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(03/05/07 5:00am)
JALALABAD, Afghanistan – A U.S. Marine convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber and militant ambush Sunday on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, and witnesses said that as the Americans sped away, they opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians. As many as 10 people were killed and 35 were wounded.\nThe American military said it was unclear who was responsible for the casualties, but more than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately as they drove away along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan’s busiest highways – a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles.\nA suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said.\nThe Americans treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar.\n“They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway,” said Tur Gul, 38, who was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. “They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot.”\nLt. Col. David Accetta, a U.S. military spokesman, said officials were still sorting out the chain of events and could not yet say who caused the numerous deaths and injuries.\nThe tolls varied widely. The Interior Ministry said 10 people were killed; the provincial health chief, Ajmel Pardus, said eight died.\nThe U.S. military said eight civilians were killed and 35 wounded, after earlier saying 16 were killed and 24 wounded. It did not explain the revised, lower death toll, saying only that the new figures were “the most accurate numbers to date.” A U.S. soldier was also injured. The incident was under investigation, the military said.
(03/05/07 5:00am)
A man suspected of killing and dismembering his wife was captured Sunday as he fled from searchers through the snow in a wooded area of northern Michigan, police said.
(03/02/07 5:00am)
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration filed charges Thursday against David Hicks, an Australian suspected of aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan and the first terrorism-war era detainee to be charged under the new law for military commissions.\nThe decision was made even though officials of Australia already had asked the United States not to bring such charges. Australia has been a steadfast ally to the Bush administration in its war on terrorism.\nHicks, whose case has drawn international attention, is a former kangaroo skinner captured in Afghanistan in December 2001. He has been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than five years without trial.\nHicks is being charged with “providing material support for terrorism.” He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, according to a Defense Department announcement.\nDespite a recommendation by military prosecutors that he also be charged with attempted murder for battling coalition forces in Afghanistan, officials decided to drop that charge.\nHicks would have a trial in a special military tribunal, established in a law that Congress passed last year, rather than a civilian court. Opponents have vowed to challenge the constitutionality of the military tribunal proceedings.\nAn earlier formulation of such military tribunals was declared unconstitutional last year by the Supreme Court.\n“This is an important milestone for military commissions,” said Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.\nHicks was among 10 detainees who had been charged with crimes under the earlier law that the court struck down. Then, he had been charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.\nLast month, military prosecutors recommended that Hicks be charged with attempted murder and providing support for terrorism.\nOn Thursday, Susan Crawford, the head of the military commissions, formally charged Hicks only with providing material support for terrorism. The military offered no immediate explanation of why the attempted murder charge was dropped.\nThe military eventually hopes to charge 60 to 80 of the Guantanamo detainees – none of whom have ever gone to trial.\nHicks’ legal status has been a sore spot for Australia. Last month, nearly half the members of Australia’s Parliament signed a letter to the U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating him.\nThe topic was also discussed last month in a meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and Australian Prime Minister John Howard when Cheney visited Australia. Under growing public pressure, and with elections due later this year, Howard has begun pushing U.S. officials to deal with Hicks’ case more quickly.\n“Our sole concern is about the passage of time and the bedrock principle of our legal system ... that people should not be held indefinitely without trial,” Howard told reporters.\nIn the fall, Congress passed a law that outlined the rules for trying terrorism suspects; the system is intended to protect classified information and provides detainees with fewer rights than civilian or military courts.\nOnce formal charges are filed, a timetable requires preliminary hearings within 30 days and the start of a jury trial within 120 days at Guantanamo Bay, where nearly 400 men are held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.\n–Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this story.
(03/02/07 5:00am)
WASHINGTON – Democrats are considering cutting President Bush’s budget $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year by $20 billion, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Thursday.\nThe war funding cut would affect the budget year beginning Oct. 1 and is separate from the ongoing debate over Bush’s $100 billion request for immediate supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.\nThe North Dakota Democrat said he likely will use Congressional Budget Office estimates – instead of the administration’s February budget request – as the basis for estimating Iraq and Afghanistan war costs.\nThe administration asked for $141.7 billion for Fiscal 2008, but assumes only $50 billion for 2009 and no war funding after that.\nCBO issued an estimate last month that forecasts 2008 costs of $120 billion for Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and military aid for the armies of those two countries. The estimates would drop to $75 billion in 2009 and to $40 billion in 2010.\nConrad is following a CBO scenario under which the number of troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are reduced to 30,000 by 2010.\nBut over the full five-year window, Conrad said Democrats would actually provide $85 billion more in war funds than Bush requested since he assumes a continued troop presence from 2010 to 2012.\n“We are going to provide actually more funding , because we think the president’s budget has understated the war costs over the five-year period,” Conrad said.\nHe added that the congressional budget resolution he is drafting for debate later this month will provide Bush’s request for a $49 billion boost in the core Pentagon budget.\nConrad said a final decision has not been made whether to impose the $20 billion cut.\nThe annual congressional budget blueprint sets guidelines but is not binding, and the actual war budget will be set under a fiscal 2008 defense spending bill that will advance later this year.\nDeputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England told the budget panel that the administration’s $142 billion 2008 war request is the Pentagon’s best estimate but that it “could go up or down” depending on how well the war goes.\nThe nearly four-year-old war in Iraq has thus far been financed primarily through emergency spending bills, to growing criticism from lawmakers who say it should be part of the long-term budget. Last month’s Bush budget submission represented the first time the administration offered a detailed war funding request so far in advance.
(03/02/07 5:00am)
North Korea’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, reiterated Thursday his country’s pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons, as the impoverished nation sought a resumption of aid at its first high-level talks with South Korea since conducting an atomic test.
(02/22/07 5:00am)
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong cops n' robbers caper, "Infernal Affairs," Martin Scorsese's taut, unnerving "The Departed" is not only his best work since "Goodfellas" (count me among the hundreds to toss off that little nugget), it's the best American film in years. On the surface, there's the story of two men living their lives undercover -- one in the Boston mob and another in the city's police department. Dig even half an inch deeper, though, and it's a parable of modern manhood rooted firmly in the haywire society in which we live. Transcending the source material with an assurance and level of craftsmanship rarely gifted to audiences, Scorsese, screenwriter William Monahan and an impressive stable of actors create a film that, despite an overly symbolic parting shot, is as near to perfection as modern cinema gets.\nThe director works with a dream cast here, and while that can be a detriment to some movies, "The Departed" draws every ounce of talent from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin, displaying it all in dizzyingly enjoyable fashion. DiCaprio and Damon both give career-best performances as moles planted in the Irish mob and police department, respectively, and Nicholson is joyously over-the-top as Frank Costello, summoning a loopy, depraved madness that commands attention like none of his characters since The Joker.\nThe striking Vera Farmiga also impresses as DiCaprio's psychologist and Damon's girlfriend, transforming the warmth of her early scenes into the iciness of a Hitchcock blonde in the film's final act. Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin are effective in tense and pivotal small roles, but it is Mark Wahlberg, in his first piece of remarkable acting since "Boogie Nights," that makes the most of his supporting role. All of these actors benefit exponentially from Monahan's searing screenplay, but a lesser cast could only have been damaging.\nA single-disc version of the film is available, but most anyone who saw "The Departed" in theaters is likely (and wise) to pick up the two-disc edition. There's no Scorsese commentary, but we get the excellent 90-minute Turner Classic Movies special, "Scorsese on Scorsese," which follows his career path linearly from 1967's "Who's That Knocking At My Door" to 2004's "The Aviator." Also included are nine fully produced deleted scenes with extended director introductions and two engaging documentaries -- one concerning the real mob man on whom Nicholson's character is based and another on how the culture of criminality that Scorsese was raised around has influenced his films.\nScorsese employs every facet of his art to its most extreme aesthetic affect in "The Departed," from the flawlessly cued soundtrack and insistent pacing to the purposefully jarring editing and intrinsic brutality that penetrates lives of his characters. We haven't seen a true master working at this level since Spielberg and "Saving Private Ryan," and it's a polished product not to be missed by anyone who considers themself even a casual fan of the cinematic arts. Yes, the violence is often extreme, and yes, most of the characters are inherently sociopathic, but Scorsese is an artist who paints with fresh blood and battered psyches. "The Departed" is his minor masterpiece.
(02/22/07 5:00am)
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the most underappreciated film of 2006: "Marie Antoinette." Those supposed people who booed the film during its Cannes premiere are idiots.\n"Marie Antoinette" (played by Kirsten Dunst) is a great relief from the overdramatic crop of biopics that come along these days. It's even hard to call it a biopic. "Antoinette" doesn't focus on the political ups and downs of France's most notorious queen, rather it uses the character as a device to tell the story of an imprisoned young girl struggling to live in her trapped world (cough, a young Sofia Coppola in Hollywood after being slammed for "The Godfather: Part III," cough). This technique does something most biopics fail to achieve. Because there aren't constant meltdowns, it feels as if we're actually peering into a day in the life of Antoinette. And what an interesting life it is. At age 14, young Marie is married off to Louis XVI (a perfectly awkward Jason Schwartzman) and expected to immediately produce an heir. When she constantly feels out of place and is ignored by her husband, Marie does the smart thing by going numb and becoming France's biggest socialite. This is the best issue of US Weekly you'll ever read.\nWhich brings us to the eye candy. I can't think of any film that's more visually appealing than "Marie Antoinette." Milena Canonero better take home the Oscar for costume design this Sunday and it's amazing that Laurence Azouvy and the rest of the makeup department wasn't even nominated. While the film was shot on location in Versailles, the crew was forced to supply its own furniture (the set is fantastic thanks to decorator Véronique Melery). Viewing all the intricate details will leave you in a wonderful state of tranquility.\nCoppola uses an eclectic supporting cast rather than having everyone speak in French accents. Many performances such as those from Rip Torn (as Louis XV), Marianne Faithfull (as Marie's mother) and Judy Davis (as Comtesse de Noailles) deserved Oscar attention but weren't substantial enough.\nThe film is scored with a mixture of the obligatory classical music and more contemporary indie rock such as The Strokes, Bow Wow Wow and Adam and the Ants. This adds even more to the sensual experience.\nBecause politics are hardly ever mentioned, it is a bit awkward when villagers finally storm the castle, demanding Antoinette's head. This is easily fixed with the film's final image. Rather than showing Antoinette sent to the guillotine, Coppola uses a simple shot of a broken door, table turned over and slightly destroyed room to represent the end of an era.\nSpecial features include a making-of feature following Coppola (who really has no personality, but dad/executive producer Frances Ford Coppola shows up), a hilarious "MTV Cribz" spoof touring Versailles, two deleted scenes and two trailers (which were the best of the year.)\nRent the movie, take a bath, put on some pajamas, wrap yourself in a blanket, pour a glass of wine and lounge in luxury just like Antoinette.
(02/22/07 5:00am)
I really wish John was still alive. Not only because he's one of the best songwriters of all time but also for all the love and peace he would be spreading in the world. After acing the Beatles class, watching the seven-disc Beatles anthology and reading a Lennon biography, I thought I knew the full story of John's life, but I learned lots of new information from this well-put together documentary that puts music on the backburner and focuses on his drive for peace in the '70s.\nA quote from Yoko on the back of the DVD reads, "Of all the documentaries that have been made about John, this is the one he would have loved." She's right. The documentary focuses on the part of John's life that he was most proud of: his post-Beatles years, where he spent his time obsessed with Yoko and writing protest songs for peace. While most would find him a humanitarian as he was singing songs like "Give Peace a Chance," the Nixon administration felt Lennon threatened their administration, had him closely monitored and tried to deport him. \nIt's true with most movies, but it's especially true that most documentaries live and die on the editing table. This one flourishes thanks to a delicate mix of archive footage of protests like John and Yoko's bed-in for peace and his anti-war demonstrations coupled with numerous compelling interview subjects. \n We mostly get Yoko's perspective, but there are at least a dozen other, mostly worthwhile interviews from FBI agents to former activists. Strong additions include Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers and Walter Cronkite, the legendary news anchor who tells the interesting story of how he was the one who set the Beatles up with Ed Sullivan. \n While the focus of the documentary is the attempted deportation of Lennon, we are treated to a number of his solo work and Beatles songs, though sadly no other Beatles are interviewed. "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" are featured as his big protest songs, but viewers still get his biography section interlaced with personal solo songs like "Mother" and "Oh Yoko." \nThe features include a number of extra interviews that are basically outtakes. "Dissent" is quite interesting and features numerous people drawing parallels between Vietnam and Iraq and illustrates the dangers of the Patriot Act and how against it John would be. \nIn an absolute must-see feature, which is sadly placed last, Yoko Ono fights back tears as she reads a deeply emotional letter she wrote to the parole board to ensure that the man who killed John stays in prison. I was wiping tears from my eyes as she poignantly expressed what John meant to her, their son Sean and the world. For anyone who loves John, Yoko paints a riveting picture of what John would be doing with his life now, how full of life he was at his death and what a truly unique, wonderful man he was, even if he had never written a song.
(02/21/07 5:00am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide bomber struck a funeral in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least seven people as militants show increasing defiance to a major security operation in the capital.\nThe attacker, wearing a belt packed with explosives, followed a funeral procession into a tent before detonating the blast in a mostly Shiite district of eastern Baghdad, police said. At least 15 people were injured.\nIn other bloodshed across Baghdad, a car bomb and a suicide attacker killed at least 11 people. About 12 miles outside the capital, a truck carrying chlorine gas ran over a roadside bomb. Two people died in the explosion and nearly 150 exposed to the fumes were treated for injuries, said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, a military spokesman.\nMore than 100 people have been killed in the Baghdad area since Sunday in a direct challenge to efforts by U.S. and Iraqi forces to restore some authority on the streets and give the embattled government some breathing room.\nThe first attacks came during the busy morning rush for goods and fuel. A car rigged with explosives tore through a line of cars at a gas station in the Sadiyah district in southwestern Baghdad. Police said at least six people were killed and 14 injured in the neighborhood, which is mixed between the majority Shiites and Sunnis whose militant factions are blamed for many of the recent bombings and attacks.\nLater, a suicide attacker drove a bomb-laden car into a vegetable market near a Shiite enclave in southern Baghdad. At least five people were killed and seven injured, police said. The same market in the mostly Sunni Dora district was targeted last month by three car bombs that killed 10 people.\nOn Monday, insurgents staged a bold daylight assault against a U.S. combat post north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and injuring 17. The U.S. military called it a “coordinated attack” – which began with a suicide car bombing and then gunfire on soldiers pinned down in a former Iraqi police station, where fuel storage tanks were set ablaze by the blast.\nThe head-on attack in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, was notable for both its tactics and target. Sunni insurgents have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower.\nIt also appeared to fit a pattern emerging among the suspected Sunni militants: trying to hit U.S. forces harder outside the capital rather than confront them on the streets during a massive American-led security operation.\nMohammed al-Askari, spokesman for Iraq’s Defense Ministry, blamed the attack on a cell of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for many high-profile strikes. “It’s their work,” he said. \nAltogether, nine U.S. service members have been reported killed since the beginning of the weekend, six of them on Monday.
(02/21/07 5:00am)
WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that foreign-born prisoners seized as potential terrorists and held in Guantanamo Bay may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a key victory for President Bush’s anti-terrorism plan.\nThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding the prisoners – a decision that will strip court access for hundreds of detainees with cases currently pending.\n“The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress,” wrote Judge A. Raymond Randolph in the 25-page opinion, which was joined by Judge David B. Sentelle. Both are Republican appointees to the federal bench.\nBarring federal court access was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system run by the Defense Department to prosecute terrorism suspects.\nAttorneys for the detainees immediately said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration’s original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.\n“We’re disappointed,” said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The bottom line is that according to two of the federal judges, the president can do whatever he wants without any legal limitations as long as he does it offshore.”\nA spokesman for the Justice Department praised the decision.\n“The decision reaffirms the validity of the framework that Congress established in the MCA permitting Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention” through military hearings coordinated by the Defense Department, said spokesman Erik Ablin.\nUnder the commissions act, the government may indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as “enemy combatants” and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.
(02/21/07 5:00am)
Language skills and culture background are the aspects President Bush instructed the nation’s new spy chief to focus on when finding more recruits to collect information on al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
(02/20/07 5:00am)
DEWANA, India – Two bombs exploded on a train headed from India to Pakistan, sparking a fire that swept through two coaches and killed 66 people in an attack that officials said Monday was aimed at undermining the peace process between the rivals.\nWitnesses described a scene of horror as panic-stricken passengers were trapped in one of the burning cars even after the train stopped, just before midnight Sunday in a rural area in northern India. The screams of the victims filled the night, then were drowned out by the roar of the flames.\nMost of the dead were Pakistani, said Railway Minister Laloo Prasad. Dozens were injured.\nAuthorities searching undamaged train cars said they found two suitcases packed with crude, unexploded bombs and bottles of gasoline, apparently similar to the devices that had exploded.\n“This is an act of sabotage,” Prasad said. “This is an attempt to derail the improving relationship between India and Pakistan.”\nA Home Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said no suspects had been ruled out – from Kashmiri separatists to Hindu extremists.\nThe attack came two days before Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri was to arrive Tuesday in New Delhi for talks, and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said both countries should move forward with peace efforts.\n“We will not allow elements which want to sabotage the ongoing peace process and succeed in their nefarious designs,” Musharraf was quoted as saying by state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.\nKasuri said on CNN-IBN television that the attack was a “terrible act of terrorism,” adding that “the peace process must go on with greater vigor and greater determination.”\nThe fire engulfed two coaches of the Samjhauta Express, one of two train links between India and Pakistan, just before it reached the village of Dewana, about 50 miles north of New Delhi, said Babu Lal, a railway worker who heard the explosions that sparked the flames. The blaze spread quickly as the train kept moving.\nThe driver of the train apparently had no idea what was going on.\n“I saw flames leaping out of the windows,” said Vinod Kumar Gupta, the assistant manager in the Dewana station, and he ran to pull the signal ordering the train to stop.\nThe train – which normally races through this region at about 55 to 60 mph – took another five minutes to halt in nearby countryside, Kumar said.\nAs on most Indian trains, the windows of many cars are barred for security reasons, sealing in many victims, and officials said at least one door was fused shut by the intense heat.\n“We couldn’t save anyone,” said Rajinder Prasad, a laborer living near the tracks who raced with his neighbors to the fire, scooping water from a reservoir and throwing it at flames that shot high above the carriages. “They were screaming inside, but no one could get out.”\nEventually, he said, the screaming stopped.\n“From the less-damaged coach, some people were seen jumping out with their bodies on fire,” Bharti Arora, superintendent of the Haryana state railway police, told reporters.\nBut in the rear car, where flames were more intense, few escaped.\nSome people remained alive in the burning cars for nearly half an hour after the first explosion, said Rakesh Gautam, a reporter with the Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Jagran, one of the first people to arrive at the scene. “Inside you could see trapped people trying to break windows, but after a while the train got so hot that the efforts stopped,” he said.\nFire engines arrived about 45 minutes later, but it was another two hours until the flames were extinguished.\nArora put the death toll at 66. At least 30 passengers were hospitalized, officials said, with a dozen critically injured people brought to New Delhi.\nThe train was traveling from New Delhi to Atari, the last station before the Pakistan border. At Atari, passengers switch to a Pakistani train that takes them to Lahore, Pakistan.
(02/20/07 5:00am)
GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. – Three climbers stranded on Mount Hood after a fall were rescued Monday after spending the night amid ferocious winds and blowing snow.\n“Their condition is very good at this time,” Russell Gubele, coordinating communications for the rescue operation, told CNN.\n“They were located in the area where their mountain locator units suggested that they were, and we finally got some of our rescuers down there to them,” he said. “They are fine. They are being warmed up right now and fed by our rescuers.”\nThe three well-equipped climbers, two women and a man, fell off a ledge Sunday.\nGubele said the three were not badly injured and could walk out of the area themselves. “They’re going to walk down,” he said, adding that authorities hoped to pick them up with a rescue vehicle.\nHe said the three were found huddling with their dog Velvet. They had sleeping bags and mats, he said, and were under some rocks, huddled up trying to keep warm.\nGubele said the climbers’ mountain locator unit helped rescuers find their position and they stayed in contact because the climbers had a cell phone.\n“We knew where they were,” he said. “The weather was really bad. It was a matter of getting the teams down there to them, which we were finally able to do in these severe weather conditions and extreme avalanche conditions.”\nRescuers were hoping to get the three out before another storm, with 12 to 16 inches of snow, was due to arrive Monday.\nEarlier Monday, rescuers moved into the White River Canyon, where the climbers took shelter behind rocks during the night. Some of the rescuers spent the night on the mountain. They decided to wait to set out until daybreak because with winds up to 70 mph, they couldn’t see anything, Gubele said, and “it’s extremely treacherous up where they are. One false step could be not good.”\nThe three who fell were part of an eight-person party that set out on Saturday, camped on the mountain that night, and then began to come back down on Sunday when they ran into bad weather, officials said.\nAs they were descending, the three slipped off a ledge and fell about 100 feet. Someone in the party placed an emergency call to authorities.\nThe three had gotten into their sleeping bags Sunday to stay warm and cuddled up with their black Lab, Gubele said.\n“They also have a Labrador dog with them that is cuddled up with them to help them keep warm,” Gubele told AP Broadcast News. “My understanding is that they are experienced rock climbers, but not necessarily experienced in mountain climbing.”\nStill, officials were worried.\n“There’s always danger of exposure on Mount Hood,” Gubele said.\nThe five other members of the their climbing party were rescued Sunday and taken down to Timberline Lodge, a ski resort at the 6,000-foot level of Mount Hood, and all are reported in good condition, the sheriff’s office said in an e-mail.
(02/19/07 5:00am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 56 people and injuring scores in the deadliest attack since U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major security push around the capital last week.\nThe twin blasts – which tore through the open-air market in the mostly Shiite district of New Baghdad – marked the first major response by militants to the sweep launched last week and a sobering reminder of the huge challenges facing any efforts against the well-armed factions.\nThe death toll was reported by police and ambulance service officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. At least 127 people were injured, they reported.\nThe explosions toppled wooden vendors’ stalls and utility poles, and blood pooled in the debris. Victims were carried into hospitals on makeshift stretchers or in the arms of rescuers.\nA separate car bomb in the mostly Shiite area of Sadr City killed at least one person and injured 10, police said.\nThe U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers, one of them in Baghdad who was killed when an insurgent hurled a grenade at his vehicle. The other soldier died when a patrol came under fire north of Baghdad, the statement said. Both died Saturday.\nIraq reopened border crossings with Iran after a three-day closure that coincided with the launch of the security push.\nThe key Shalamcha border point, about 35 miles east of the southern city of Basra, was cleared of blockades along with others along the long frontier with Iran, said the director of border operations, Brig. Gen. Rahdi Karim al-Makiki. The United States and allies claim Iraqi militants receive aid and supplies from Iran, including parts for lethal roadside bombs targeting U.S. forces. Iran denies any role in trafficking weapons.\nThe Iranian and Syrian borders were closed as the security operation got under way in Baghdad. A spokesman for the plan, Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi was quoted in the Azzaman newspaper that the borders would be reopened gradually but remain under “intense observations.”\nIn Tehran, Syrian President Bashar Assad held talks with Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though allies, they are generally on opposing sides of Iraq’s sectarian divide: Iran backing the majority Shiites and Syria seen as a key supporter of Sunnis.\nBut Iran denied that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has crossed over from Iraq.
(02/19/07 5:00am)
SHAHJOI, Afghanistan – A U.S. helicopter suffered a “sudden, unexplained loss of power” and crashed Sunday in southeastern Afghanistan, killing eight American troops, the military said. Fourteen people on board survived.\nA NATO spokesman denied the helicopter had been shot down, saying the pilot had radioed ahead to report engine problems. It was the deadliest U.S. crash in Afghanistan since last May.\nThe CH-47 Chinook helicopter was carrying 22 U.S. service members under overcast skies when there was a “sudden, unexplained loss of power and control and crashed,” U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta said. The 14 survivors suffered injuries.\nThe helicopter crashed in the Shahjoi district of Zabul province, about 50 yards from the main highway between Kabul and Kandahar, and appeared to be destroyed and scattered in several pieces.\n“It was not enemy fire related,” Col. Tom Collins, spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, said earlier. “The pilot was able to radio in that he was having engine problems. We’re confident it was not due to enemy action.”\nZabul provincial governor Dilber Jan Arman said it was possible that the “helicopter crash was due to bad weather.” There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the crash.\nU.S. and Afghan military blocked reporters from entering the crash site.\nIn July, an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from Kandahar Air Field while responding to a reported rocket attack against the air base. One crew member was killed.\nIn May 2006, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down while attempting a nighttime landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. soldiers. In 2005, a U.S. helicopter crashed in Kunar after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 16 American troops.
(02/19/07 5:00am)
The U.S. and Israel agreed not to work with any new Palestinian government that does not renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing peace agreements, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday. The U.S. and Israel agreed on the decision ahead of a three-way meeting with the Palestinians.
(01/08/07 5:39am)
WASHINGTON -- A subway train derailed Sunday near downtown Washington, sending 20 people to the hospital and prompting the rescue of 60 people from a tunnel, officials said.\nThe accident happened at about 3:45 p.m. near the underground Mount Vernon Square station, which serves two lines beneath the Washington Convention Center, Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato said. There were about 150 people on the train.\nAt least one person had a serious but not life-threatening injury, Asato said. The other injuries were mostly "bumps and bruises," and one of those with minor injuries was pregnant.\nPart of the six-car train had pulled into the station when the fifth car left the track and hit the tunnel wall, Asato said. All the cars remained upright.\nGlass and metal were strewn through the tunnel, and the fifth car had significant damage, said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. The concrete tunnel wall also appeared to be damaged, but it was unclear how significant the wall damage was or whether the track was damaged.\nAbout 60 people in the last two cars had to wait about 45 minutes for firefighters to reach them and escort them through the tunnel on a catwalk.\nPassengers in the first four cars were able to exit on their own through the front two cars, which were already at the station platform, Asato said.\nThere was no fire, Asato said. An investigation was under way.\nWitnesses said people started to panic when the six-car train began shaking, and some passengers began running to the back of the train.\n"I was in a cab that actually shattered -- the front part of it -- those windows in between the two cars," said rider Lauren Sprigg.\nService on two lines was halted in both directions around the station, and Asato said a shuttle bus would take passengers around the accident scene.\nInvestigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were headed to the scene. Metro officials said they were waiting to move the train and clean up debris until investigators arrived.\n"We can't move anything until NTSB shows," Farbstein said.\nOfficials probably wouldn't know until early Monday whether the station would be able to reopen for the morning rush hour, Farbstein said.\nThe train operator was undergoing routine drug and alcohol tests, Asato said. The woman had been operating Metro trains since 2000.\nIn November, two Metro track workers were struck and killed by an out-of-service train. An investigation found the train operator failed to follow procedures. Another Metro worker was struck and killed in May.\nIn 2004, a train rolled backward and hit another, injuring 20 people.
(12/07/06 5:35am)
WASHINGTON -- In the final hours of Republican rule, the Senate on Wednesday put forward an all-purpose bill covering everything from normalized trade with Vietnam and tax breaks for millions of taxpayers to an expansion of offshore oil drilling.\nThe House, meanwhile, gave conservatives perhaps their last chance for awhile to vote on an abortion bill. It was defeated.\nAs of late Wednesday, negotiators from the two chambers were still struggling to come up with a common approach to a tax and trade package that could bring the 109th session of Congress to a close. House Majority Leader John Boehner informed lawmakers that they wouldn't be able to adjourn on Thursday as earlier planned.\nWith talks on a compromise plan making little headway, Senate Finance Committee leaders introduced their own 500-page bill that would renew expired or expiring tax breaks for businesses and middle income individuals and trade items affecting economic relations with Vietnam, Haiti, Africa and Andean nations.\nThe tax portion, said committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, gives "continued tax relief to families paying college, teachers buying classroom supplies and producers of clean energy from sources such as wind."\nThe package would also open up 8 million acres off the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, postpone a planned cut in Medicare reimbursements to physicians and extend an abandoned coal mine reclamation program.\nIt remained uncertain whether the House and Senate could come together on a package that would not be so laden with expensive programs that it becomes unpassable.\nThe fix on Medicare payments is estimated to cost more than $10 billion over a one-year period. The abandoned mine bill could cost $5 billion over 10 years.\nAmong the tax breaks, a research and development deduction extension through 2006 and 2007 would cost $16.5 billion. Extending tuition deductions through the end of 2007 would cost $3.3 billion. Another provision allowing taxpayers in states without income taxes to deduct state and local sales taxes would cost $5.5 billion.\nHouse Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said they were working to keep Medicare payments within budgetary limits. "It will be revenue neutral if you squint."\nHouse GOP leaders, in a parting gesture to their conservative base, brought up a bill that would require abortion providers to inform a woman 20 weeks into her pregnancy that an abortion would cause pain to the fetus. The 250-162 vote was well short of the two-thirds majority needed under a procedure that limited debate.\nThe bill defined a 20-week-old fetus as a "pain-capable unborn child." That's a controversial threshold among scientists, with debate over whether a fetus at that stage of development feels pain or reflectively draws back from stimuli.\nHad it passed, the legislation had almost no chance of advancing in the Senate, while the new Democratic Congress is expected to have little appetite for abortion-related bills.\nThe Senate on Wednesday approved a measure to renew the $2.1 billion-a-year Ryan White CARE Act for prevention and treatment of AIDS. The bill still needs House consideration.\nIt also voted 95-2 to confirm Robert Gates as defense secretary, replacing Donald H. Rumsfeld.\nOn the to-do list before Congress departs is approval of legislation to continue paying for most federal programs, at last year's budget levels, through Feb. 15. The legislation is necessary because this Congress was unable to pass any of the annual spending bills for the current budget year, which started Oct. 1, except for the Defense and Homeland Security departments.\nThis funding bill also passes off to the new Democratic majority the tough questions of how to meet spending demands for health and education programs while tackling the budget deficit.\nThe Vietnam bill would end Cold War-era requirements of annual reviews of trade with the communist nation. The House rejected the bill before the Nov. 7 election when the measure came up through an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority.
(08/04/06 2:01am)
Save Darfur Bloomington heard first-hand accounts from several men from the Darfur region of western Sudan about the genocide taking place there. \nDespite dark skies and a violent rainstorm, more than 40 students and community members showed up for the 5:30 p.m. meeting Thursday at Swain East, expecting to hear a lecture about the ongoing genocide at Darfur, and perhaps find out what they could do to help.\nMargaret Hanson, one of the members of Save Darfur Bloomington and an organizer of the event, said that she had to act fast to find a replacement after the planned speaker, Dr. Sarah Archer, cancelled at the last minute. Instead, she was able to get seven men from Darfur, now living in Fort Wayne and Chicago, to talk about the genocide and answer questions from the audience. \nRabbi Mira Wasserman of Congregation Beth Shalom and a key member of Save Darfur Bloomington welcomed the audience and introduced the speakers.\nChris Hanks, a doctoral student at IU, and Hanson started the event by reading testimony from people in Darfur, Colin Powell, and humanitarian aid workers, as images appeared on the projector screen behind them. They read accounts of women being shot while holding babies, women who had lost arms, men with horrible scars leaving them unable to work, and trucks of humanitarian aid workers getting blown apart by land mines. Meanwhile, images of dark-skinned women and children in bright colored clothes flashed across the projection screen behind them. \nThe main speaker, Abdel Maged Ibrahim, a tall, dark-skinned man with a beard, sat at the desk in the front of the classroom and gave a staggered account of the history of the Darfur conflict which has been officially recognized as genocide by the U.S. Congress and the United Nations. \n"The Darfur genocide is the worst in history," Ibrahim said. "Worse than Cambodia, worse than Rwanda. It is only comparable to the Jewish Holocaust."\nHe gave accounts of the Janjaweed, an Arab militia group, that has worked with the Sudanese government to ethnically cleanse the Black Africans of the region. \n"Whoever they find in their path gets killed." Ibrahim said, adding that the Janjaweed have also sought to destroy plants, farmers' crops, and all water supplies. \n"When you destroy the water supplies, even animals, birds, can't drink from them. (The Janjaweed seek to destroy all sources of life)," Ibrahim said. \nAfter explaining the history of the Darfur conflict, Ibrahim and the men he brought with him fielded questions from the audience. From there, the speakers, who were scattered across the room, traded off comments in a sort of conversational explanation of the Darfur situation.\nThe importance of writing to congressmen and the president was stressed by Muhammed Abdelrhman, an older man with graying hair from Chicago. \n"The Sudanese government will not do anything without international pressure," he said. \nHe explained that the recent treaty signed between the Sudenese government and the southern region of Sudan was nothing more than a public relations ploy to appeal to international pressure. \n"The government did not want the south to join with the west (where the current conflict exists)," he said. "Once they have taken over the west, they will go back to the south and break the peace agreement."\nIbrahim stressed the importance of security for the more than 2 million people displaced from their homes. \n"Security is very important: People are suffering from hunger, disease, starvation," he said. "How to secure civilians is the first priority. After that, then they can find out how to get food and water."\nHansen said she was surprised so many people showed up.\n"I was overwhelmed," Hanson said. "Considering the storm and the fact that our original speaker had cancelled, I was excited to see we'd gotten the word out."\nHanson said she'd gotten involved with the group, Save Darfur Bloomington, after meeting Rabbi Wasserman at a special screening of "Hotel Rwanda" held last month in the Monroe County Library. Now she is a very active member of the group.\n"There's only a handful of active participants." Hanson said.\nFor more information on the genocide in Darfur go to www.savedarfur.org or e-mail savedarfurbloomington@yahoo.com\n-- Contact Staff Writer James Klaunig Jr. at jklaunig@indiana.edu.
(07/31/06 3:38am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. command announced Saturday that it was sending 3,700 troops to Baghdad to try to quell the sectarian violence sweeping the capital, and a U.S. official said more American soldiers would follow as the military gears up to take the streets from gunmen.\nThe 172nd Stryker Brigade, which had been due to return home after a year in Iraq, will bring quick-moving, light-armored vehicles to patrol this sprawling city of 6 million people, hoping security forces respond faster to the tit-for-tat killings by Shiite militias and Sunni Arab insurgents.\nThe U.S. military hopes more armor will intimidate gunmen, who in recent weeks have become more brazen in their attacks.\n"This will place our most experienced unit with our most mobile and agile systems in support of our main effort," said Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "This gives us a potentially decisive capability to affect security in Baghdad."\nPresident Bush said this week that he had decided to send more troops to Baghdad after the surge in reprisal killings began to threaten the unity government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which took power May 20.\nThe wave of violence has dashed administration hopes for substantial reductions in the 127,000-member U.S. mission in Iraq before the November midterm elections.\nAccording to the United Nations, about 6,000 Iraqis were killed in insurgent or sectarian violence in May and June -- despite American hopes that the unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds would win public confidence and ease the security crisis.\nThe U.S. statement did not say when the Stryker Brigade would move to the capital from its base in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, but the redeployment was expected soon.\nA U.S. military official told The Associated Press that more troops will follow the Stryker brigade, normally based at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. The official gave no further details and spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.\nPentagon officials have said plans call for adding military police, armored vehicles and tanks to the streets of the capital to work alongside Iraq's U.S.-trained police and army units. Those units are heavily Shiite, and the presence of Americans is intended to assure Sunnis that the Iraqi forces are not Shiite death squads in uniform.\nU.S. and British officials have said Iraqi units, especially the police, have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and have lost the confidence of many Iraqi civilians.\nHowever, the strategy also risks further discrediting Iraqi forces, affecting their morale and making Americans more vulnerable to attack. U.S. casualties have eased in recent months as Americans handed over more security responsibility to the Iraqis and assumed a support role.\nBut the bitterness of the sectarian conflict and the high stakes at play have proven too much for the Iraqi force in the capital. The surge in attacks also pointed to the failure of al-Maliki's security plan for Baghdad, unveiled with great fanfare last month.\nSectarian strife worsened after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and threatens to unravel the fabric of Iraqi society.\nLast week, U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell described Baghdad as a "must-win" not only for al-Maliki's government "but for al-Qaida in Iraq," which the Americans blame for fanning sectarian hatred.\nOn Friday, a top Shiite politician allied with al-Maliki said Iraqis -- and not Americans -- should be given responsibility for security and called for an end to "interference in their work" -- an apparent reference to U.S. efforts to curb abuses by the Shiite-led police.\nIn the Shiite town of Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, Mayor Hussein Mohammed al-Ghurabi, said Saturday that more than 500 armed Sunnis had gathered in a nearby village and were firing on his town daily.\nTens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes in religiously mixed neighborhoods, either fleeing abroad or to areas where their sect dominates. They include members of country's elite -- physicians, professors and other professionals.