims were already in the city as of a couple of days ago, he said.\nElsewhere, extremists targeted U.S. patrols in two separate attacks in northern Baghdad, one of which killed a soldier and wounded three other troops and a civilian, the military said, without naming the victims. The second bombing wounded three soldiers, the military said.\nAn explosion also struck a minibus carrying electricity department workers in the northwestern city of Mosul on Sunday, killing two and wounding three, police said.\nIn Hawija, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, a parked car bomb went off Sunday morning next to a patrol of Sunni tribesmen who aligned with U.S. forces to fight al-Qaida in Iraq, police said. One civilian bystander was killed and 10 people were wounded, including seven tribesmen, police Brig. Sarhad Qadir said.\nPolice released new details about a suicide bomb attack Saturday that killed the leader of one Awakening Council in Saqlawiyah, a town in Anbar province 45 miles west of Baghdad. A group of gunmen first opened fire on a checkpoint, killing one police officer. Then three of the attackers armed with explosives belts stormed the checkpoint, two blowing themselves up and killing Sheik Ibrahim Mutayri al-Mohamaday. The other was killed.\nPolice said the two attackers were brothers from the area, and an Associated Press photographer on the scene said that their remains were identified by their father.