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(02/25/08 4:58am)
Ralph Nader is launching a third-party campaign for president. The consumer advocate made the announcement Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said most Americans are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties, and that none of the presidential contenders are addressing ways to stem corporate crime and Pentagon waste and promote labor rights. He is still loathed by many Democrats who call him a spoiler and claim his candidacy in 2000 cost the party the election by siphoning votes away from Al Gore in a razor-thin contest in Florida.
(02/25/08 4:57am)
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama promises $4,000 credits to help pay college tuition. Hillary Rodham Clinton backs $25 billion for home heating subsidies. And John McCain wants to not only extend President Bush’s tax cuts, but eliminate the alternative minimum tax at a cost of about $2 trillion over 10 years.\nThen there’s reality.\nThese campaign pledges – and dozens more in the manifestos of the leading presidential candidates – face a collision with the real world come January.\nThat’s when the new president will start putting together a real budget and economic plan, one drafted against the backdrop of record federal deficits exceeding $400 billion. Even more challenging is the growth of the Medicare and Social Security retirement programs, which budget experts say could require wrenching benefit cuts, politically difficult tax hikes or both to handle the retirement of the baby boom generation.\nIn that environment, promises to effectively rebate the first $500 of Social Security payroll taxes (Obama), provide $1,000 tax credits for retirement savings (Clinton) or cut the corporate income tax by 10 percentage points (McCain) may turn out to be campaign fantasies.\n“They’re operating in Never-Never Land. ... None of them are honestly addressing the real challenges that they’re going to be facing if they’re elected,” said Leon Panetta, former budget director and chief of staff for President Clinton. “We’re facing a deficit bubble that is getting increasingly worse and at some point is going to explode on us.”\nDemocrats Obama and Clinton face a situation eerily familiar to 1992, when Bill Clinton ran a campaign promising middle-class tax cuts and universal health care. Instead, worsening deficit predictions led him to push through Congress a tax-heavy deficit reduction plan that helped Republicans take over Congress in 1994.\nFor Republican McCain, the parallel is to the one-term presidency of George H.W. Bush, who inherited a budget crisis – and a Congress controlled by Democrats – that ultimately led him to break his “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes.\nFor now, however, the campaigns are sticking with policy papers that don’t add up but cater to political constituencies.\nObama’s “Keeping America’s Promise” manifesto is full of costly prescriptions for the economy. Obama proposes tax cuts for senior citizens and college students, and $500 for every wage-earner, totaling $80 billion to $85 billion a year. He says he would pay for the tax cuts by closing loopholes and closing offshore tax havens, but those steps would fall far short of fully offsetting their costs.\nBoth Obama and Clinton would keep in place many of the Bush tax cuts, including rate cuts for most taxpayers and the $1,000 per child tax credit. Both would let rate cuts for upper-income taxpayers expire, and use the savings to help pay for their health care promises.\nObama also promises a $60 billion investment in infrastructure and an $18 billion per year boost in education spending. The Illinois senator says his plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq will generate savings to help pay for these items, but that doesn’t qualify as an offset under budget rules because the Iraq spending is an emergency expense, not a permanent part of the budget.\nFor his part, McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts as tilted too much in favor of the wealthy. He has since changed his mind.\nNow, with most budget experts forecasting deep deficits for the future, McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of 2010. The price tag for McCain’s plan would soon exceed $300 billion a year after government-borrowing costs are factored in.\nMcCain also wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, which would add more than $2 trillion in accumulated deficits to the federal ledger from 2010-2020. The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure the wealthy paid at least some tax, but now also threatens about 20 million additional taxpayers with levies averaging $2,000 if annual fixes aren’t renewed.\nBut even if the next president “pays for” new initiatives, he or she will still be left with an underlying budget deficit exceeding $400 billion and the looming crises in Social Security, Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.
(02/25/08 4:53am)
HAVANA – Cuba’s parliament named Raul Castro president on Sunday, ending nearly 50 years of rule by his brother Fidel but leaving the island’s communist system unshaken.\nIn a surprise move, officials bypassed younger candidates to name a 77-year-old revolutionary leader, Jose Ramon Machado, to Cuba’s No. 2 spot – apparently assuring the old guard that no significant political changes will be made soon.\nThe retirement of the ailing 81-year-old president caps a career in which he frustrated efforts by 10 U.S. presidents to oust him.\nRaul Castro, 76, stressed that his brother remains “commander in chief” even if he is not president and proposed to consult with Fidel on all major decisions of state – a motion approved by acclamation.\nThough the succession was not likely to bring a major shift in the communist government policies that have put Cuba at odds with the United States, many Cubans were hoping it would open the door to modest economic reforms that might improve their daily lives.\nRaul Castro indicated at least one change is being contemplated: the revaluation of the Cuban peso, the national currency most people use to pay for government services such as utilities, public transportation and the small amount charged for their monthly food ration.\nCubans complain that government salaries averaging a little more than $19 a month do not cover basic necessities – something Raul Castro acknowledged in a major speech last year. But he said any change would have to be gradual to “prevent traumatic and incongruent effects.”\nIn his first speech as president, Raul Castro suggested that the Communist Party as a whole would take over the role long held by Fidel, who formally remains its leader. The new president said the nation’s sole legal party “is the directing and superior force of society and the state.”\n“This conviction has particular importance when the founding and forging generation of the revolution is disappearing,” he added.\nThe U.S. has said the change from one Castro to another would not be significant, calling it a “transfer of authority and power from dictator to dictator light.”\nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday Cubans have a right “to choose their leaders in democratic elections” and urged the government “to begin a process of peaceful, democratic change by releasing all political prisoners, respecting human rights, and creating a clear pathway towards free and fair elections.”\nHer statement, issued shortly before parliament met, called the developments a “significant moment in Cuba’s history.”\nCuba’s parliament chose a new 31-member ruling body known as the Council of State to lead the country. The council’s president serves as the head of state and government.\nThe vote ended Castro’s 49 years as head of the communist state in America’s backyard. He retains his post as a lawmaker and as head of the Communist Party. But his power in government has eroded since July 31, 2006, when he announced he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was provisionally ceding his powers to Raul.\nThe younger Castro has headed Cuba’s caretaker government in the 19 months since then, and Fidel Castro has not appeared in public.
(02/21/08 5:20am)
Sen. Barack Obama cruised past a fading Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages. The twin triumphs made 10 straight for Obama, and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner. “The change we seek is still months and miles away,” Obama told a boisterous crowd in Houston in a speech in which he also pledged to end the war in Iraq in his first year in office.
(02/21/08 5:20am)
WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered its projection for economic growth this year, citing damage from the double blows of a housing slump and credit crunch. It said it also expects higher unemployment and inflation.\nThe updated forecasts come amid worry by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues that the economy could continue to weaken, even after their aggressive interest rate cuts in January, according to minutes of those private deliberations released Wednesday.\n“With no signs of stabilization in the housing sector and with financial conditions not yet stabilized, the committee agreed that downside risks to growth would remain even after this action,” minutes of the Fed’s Jan. 29-30 closed door meeting showed.\nThe Fed at that session voted to cut a key interest rate by one-half percentage point to 3 percent. Just eight days earlier, the Fed, in an emergency session, slashed its rate by a rare three-quarters percentage point. The two rate cuts together marked the most dramatic rate reductions in a single month by the Fed in a quarter century.\nUnder its new economic forecast, the Fed said that it now believes the gross domestic product will grow between 1.3 percent and 2 percent this year. That’s lower than a previous Fed forecast for growth, which at that time was estimated to be between 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent.\nGDP is the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the best barometer of the country’s economic fitness.\nWith economic growth slowing, the Fed projected that the national jobless rate will rise to between 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent this year. That is higher than the central bank’s old forecast for the rate to climb to as high as 4.9 percent. Last year, the unemployment rate averaged 4.6 percent.\nAnd, with energy prices marching upward, the Fed also raised its projection for inflation. The Fed now expects inflation to be between 2.1 percent and 2.4 percent this year. That’s higher than its old forecast, which was estimated to come in at around 1.8 percent to 2.1 percent.\nThe Fed said its revised forecasts reflect a number of factors including “a further intensification of the housing market correction, tighter credit conditions .... ongoing turmoil in financial markets and higher oil prices.”\nThe combination of slower economic growth and increasing inflation could complicate the Fed’s work. The central bank is trying to keep the economy growing, while ensuring that inflation stays under control. The Fed’s remedy for a weakening economy is interest rate cuts. To combat inflation, the Fed usually boosts rates.\nOil prices on Tuesday jumped to a new record – topping $100 a barrel. Consumer prices, meanwhile, rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.4 percent in January, according to new government figures released Wednesday.\nFed policymakers were mindful that they needed to keep a close eye on inflation, minutes of the Jan. 29-30 meeting said.\nSome policymakers noted that when prospects for economic growth improved, “a reversal of a portion of the recent easing actions, possibly even a rapid reversal, might be appropriate,” according to the documents.\nStill, all but one of the Fed’s members agreed to lower rates by a half-point at that time.\nRichard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas was the sole dissenter. He preferred no change. The minutes showed Fisher thought the level of interest rates were already “quite stimulative, while headline inflation was too high.”
(02/18/08 5:12am)
Kosovo declared itself a nation on Sunday, mounting a historic bid to become an “independent and democratic state” backed by the U.S. and key European allies, but bitterly contested by Serbia and Russia. “Kosovo is a republic – an independent, democratic and sovereign state,” parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi said as the chamber burst into applause. Serbian President Boris Tadic reacted by saying his country will never accept Kosovo’s “unilateral and illegal” declaration.
(02/18/08 5:11am)
NEW YORK – The 1993 World Trade Center bombing left a giant crater in the basement of the 110-story twin towers and an even larger hole in the nation’s sense of security.\nWith the 15th anniversary approaching, the days before the bomb blast appear to mark the last time when millions of Americans went about their business, unaware of the dangers posed by international terrorism.\n“Not an awful lot of people thought about how vulnerable we were,” recalled Joseph Guccione, the U.S. marshal for New York. “It was a terrible lesson that was learned.”\nLower Manhattan tried to armor itself – only to learn the limits of protection just eight years later.\nAll the steel barriers, restricted access, closed streets, security gates and gun-toting security guards that tens of millions of dollars could buy could not stop the two hijacked airliners that brought down the trade center.\nSince the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, security has been ramped up even more across Manhattan. More guards. More barriers. Higher fences. More video cameras.\nYet millions of Americans live in fear of another terrorist attack, with the anxiety particularly strong in Washington and New York, the two cities hit on Sept. 11.\nAll of it can arguably be traced back to Feb. 26, 1993, when a homemade bomb mixed by a group of men in Jersey City, N.J., was carried into the trade center garage in a yellow van and exploded shortly after noon, killing six people.\nMore than 1,000 people were injured fleeing the buildings on that cold dreary day. With the electricity knocked out, the buildings stood in darkness that night for the first time since they were built two decades earlier.\nThe 2001 terrorist attacks brought another wave of security tightening that continues to this day.
(02/18/08 5:10am)
BEIJING – China said Sunday it was concerned about U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite that is hurtling toward Earth with 1,000 pounds of toxic fuel.\nThe U.S. military has said it hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week – just before it enters Earth’s atmosphere – with a single missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.\nThe official Xinhua News Agency quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao as saying the Chinese government was monitoring the situation and has urged the U.S. to avoid causing damages to security in outer space and in other countries.\n“Relevant departments of China are closely watching the situation and working out preventive measures,” Liu said. Xinhua did not elaborate.\nRussia also has voiced concerns about the U.S. plan to shoot down the damaged satellite, saying it may be a veiled test of America’s missile defense system.\nThe U.S. has insisted the plan to shoot down the satellite is not a test of a program to kill other nations’ orbiting communications and intelligence \ncapabilities.\nThe Bush administration and U.S. military officials have said the bus-sized satellite is carrying a fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits \nthe ground.\nU.S. diplomats around the world have been instructed to inform governments that the operation is meant to protect people from the satellite’s blazing descent and the toxic fuel it is carrying. The diplomats were told to distinguish the upcoming attempt to destroy the satellite from China’s much criticized test last year, when it used a missile to destroy a defunct weather satellite.\nLeft alone, the satellite would likely hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would be expected to survive the fall and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.\nKnown by its military designation US 193, the satellite carrying a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward.
(02/14/08 4:38am)
Barack Obama powered past Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for Democratic convention delegates Tuesday on a night of triumph sweetened with outsized primary victories in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Obama has won eight straight victories over Clinton, and the former first lady is now struggling in a race she once commanded. The Associated Press count of delegates showed Obama with 1,210. Clinton had 1,188, falling behind for the first time since the campaign began. Neither was close to the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.\nRepublican front-runner John McCain won all three GOP primaries Tuesday, adding to his insurmountable lead in delegates for the Republican nomination. With Tuesday’s results, the AP count showed McCain with 789 delegates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race last week, had 288. Huckabee had 241 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.\nThe leaders of a House panel that oversees military spending said Wednesday they are drafting legislation that would pay for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the rest of the year. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the committee, predicted the proposal would be done by the end of the month. Murtha and his Republican counterpart on the panel, Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, said they hope lawmakers can put aside their differences on the war and focus on taking care of the troops.
(02/14/08 4:37am)
WASHINGTON – President Bush pressured the House of Representatives on Wednesday to pass new rules for monitoring terrorists’ communications, saying “terrorists are planning new attacks on our country ... that will make Sept. 11 pale by comparison.”\nBush said he would not agree to giving the House more time to debate a measure the Senate passed Tuesday governing the government’s ability to work with telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails between suspected terrorists. The bill gives phone companies retroactive protection from lawsuits filed on the basis of cooperation they gave the government without court permission – something Bush insisted was included in the bill.\nAbout 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws. The House did not include the immunity provision in a similar bill it passed last year.\n“In order to be able to discover ... the enemy’s plans, we need the cooperation of telecommunication companies,” Bush said. “If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won’t participate. They won’t help us. They won’t help protect America.”\nThe 68-29 Senate vote Tuesday to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act belied the nearly two months of stops and starts and bitter political wrangling that preceded it. The two sides had battled to balance civil liberties with the need to conduct surveillance on potential adversaries.\nBush said the Senate bill was passed with wide, bipartisan support, and the House should pass it too – before the current law expires at midnight on Saturday.\n“Congress has had over six months to discuss and deliberate,” said Bush, who stood alongside Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. “The time for debate is over. I will not accept any temporary extension. They have already been given a two-week extension.”\nSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the president and Senate Republicans of being more interested in politicizing intelligence than resolving the debate. Reid said that the issue would not be before Congress if Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney “in their unyielding efforts to expand presidential powers,” had not created a system to conduct wiretapping, including on U.S. citizens, outside the bounds of federal law.\n“The president could have taken the simple step of requesting new authority from Congress ... but whether out of convenience, incompetence, or outright disdain for the rule of law, the administration chose to ignore Congress and ignore the Constitution,” Reid said.\nReid said if the president chooses to veto a short-term extension, he, not Congress will have to take the blame for any gaps in collecting intelligence of terrorists’ communications.\n“Due to months of White House foot-dragging, the relevant House committees have only just gotten important documents related to whether the Bush Administration followed the law and the Constitution,” he said. “They need some time to review and analyze them. We must not let this critical issue be resolved by White House bullying.”
(02/11/08 4:42am)
Iraq’s political leaders are showing promising new signs of progress toward reconciliation, yet still face difficult decisions on how to stabilize the country, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday. “They seem to have become energized over the last few weeks,” Gates told reporters who traveled with him from an international security conference in Munich, Germany. He likened the challenge of passing an Iraqi provincial powers law to the U.S. founding fathers’ struggle to find a constitutional compromise on how to share power in the Congress between big and small states.
(02/11/08 4:41am)
GENEVA – Up to 12,000 “terrified” refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region have fled across the border to neighboring Chad after the latest air strikes by the Sudanese military, and thousands more may be on their way, the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday.\nThe U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it was scrambling to rush aid to Darfur refugees who are escaping bombings Friday of the West Darfur towns of Sirba, Sileia and Abu Suruj.\nAbout half of the refugees are in the Chad border city of Koruk and “are feeling terrified,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Helene Caux.\n“The city is in a very volatile area and there are a lot of armed men there,” Caux told The Associated Press. “Their villages (in Sudan) have been looted and burned, they are telling the UNHCR team. And they say their villages are encircled by militias.”\nMost of the refugees so far are men, she said. But the arrivals are telling UNHCR that “thousands of women and children are on their way” to Chad, she added.\nSo far, UNHCR officials have been unable to reach all the refugees around Koruk. A roughly equal number of Darfur refugees have gathered in the nearby Chad town of Figeira. UNHCR is hoping to move the refugees to different camps the agency runs in Chad, Caux said.\nU.N. officials say the worsening situation in Darfur has been exacerbated by a recent rebel attack on the capital of Chad. Chad has accused Sudan of backing those rebels in a bid to prevent deployment of European peacekeepers in an area of Chad where some 400,000 refugees are living.\nSudan’s Arab-dominated government has been accused of unleashing janjaweed forces to commit atrocities against Darfur’s ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups. At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since the violence began five years ago.\nCaux said refugees are reporting that their villages were attacked by men on horses and camels, a description similar to those provided of earlier incidents involving the janjaweed.\nThe Sudanese army said its attacks forced rebels to retreat into Chad, a provocative accusation at a time of escalating tension between the two countries. Both nations accuse each other of hosting hostile rebel groups, allegations that became even more sensitive after Chadian rebels attacked Chad’s capital last weekend.\nDarfur rebels have denied any of their fighters were in the towns attacked by the government Friday and said some 200 people were killed in the attacks by helicopter gunships and fixed-wing aircraft.\nCaux said UNHCR was looking at way to assist people still trapped in the three towns bombed by Sudan.\n“Thousands of households have been directly affected by the bombings and attacks,” she said.
(02/11/08 4:40am)
WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama swept the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washington state Saturday night, slicing into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s slender delegate lead in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.\nThe Illinois senator also won caucuses in the Virgin Islands, completing his best night of the campaign.\n“Today, voters from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America stood up to say ‘yes we can,’” Obama told a cheering audience of Democrats at a party dinner in Richmond, Va.\nHe jabbed simultaneously at Clinton and Arizona Sen. John McCain, saying the election was a choice between debating the Republican nominee-in-waiting “about who has the most experience in Washington, or debating him about who’s most likely to change Washington. Because that’s a debate we can win.”\nClinton preceded Obama to the podium. She did not refer to the night’s voting, instead turning against McCain. “We have tried it President Bush’s way,” she said, “and now the Republicans have chosen more of the same.”\nShe left quickly after her speech, departing before Obama’s arrival. But his supporters made their presence known, sending up chants of “Obama” from the audience as she made her way offstage.\nObama’s winning margins ranged from substantial to crushing.\nHe won roughly two-thirds of the vote in Washington state and Nebraska, and almost 90 percent in the Virgin Islands.\nNearly complete Louisiana returns showed Obama with 57 percent of the vote, to 36 percent for the former first lady. As in his earlier Southern triumphs in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, Obama, a black man, rode a wave of African-American support to victory in Louisiana. Clinton won the white vote overwhelmingly.\nIn all, the Democrats scrapped for 161 delegates in the night’s contests.\nIn incomplete allocations, Obama won 72, Clinton 40.\nIn overall totals in The Associated Press count, Clinton had 1,095 delegates to 1,070 for Obama, counting so-called superdelegates. They are party leaders not chosen at primaries or caucuses, free to change their minds. A total of 2,025 delegates is required to win the nomination at the national convention in Denver.\nMcCain flunked his first ballot tests since becoming the Republican nominee-in-waiting. He lost Kansas caucuses to Mike Huckabee, gaining less than 24 percent of the vote. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, got nearly 60 percent of the vote a few hours after saying, “I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them.” He won all 36 delegates at stake.\nHuckabee also won the Louisiana primary, but fell short of 50 percent, the threshold necessary to pocket the 20 delegates that were available. Instead, they will be awarded at a state convention next weekend.\nMcCain won the third Republican race of the night, Washington’s caucuses. None of the state’s delegates will be awarded until next week.\nFor all his brave talk, Huckabee was hopelessly behind in the delegate race. McCain had 719, compared with 234 for Huckabee and 14 for Paul. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at the national convention.\nThe Democrats’ race was as close as the Republicans’ was not, a contest between Obama, hoping to become the first black president, and Clinton, campaigning to become the first female commander in chief.\nThe two rivals contest primaries on Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, all states where Obama and his campaign are hopeful of winning.\nPreliminary results of a survey of voters leaving their polling places in Louisiana showed that nearly half of those casting ballots were black. As a group, African-Americans have overwhelmingly favored Obama in earlier primaries, helping him to wins in several Southern states.\nObama was gaining about 80 percent of the black votes statewide, while Clinton was winning 70 percent support among whites, the exit poll showed.\nOne in seven Democratic voters and about one in 10 Republicans said Hurricane Katrina had caused their families severe hardship from which they have not recovered. There was another indication of the impact the storm had on the state. Early results suggested that northern Louisiana accounted for a larger share of the electorate than in the past, presumably the result of the decline in population in the hurricane-battered New Orleans area.\nMcCain cleared his path to the party nomination earlier in the week with a string of Super Tuesday victories that drove Romney from the race. He spent the rest of the week trying to reassure skeptical conservatives, at the same time party leaders quickly closed ranks behind him
(02/01/08 4:31am)
The top U.S. envoy to Africa called the month of post-election violence in Kenya “ethnic cleansing” and said Wednesday that Washington was reconsidering hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country. Jendayi Frazer said neither President Mwai Kibaki nor his chief rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, is doing enough to stop the bloodshed that has claimed more than 800 lives since the disputed Dec. 27 presidential vote.
(02/01/08 4:30am)
The top U.S. envoy to Africa called the month of post-election violence in Kenya “ethnic cleansing” and said Wednesday that Washington was reconsidering hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the country. Jendayi Frazer said neither President Mwai Kibaki nor his chief rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga, is doing enough to stop the bloodshed that has claimed more than 800 lives since the disputed Dec. 27 presidential vote.
(02/01/08 4:29am)
CAIRO, Egypt – Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan who was blamed for bombing a base while Vice President Cheney was visiting last year, has been killed, according to a militant Web site.\nAl-Libi was a key link between the Taliban and al-Qaida and was listed among the U.S.’s 12 most-wanted men with a bounty of $200,000 on his head.\nThe Web site Al-Ekhlaas, which frequently carries announcements from militant groups, said that al-Libi had been “martyred” but did not say where he was killed.\nEarlier, there had been reports of an attack on militants in a Pakistani village. Pakistani intelligence officials and local residents said a missile hit a compound about 2.5 miles outside Mir Ali in North Waziristan late Monday or early Tuesday, destroying the facility.\nResidents said they were not allowed to approach the site of the blast and the Pakistan government and military said they did not know who fired the missile. Local officials said foreigners were targeted in the attack.\nOne intelligence official in the area, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bodies of those killed were badly mangled by the force of the explosion and it was difficult to identify them. The official estimated 12 people were killed, including Arabs, Turkemen from central Asia and local Taliban members.\nTwo top officials of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said they could not confirm al-Libi’s death and were still trying to gather details on the missile strike. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the attack.\nA knowledgeable Western official said that “it appears at this point that Al-Libi has met his demise,” but declined to talk about the circumstances. “It was a major success in taking one of the top terrorists in the world off the street,” the official said. He added that the death occurred “within the last few days.”\nThe U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led force in Afghanistan could not confirm al-Libi’s death. An official with the NATO-led force said they were picking up some signals from the Web, but could not confirm whether Abu Laith al-Libi was dead.\n“There is no confirmation from our side,” said a NATO official in Kabul on condition of anonymity, since he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.\nThe announcement of al-Libi’s death appeared as a banner in a section of a Web site reserved for affiliated militant organizations, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors such sites.\n“As the banner was posted ... by a webmaster of the forum, it seems as if the announcement of his death has been confirmed to the forum administrators,” SITE said in an e-mail to news organizations.\nMaj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said last year that al-Libi was a guerrilla fighter “knowledgeable about how to conduct suicide bombing missions and how to inflict the most civilian casualties.” He had probably directed “one or more terror training camps,” Belcher said.\nBelcher said al-Libi – whose name means “the Libyan” in Arabic – had been the subject of “especially close focus” by U.S. intelligence since 2005, when U.S. forces destroyed a militant training camp believed set up by al-Libi in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. That was an admission that terror camps continued to operate on Afghan soil since the Taliban regime’s ouster more than five years ago.\nBelcher described al-Libi as “transient,” moving where he thought he could count on support.\n“Terrorists like al-Libi use the rugged terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to conceal themselves while they plan violent insurgent activities. Our sources indicate that Abu Laith al-Libi favors tribal regions, including North Waziristan,” Belcher said.
(02/01/08 4:26am)
CAIRO, Egypt – Abu Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander in Afghanistan who was blamed for bombing a base while Vice President Cheney was visiting last year, has been killed, according to a militant Web site.\nAl-Libi was a key link between the Taliban and al-Qaida and was listed among the U.S.’s 12 most-wanted men with a bounty of $200,000 on his head.\nThe Web site Al-Ekhlaas, which frequently carries announcements from militant groups, said that al-Libi had been “martyred” but did not say where he was killed.\nEarlier, there had been reports of an attack on militants in a Pakistani village. Pakistani intelligence officials and local residents said a missile hit a compound about 2.5 miles outside Mir Ali in North Waziristan late Monday or early Tuesday, destroying the facility.\nResidents said they were not allowed to approach the site of the blast and the Pakistan government and military said they did not know who fired the missile. Local officials said foreigners were targeted in the attack.\nOne intelligence official in the area, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bodies of those killed were badly mangled by the force of the explosion and it was difficult to identify them. The official estimated 12 people were killed, including Arabs, Turkemen from central Asia and local Taliban members.\nTwo top officials of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said they could not confirm al-Libi’s death and were still trying to gather details on the missile strike. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the attack.\nA knowledgeable Western official said that “it appears at this point that Al-Libi has met his demise,” but declined to talk about the circumstances. “It was a major success in taking one of the top terrorists in the world off the street,” the official said. He added that the death occurred “within the last few days.”\nThe U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led force in Afghanistan could not confirm al-Libi’s death. An official with the NATO-led force said they were picking up some signals from the Web, but could not confirm whether Abu Laith al-Libi was dead.\n“There is no confirmation from our side,” said a NATO official in Kabul on condition of anonymity, since he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.\nThe announcement of al-Libi’s death appeared as a banner in a section of a Web site reserved for affiliated militant organizations, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors such sites.\n“As the banner was posted ... by a webmaster of the forum, it seems as if the announcement of his death has been confirmed to the forum administrators,” SITE said in an e-mail to news organizations.\nMaj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said last year that al-Libi was a guerrilla fighter “knowledgeable about how to conduct suicide bombing missions and how to inflict the most civilian casualties.” He had probably directed “one or more terror training camps,” Belcher said.\nBelcher said al-Libi – whose name means “the Libyan” in Arabic – had been the subject of “especially close focus” by U.S. intelligence since 2005, when U.S. forces destroyed a militant training camp believed set up by al-Libi in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. That was an admission that terror camps continued to operate on Afghan soil since the Taliban regime’s ouster more than five years ago.\nBelcher described al-Libi as “transient,” moving where he thought he could count on support.\n“Terrorists like al-Libi use the rugged terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to conceal themselves while they plan violent insurgent activities. Our sources indicate that Abu Laith al-Libi favors tribal regions, including North Waziristan,” Belcher said.
(01/17/08 5:35am)
Fidel Castro said Wednesday he is not yet healthy enough to address Cuba’s people in person and can’t campaign for Sunday’s parliamentary elections. “I am not physically able to speak directly to the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our elections,” the ailing 81-year-old wrote in an essay published by state news media. He has not been seen in public since July 2006, when emergency intestinal surgery forced Castro to cede power to a provisional government headed by his brother Raul, five years his junior.\nA Swedish bomb squad called out to disarm a suspicious package on Wednesday did not find a ticking bomb. But they did find a vibrating sex toy. A janitor alerted police after he found the package in a garage of an apartment building in Goteborg, the country’s second-largest city, police spokesman Jan Strannegard said. The package was humming and vibrating suspiciously, so police took no chances and sent out a team of explosives experts. After having cordoned off the area, they opened the package with bomb disposal equipment, only to find the battery-operated device inside.
(01/17/08 5:34am)
WASHINGTON – A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday on charges of being part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to a supporter of al-Qaida and the Taliban who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.\nMark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.\nThe 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying – money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for \nInternational Development.\nSiljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.\nHe could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday, and his attorney in Kansas City, J.R. Hobbs, had no immediate comment.\nThe charges are part of a long-running case against the charity, which had been based in Columbia, Mo. In 2004, the Treasury Department designated the charity as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists.\nIn the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.\nThe indictment accuses IARA of sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.\nAuthorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who participated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Justice Department said Hekmatyar “has vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan.”\nThe charges paint “a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein.\nSiljander was elected to Congress initially with the support of fundamentalist Christian groups, and said at the time he won because “God wanted me in.” In 1983, he claimed that “Arab terrorists” planned to kill him during a pro-Jewish rally; the FBI and Secret Service said they knew of no such plot. Siljander attended the rally wearing a bulletproof vest.
(01/17/08 5:33am)
WASHINGTON – The race ever more chaotic, four Republicans are angling for superiority in a fast-approaching presidential primary in South Carolina, a state known for rough-and-tumble politics and predicting the outcome of the GOP nomination.\nAlthough Nevada holds caucuses Saturday as well, the spotlight is on the first-in-the-South primary; no Republican since 1980 has won the party nod without a South \nCarolina triumph.\n“Truly anything can happen,” Katon Dawson, the state party chairman, said Wednesday, hours after Mitt Romney won his native Midwestern state. “Michigan just shuffled the deck. It’s a whole new game in South Carolina, and, with the undecideds, it can go any way.”\nThe latest South Carolina polls show a close race. A flood of negative phone calls, hard-hitting mail and late-deciders could change that overnight.\nNot even two weeks into voting, three candidates each have one major win thanks to three different constituencies, a reflection of a deeply divided GOP and the absence of an obvious successor to President Bush.\nMike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister, prevailed in the Iowa caucuses with the support of fellow evangelicals. John McCain, the four-term Arizona senator, repeated his 2000 victory in New Hampshire with the overwhelming support of independents. And Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, rallied Republican loyalists to post his first major win in Michigan. Romney also won barely contested Wyoming.\nOn Wednesday, the three set their sights on South Carolina, where rival Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator, has been camping out with hopes of a surprise upset that would upend the race yet again.