b34nz.com BEE THREE FO IN ZEE

3Dec/10Off

House censures veteran Rep. Rangel for misconduct

WASHINGTON -Veteran Rep. Charles Rangel, the raspy-voiced, backslapping former chairman of one of Congress' most powerful committees, was censured by his House colleagues for financial misconduct Thursday in a solemn moment of humiliation in the sunset of his career.
"I brought it onto myself," Rangel told the House. But he also said politics was at work.
After the 333-79 vote, the 80-year-old Democrat from New York's Harlem stood silently at the front of the House and faced Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she read him the formal resolution of censure.
Then, in response, he admitted he had made mistakes, including his failure to pay all his taxes, filing misleading financial statements and improperly seeking money from corporate interests for a college center bearing his name.
But he also declared, "In my heart I truly feel good." He said, "A lot of it has to do with the fact that I know in my heart that I am not going to be judged by this Congress, but I am going to be judged by my life."
It was only the 23rd time in the nation's history that a House member received the most severe punishment short of expulsion. Aside from the embarrassment, censure carries no practical effect and ends the more than two-year ordeal for the congressman who was re-elected to a 21st term last month with more than 80 percent of the vote.
Relief and defiance took over the moment Rangel finished speaking. Somber, Pelosi quietly slipped out of the chamber, but some Democrats gave him a standing ovation. Rangel made it only a third of the way up the aisle when a phalanx of well-wishers stopped and hugged him; he responded by saying something that made them laugh. He was smiling for the rest of the 10 minutes or so that it took to get through his colleagues to exit the chamber, his humiliation past.
Despite the censure, he contended in his response on the House floor that it had been proven that "at no time has it ever entered my mind to enrich myself or to do violence to the honesty that's expected of all of us in this House."
"I am fully aware that this vote reflects perhaps the thinking not just of the members but the political side and the constituency of this body," he told his colleagues. Outside, he told reporters the censure vote was "very, very, very political."
Still, the matter is likely to stain Rangel's half-century in public service. The House ethics committee last month found him guilty of 11 of 13 charges of financial misdeeds, including submitting misleading financial statements and failing to pay all his taxes.
The chairman of the ethics committee, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, said the censure her committee recommended was consistent with a Democratic pledge to run "the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history."
She said Rangel "violated the public trust" while serving in influential positions including chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel's predicament pained his many friends in the House. His staunchest allies — members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the New York delegation — tried to reduce the punishment to a simple reprimand Thursday, but that effort failed by a vote of 267-146.
Before the final vote, the dapper congressman, wearing a blue suit and blue tie with a blue handkerchief, was humble before his colleagues.
"I have made serious mistakes," he said, apologizing for the "awkward" position his troubles had placed them in. He was at times contrite, saying that members of Congress "have a higher responsibility than most people" for ethical conduct and that senior lawmakers like himself "should act as a model" for newer lawmakers.
A half-dozen members spoke in his defense, arguing a reprimand was appropriate and that censure had been used for members found guilty of sexual misconduct. Lofgren, though, suggested that today, expulsion would be appropriate for those types of misdeeds.
It's a difficult sunset for Rangel's long career. A jovial politician with a distinctive voice, Rangel was re-elected in November with more than 80 percent of the vote despite being under an ethics cloud for more than two years. He has argued that censure is reserved for corrupt politicians — and he's not one of them.
He also has been making a more personal plea, asking colleagues to remember that he won a Purple Heart after he was wounded in combat in Korea, to focus on his efforts for the underprivileged and to understand that he has great respect for the institution he has served for so long. He's tied for fourth in House seniority.
The House ethics committee painted Rangel as a congressman who ignored rules of conduct and became a tax scofflaw despite his knowledge of tax law from his long service on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel chaired that panel until last March, when he stepped down after the committee — in a separate case — found that he improperly allowed corporations to finance two trips to Caribbean conferences.
Rangel shortchanged the IRS for 17 years by failing to pay taxes on income from his rental unit in a Dominican Republic resort. He filed misleading financial disclosure reports for a decade, leaving out hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets he owned.
He used congressional letterheads and staff to solicit donations for a monument to himself: a center named after him at City College of New York. The donors included businesses and their charitable foundations that had issues before Congress and, specifically, before the Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel also set up a campaign office in the Harlem building where he lives, despite a lease specifying the unit was for residential use only.
He has paid the Treasury $10,422 and New York state $4,501 to fulfill an ethics committee recommendation. The amounts were to cover taxes he would have owed on his villa income had the statute of limitations not run out on his tax bills.
The last previous House censure was in 1983, when two members, Reps. Gerry E. Studds, D-Mass., and Daniel Crane, R-Ill., were disciplined for having sex with teenage pages. Nine House members have been reprimanded, the latest last year when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. was punished for yelling "You lie" at President Barack Obama.

House censures veteran Rep. Rangel for misconduct

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
30Nov/10Off

US cuts access to files after leak embarrassment

WASHINGTON -The State Department severed its computer files from the government's classified network, officials said Tuesday, as U.S. and world leaders tried to clean up from the embarrassing leak that spilled America's sensitive documents onto screens around the globe.
By temporarily pulling the plug, the U.S. significantly reduced the number of government employees who can read important diplomatic messages. It was an extraordinary hunkering down, prompted by the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of those messages this week by WikiLeaks, the self-styled whistleblower organization.
The documents revealed that the U.S. is still confounded about North Korea's nuclear military ambitions, that Iran is believed to have received advanced missiles capable of targeting Western Europe and — perhaps most damaging to the U.S. — that the State Department asked its diplomats to collect DNA samples and other personal information about foreign leaders.
While the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, taunted the U.S. from afar on Tuesday, lawyers from across the government were investigating whether it could prosecute him for espionage, a senior defense official said. The official, not authorized to comment publicly, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley sought to reassure the world that U.S. diplomats were not spies, even as he sidestepped questions about why they were asked to provide DNA samples, iris scans, credit card numbers, fingerprints and other deeply personal information about leaders at the United Nations and in foreign capitals.
Diplomats in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion, for instance, were asked in a secret March 2008 cable to provide "biometric data, to include fingerprints, facial images, iris scans, and DNA" for numerous prominent politicians. They were also asked to send "identities information" on terrorist suspects, including "fingerprints, arrest photos, DNA and iris scans."
In Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo the requests included information about political, military and intelligence leaders.
"Data should include e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans," the cable said.
Every year, the intelligence community asks the State Department for help collecting routine information such as biographical data and other "open source" data. DNA, fingerprint and other information was included in the request because, in some countries, foreigners must provide that information to the U.S. before entering an embassy or military base, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The possibility that American diplomats pressed for more than "open source" information has drawn criticism at the U.N. and in other diplomatic circles over whether U.S. information-gathering blurred the line between diplomacy and espionage.
"What worries me is the mixing of diplomatic tasks with downright espionage. You cross a border ... if diplomats are encouraged to gather personal information about some people," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
Crowley said a few diplomatic cables don't change the role of U.S. diplomats.
"Our diplomats are diplomats. Our diplomats are not intelligence assets," he repeatedly told reporters. "They can collect information. If they collect information that is useful, we share it across the government."
World leaders, meanwhile, were fielding questions about candid U.S. assessments of their countries.
In Kenya, the government was outraged by a leaked cable, published by the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which Kenya is described as a "swamp of flourishing corruption." Kenya's government spokesman called the cable "totally malicious" and said the State Department called to apologize.
In Brazil, officials declined to answer questions about U.S. cables that characterized the South American country as privately cooperative in the war against terrorism, even as it publicly denies terrorist threats domestically.
WikiLeaks has not said how it obtained the documents, but the government's prime suspect is an Army Pfc., Bradley Manning, who is being held in a maximum-security military brig on charges of leaking other classified documents to WikiLeaks. Authorities believe Manning defeated Pentagon security systems simply by bringing a homemade music CD to work, erasing the music, and downloading troves of government secrets onto it.
While world leaders nearly universally condemned the leak, the U.S. and Assange traded barbs from afar. In an online interview with Time magazine from an undisclosed location, Assange called on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to resign because of the cables asking diplomats to gather intelligence. "She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up," he said.
Crowley, at the State Department, showed disdain for Assange.
"I believe he has been described as an anarchist," he said. "His actions seem to substantiate that."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates played down the fallout from the leaks, calling them embarrassing and awkward but saying they would not significantly complicate U.S. foreign policy.
"The fact is governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they think we can keep secrets," Gates said Monday.
Crowley would not say how long the State Department would keep its files off the classified network.
"We have made some adjustments, and that has narrowed, for the time being, those who have access to State Department cables across the government," he said.
—
Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier and Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

US cuts access to files after leak embarrassment

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
29Nov/10Off

Leaked US cables reveal sensitive diplomacy

WASHINGTON -Hundreds of thousands of State Department documents leaked Sunday revealed a hidden world of backstage international diplomacy, divulging candid comments from world leaders and detailing occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea.
The classified diplomatic cables released by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks and reported on by news organizations in the United States and Europe provided often unflattering assessments of foreign leaders, ranging from U.S. allies such as Germany and Italy to other nations like Libya, Iran and Afghanistan.
The cables also contained new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.
There are also American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats — going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.
None of the revelations is particularly explosive, but their publication could prove problematic for the officials concerned. And the massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the disclosures.
The documents published by The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and others laid out the behind-the-scenes conduct of Washington's international relations, shrouded in public by platitudes, smiles and handshakes at photo sessions among senior officials.
The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."
It also noted that "by its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions."
"Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the spying allegations. "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."
On its website, The New York Times said "the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."
In a statement released Sunday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, "The cables show the U.S. spying on its allies and the U.N.; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in 'client states'; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries and lobbying for U.S. corporations."
Their release — the first in a series of planned releases over the next few months — "reveals the contradictions between the U.S.'s public persona and what it says behind closed doors," Assange said.
The documents were again available on the WikiLeaks website Sunday afternoon. The site was inaccessible much of the day, and the group claimed it was under a cyberattack.
But extracts of the more than 250,000 cables posted online by news outlets that had been given advance copies of the documents showed deep U.S. concerns about Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs along with fears about regime collapse in Pyongyang.
The Guardian said some cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program. The newspaper also said officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear program to be stopped by any means and that leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran "as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war,'" The Guardian said.
Those documents may prove the most problematic because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.
The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.
The Times also cited diplomatic cables describing unsuccessful U.S. efforts to prod Pakistani officials to remove highly enriched uranium from a reactor out of fears that the material could be used to make an illicit atomic device. And the newspaper cited cables that showed Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, telling U.S. Gen. David Petraeus that his country would pretend that American missile strikes against a local al-Qaida group were from Yemen's forces.
The paper also reported on documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.
It also cited a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that included allegations from a Chinese contact that China's Politburo directed a cyber intrusion into Google's computer systems as part of a "coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws."
Le Monde said another memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.
The Times said another batch of documents raised questions about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One cable said Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe, the Times reported.
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday called the release the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy," in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed.
Der Spiegel reported that the cables portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in unflattering terms. It said American diplomats saw Merkel as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, meanwhile, was described as erratic and in the near constant company of a Ukrainian nurse who was described in one cable as "a voluptuous blonde," according to the Times.
The Obama administration has been bracing for the release for the past week. Top officials have notified allies that the contents of the diplomatic cables could prove embarrassing because they contain candid assessments of foreign leaders and their governments, as well as details of American policy.
The State Department's top lawyer warned Assange late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead. He also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.
In Australia, where Assange is from, the attorney general said law enforcement officials were looking into whether the WikiLeaks release broke any laws.
Robert McClelland told reporters on Monday there are "potentially a number of criminal laws" that could have been breached.
In a session Sunday with a group of Arab journalists, Assange said, "The State Department understands that we are a responsible organization, so it is trying to make it as hard as it can for us to publish responsibly."
He called the Obama administration "a regime that doesn't believe in the freedom of the press and doesn't act like it believes it."
The New York Times said the documents involved 250,000 cables — the daily message traffic between the State Department and more than 270 U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world. The newspaper said that in its reporting, it attempted to exclude information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security.
The Times said that after its own redactions, it sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information they deemed would harm the national interest. After reviewing the cables, the officials suggested additional redactions, the Times said. The newspaper said it agreed to some, but not all.
Also Sunday, the Pentagon released a summary of precautions taken since WikiLeaks published stolen war logs from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since August, the Pentagon has changed the way portable computer storage devices such as flash drives can be used with classified systems, and made it harder for one person acting alone to download material from a classified network and place it on an unclassified one.
—
Associated Press staffers Anne Gearan in Washington, Juergen Baetz in Berlin, Don Melvin in London, Angela Doland in Paris, Robert H. Reid in Cairo, Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Mark Lavie in Jerusalem and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
—
Online:

Leaked US cables reveal sensitive diplomacy

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
27Nov/10Off

Feds: Somali-born teen plotted car-bombing in Ore.

PORTLAND, Ore. -Federal agents in a sting operation arrested a Somali-born teenager just as he tried blowing up a van he believed was loaded with explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, authorities said.
The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.
Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.
"The threat was very real," said Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. "Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale."
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Saturday that President Barack Obama was aware of the FBI operation before Friday's arrest. Shapiro said Obama was assured that the FBI was in full control of the operation and that the public was not in danger.
"The events of the past 24 hours underscore the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad," Shapiro said. "The president thanks the FBI, the Department of Justice and the rest of our law enforcement, intelligence and Homeland Security professionals who have once again served with extraordinary skill and resolve and with the commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand."
A law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that federal agents began investigating the suspect after receiving a tip from someone who was concerned about the teenager. The official declined to provide more detail about the relationship between Mohamud and that source.
The FBI affidavit that outlined the investigation alleges that Mohamud planned the attack for months, at one point mailing bomb components to FBI operatives, whom he believed were assembling the device.
According to the official, Mohamud hatched the plan on his own and without any instruction from a foreign terrorist organization, and he planned the details, including where to park the van for the maximum number of casualties.
The affidavit said Mohamud was warned several times about the seriousness of his plan, that women and children could be killed, and that he could back out, but he told agents: "Since I was 15 I thought about all this;" and "It's gonna be a fireworks show ... a spectacular show."
Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Corvallis, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. A court appearance was set for Monday.
Authorities allowed the plot to proceed in order to build up enough evidence to charge the suspect with attempt.
The alleged plot in Portland follows a string of terrorist attack planning by U.S. citizens or residents, including a Times Square plot in which Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to trying to set off a car bomb at a bustling street corner. U.S. authorities had no intelligence about Shahzad's plot until the smoking car turned up in Manhattan.
Late last month, Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Virginia was arrested and accused of casing Washington-area subway stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters. Similar to the Portland sting, the bombing plot was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials.
U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton released federal court documents to The Associated Press and the Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an "unindicted associate" in Pakistan's northwest, a frontier region where al-Qaida and Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are strong. The person Mohamud had been in e-mail contact with was a friend living in Pakistan who had been a student in Oregon in 2007-2008, the official told the AP.
The two used coded language in which the FBI believes Mohamud discussed traveling to Pakistan to prepare for "violent jihad," the documents said.
In June an FBI agent contacted Mohamud "under the guise of being affiliated with" the suspected terrorist.
An undercover agent met with him a month later in Portland, where they "discussed violent jihad," according to the court documents.
As a trial run, Mohamud and agents detonated a bomb in Oregon's backcounry earlier this month.
"This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people — even here in Oregon — who are determined to kill Americans," Holton said.
Friday, an agent and Mohamud drove to downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert, the complaint states.
They left the van near the downtown ceremony site and went to a train station where Mohamud was given a cell phone that he thought would blow up the vehicle, according to the complaint. There was no detonation when he dialed, and when he tried again federal agents and police made their move.
Omar Jamal, first secretary to the Somali mission to the United Nations, condemned the plot and urged Somalis to cooperate with police and the FBI.
"Talk to them and tell them what you know so we can all be safe," Jamal said.
Somalia Foreign Minister Mohamed Abullahi Omaar said his government is "ready and willing" to offer the U.S. any assistance it may need to prevent similar attempts. He said the attempt in Portland was a tragedy for Mohamud's family and the "people he tried to harm."
"Mohamud's attempt is neither representative nor an example of Somalis. Somalis are peace loving people," said Omaar, whose government is holed up in a few blocks of the capital, Mogadishu, while much of the country's southern and central regions are ruled by Islamist insurgents.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have resettled in the United States since their country plunged into lawlessness in 1991, and the U.S. has boosted aid to the country.
In August, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment naming 14 people accused of being a deadly pipeline routing money and fighters from the U.S. to al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliated group in Mohamud's native Somalia,
At the time, Attorney General Eric Holder said the indictments reflect a disturbing trend of recruitment efforts targeting U.S. residents to become terrorists.
Officials have been working with Muslim community leaders across the United States, particularly in Somali diasporas in Minnesota, trying to combat the radicalization.
—
Pickler reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi, Kenya, and Lolita C. Baldor and Darlene Superville in Washington also contributed to this report.

Feds: Somali-born teen plotted car-bombing in Ore.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
23Nov/10Off

Tensions high as North, South Korea trade shelling

INCHEON, South Korea -North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday along their disputed frontier, raising tensions between the rivals to their highest level in more than a decade. The communist nation warned of more military strikes if the South encroaches on the maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter."
Angry at South Korea's refusal to halt military drills near their sea border, North Korea shelled the island of Yeonpyeong, and Seoul responded by unleashing its own barrage from K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and scrambling fighter jets. Two South Korean marines were killed in the shelling that also injured 15 troops and three civilians.
Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties.
The confrontation lasted about an hour and left the uneasiest of calms, with each side threatening further bombardments.
North Korea's apparent progress in its nuclear weapons program and its preparations for handing power to a new generation have plunged relations on the heavily militarized peninsula to new lows in recent weeks.
South Korea's military was put on high alert after the shelling — one of the rivals' most dramatic confrontations since an armistice halted the Korean War in 1953 and one of the few to put civilians at risk.
"I thought I would die," said Lee Chun-ok, 54, an islander who said she was watching TV in her home when the shelling began. Suddenly, a wall and door collapsed.
"I was really, really terrified," she told The Associated Press after being evacuated to the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, "and I'm still terrified."
The attacks focused global attention on the tiny island and sent stock prices down worldwide. The dollar and gold rose as investors sought safe places to park money. Hong Kong's main stock index sank 2.7 percent, while European indexes fell between 1.7 and 2.5 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 142 points, or 1.3 percent.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting shortly after the initial bombardment, said an "indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated."
"Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that (North Korea) cannot make provocations again," he said.
The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack. The White House said President Barack Obama was "outraged" by North Korea's actions.
Top national security aides planned to meet later Tuesday to discuss the situation. The White House said it would work with its international partners to determine the appropriate next steps.
Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command, said in a Facebook posting that the U.S. military is "closely monitoring the situation and exchanging information with our (South Korean) allies as we always do."
China, the North's economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed for both sides to remain calm and "to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned North Korea's artillery attack, calling it "one of the gravest incidents since the end of the Korean War," his spokesman Martin Nesirky said. Ban called for "immediate restraint" and insisted "any differences should be resolved by peaceful means and dialogue," the spokesman said.
The clash "brings us one step closer to the brink of war," said Peter Beck, a research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, "because I don't think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiraling out of control has always been my fear."
South Korea holds military exercises like Tuesday's off the west coast about every three months, and they typically provoke an angry response from North Korea, but Tuesday's confrontation was far from typical.
Skirmishes flare up along the disputed border from time to time, but this clash follows months in which tensions have steadily risen to their worst levels since the late 1980s, when a confessed agent for North Korea bombed a South Korean jetliner, killing all 115 people aboard.
The communist regime in Pyongyang has sought to consolidate power at home ahead of a leadership transition and hopes to gain leverage abroad before re-entering international talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programs.
In March, North Korea was blamed for launching a torpedo that sank the South Korean warship Cheonan while on routine patrol, killing 46 sailors. South Korea called it the worst military attack on the country since the war. Pyongyang denied responsibility. South Korea did not retaliate for the sinking of the Cheonan.
Six weeks ago, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, heir apparent. This week, Pyongyang claimed it has a new uranium enrichment facility, raising concerns about its pursuit of atomic weapons.
South Korea faces an uphill struggle if it wants the U.N. Security Council to condemn North Korea for the attack or to impose a third round of sanctions.
While Seoul can count on strong support from the U.S. and other Western powers on the council, it is likely to face opposition from China, a veto-wielding member.
China agreed to two rounds of sanctions against Pyongyang after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, and Seoul wanted the U.N.'s most powerful body to condemn North Korea for the Cheonan sinking. But North Korea warned that its military forces would respond if the council questioned or condemned the country over the sinking, and China opposed direct condemnation or a third round of sanctions.
Yeonpyeong lies a mere seven miles (11 kilometers) from — and within sight of — the North Korean mainland. Famous for its crabbing industry, it is home to about 1,700 civilians as well as South Korean military installations. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.
North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in midafternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Naval operations had been reinforced in the area, the military said early Wednesday, declining to elaborate.
Columns of thick black smoke rose from homes on the island, video from YTN cable TV showed. Screams and shouts filled the air as shells rained down on the island just south of the disputed sea border.
Island residents fled to some 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour, according to the military.
A North Korean statement said it was merely "reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike," and accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its "reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the" North.
The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Government officials in Seoul called North Korea's bombardments "inhumane atrocities" that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed, and nearly 2 million troops — including tens of thousands from the U.S. — are positioned on both sides of the world's most heavily militarized border.
North Korea does not recognize the western maritime border drawn unilaterally by the U.N. at the close of the conflict, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there in recent years.
—
Kwang-Tae Kim reported from Seoul. AP writers Seulki Kim, Kelly Olsen and Foster Klug in Seoul and Anita Snow and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Tensions high as North, South Korea trade shelling

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
21Nov/10Off

Report: Would-be plane bombers post attack details

WASHINGTON -Terrorist monitoring groups say Al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula claims its attempts to blow up package bombs on two cargo flights headed to the U.S. cost only $4,200.
In an edition of the Yemeni-based group's online Inspire magazine, it details how what it calls Operation Hemorrhage used common items like Nokia cell phones, and two HP printers stuffed with an organic explosive. The group claims the same method brought down a cargo plane in Dubai.
The group says it's part of a new strategy, to replace spectacular attacks in favor of smaller attacks to hit the U.S. economy. That from Ben Venske's IntelCenter and the Site Intelligence Group.
U.S. officials insist the Dubai cargo plane crash was an accident, not terrorism.

Report: Would-be plane bombers post attack details

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
17Nov/10Off

Rangel guilty: House ethics panel rules misconduct

WASHINGTON -New York Rep. Charles Rangel, a longtime power in the U.S. House, violated its rules with financial misconduct, brought it discredit and will be punished, fellow lawmakers sitting as jurors ruled on Tuesday.
Protesting the enduring stain on his four-decade congressional career, the 80-year-old Democrat said he was treated unfairly for "good faith mistakes." His statement reflected the bitterness of an eight-month career slide, starting with an unrelated ethics ruling that forced him from his coveted chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
The conduct often cited by critics was his failure to report income to the IRS from a unit he owned in a Dominican Republic resort — showing the chairman in charge of tax legislation shortchanged the IRS.
Rangel, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, remains a political kingpin in New York's famed Harlem neighborhood and is unlikely to resign. He won re-election earlier this month.
Convicted on 11 of 13 charges of rules violations, his ordeal isn't finished.
The eight-member ethics panel that convicted him — four Democrats and four Republicans — now will write what is likely to be a stinging report to amplify its findings. Then, the full House ethics committee will conduct a hearing Thursday on the appropriate punishment for Rangel, the silver-haired, gravelly voiced and sartorially flashy veteran of 20 terms in Congress.
Rangel can waive his right to the hearing and ask the committee to go straight to deliberations on possible sanctions.
Possible sanctions include a House vote deploring his conduct, a fine and denial of certain privileges.
Rangel's downfall, in part, came in the way he solicited money for a New York college center designed as a monument to himself. There also was his decade of misleading annual disclosures of his income and assets and his use of a subsidized New York apartment — designated for residential use — as a campaign office.
The panel deliberated over two days before its chairman, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, made a bare-bones statement announcing the findings — leaving a full explanation for the upcoming written report.
The conviction was a fresh setback for Democrats who lost control of the House to the GOP in the midterm elections, support for Republican candidates' assertions of bad conduct.
At his one-day trial on Monday, Rangel was reduced to pleading for a postponement — arguing that his lawyers abandoned him after he paid them some $2 million but could afford no more. The panel rejected his request, and Rangel walked out of the proceeding.
"How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?" Rangel complained on Tuesday. "I can only hope that the full committee will treat me more fairly and take into account my entire 40 years of service to the Congress before making any decisions on sanctions."
He called the panel's findings "unprecedented" because there was no rebuttal evidence. He complained that the rejection of his appeal for more time violated "the basic constitutional right to counsel."
Rangel, echoing a statement he made in August in a speech to the House, added, "Any failings in my conduct were the result of good faith mistakes." He said they were caused by "sloppy and careless record keeping but were not criminal or corrupt."
New York Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who attended Rangel's fundraiser in August while campaigning to clean up New York politics, said, "It's obviously a sad situation to experience."
"It's important that people have full faith in the integrity in public service, so it's painful to watch," Cuomo said Tuesday at a press event near Rochester. "But we'll see what happens at the end of the process."
The eight-member jury panel was unanimous on most charges against Rangel. Members split 4-4 on a charge that he violated a ban on gifts because he was to have an office — and storage of his papers — at the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.
Two counts charging him with misuse of Congress' free mail privilege were merged into one. And the panel voted 7-1 on a final charge that he had brought discredit on the House. No breakdown was given on who voted no.
The charges said the solicitation for the Rangel Center targeted foundations and businesses that were seeking official action from the House or had interests that might be substantially affected by Rangel's congressional conduct.
However, Rangel was not accused of using his influence to pass or defeat legislation.
During Monday's trial proceeding, the chief counsel for the House ethics committee, Blake Chisam, told the jury that Rangel could have received permission to solicit nonprofit foundations. However, he could not have used congressional stationery and staff as he was found to have done.
Rangel had previously acknowledged some of the charges, including submission of 10 years' worth of incomplete and inaccurate annual statements disclosing his assets and income.
He also admitted he initially did not report his rental income from a unit he owned at the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.
An apartment in Harlem's Lennox Terrace complex housed the Rangel for Congress and National Leadership PAC political committees, although the lease terms said the unit was for living purposes only.
Chisam had told the jury that other tenants were evicted at an increasing rate for violating the same lease terms.

Rangel guilty: House ethics panel rules misconduct

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Nov/10Off

Ethics panel begins deliberations in Rangel case

WASHINGTON -Shortly after veteran Rep. Charles Rangel of New York walked out of his ethics trial in protest, a House panel began closed-door deliberations Monday on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct that could bring formal condemnation.
Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left when they said no, and the rare proceeding — only the second for this type of hearing in two decades — went on without him.
An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members apparently agreed.
If the panel members decide Rangel violated any House rules, the full committee will hold a hearing on how he should be punished. The most likely sanction would be a House vote deploring his conduct.
Rangel, a 20-term congressman representing New York's famed Harlem neighborhood, implored the ethics panel for further delay, saying that "50 years of public service is on the line." But the panel basically decided that the 2 1/2-year-old case had gone on long enough — and Congress had little time left to deal with it in the lame duck session that commenced Monday.
Rangel said he had run out of money after paying his previous attorneys some $2 million and needed time to set up a legal defense fund to raise an additional $1 million.
Until last spring, Rangel had wielded great influence as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, a gravelly voiced, outgoing figure who raised millions for fellow lawmakers' campaigns. He relinquished that chairmanship in March after being admonished by an ethics panel for taking corporate trips to the Caribbean in violation of House rules. There was no further punishment for that, but the current charges are another matter.
After Rangel left Monday's hearing, House ethics committee chief counsel Blake Chisam pushed for a decision on the 13 counts of fundraising and financial conduct that allegedly violated House rules. Chisam, assuming the role of prosecutor, played a video of Rangel's speech on the House floor in August in which the congressman acknowledged that he'd used House stationery to raise money for a college center named after him, and that he'd been tardy in filing taxes and financial disclosure statements.
He said then that he never intended to break any rules.
Chisam told the panel of four Republicans and four Democrats that there were no questions "as to any material facts in this case. As a result the case is ripe for a decision."
Chisam also said, "I see no evidence of corruption" by Rangel. Rather, he suggested, the congressman was "overzealous" and "sloppy in his personal finances."
Chisam said Rangel could have legally raised money for the Charles B. Rangel Center at City College of New York by asking the ethics committee for permission to solicit nonprofit organizations. However, he would not have been able to use congressional letterheads or employees in the fundraising, as he is charged with doing.
The counsel also said Rangel used a subsidized apartment in New York City as a campaign office when the lease required that it be for residential use only.
"At the same time, the landlord was evicting other tenants at an increased rate" for failing to follow the same lease terms, Chisam said.
Several members of the panel criticized Rangel's lawyers for leaving the case just weeks before the hearing.
Vermont Democratic Rep. Peter Welch said that no law firm should be "taking the money ... and kicking their client by the side of the road."
Rangel's former lawyer, Leslie Berger Kiernan, did not immediately respond.
If the ethic panel finds that Rangel broke the rules, the House ethics committee could recommend that the full House vote to condemn his conduct.
"My family has caught hell" in the investigation, Rangel said in asking for more time. Earlier this fall, he had pleaded for a quick decision before the November elections. He won re-election.
The ethics committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told Rangel that time was an issue since this Congress will soon adjourn. He responded that his fate should not depend on the congressional calendar.
"I truly believe I am not being treated fairly," Rangel said.
The ethics investigation goes back to at least July 2008. Only former Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, who was expelled from the House after a criminal conviction, has faced a similar trial since current House ethics procedures were adopted two decades ago.
Key charges portray Rangel as a veteran congressman who thought he could ignore rules on disclosing his assets, and improperly used official resources to raise money for a college center that was a monument to his career.
Another allegation that caught the public's eye was his failure to declare rental income to the IRS from a resort unit he owned in the Dominican Republic.
The charges allege violations of:
_A House gift ban and restrictions on solicitations. Rangel is accused of using congressional staff, letterhead and workspace to seek donations for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. The requests usually went to charitable arms of businesses with issues before Congress, including Rangel's Ways and Means Committee.
_A U.S. government code of ethics. Several allegations fall under this code, among them: accepting favors (the Rangel Center donations) that could be construed as influencing Rangel's congressional duties; acceptance of a rent-subsidized New York apartment used as a campaign office, when the lease said it was for residential use only, and failure to report taxable income.
_The Ethics in Government Act and a companion House rule requiring "full and complete" public reports of a congressman's income, assets and liabilities each year. Rangel is charged with a pattern of submitting incomplete and inaccurate disclosure statements. He filed amended reports covering 1998 to 2007 only after the investigative ethics panel began looking into his disclosures. He belatedly reported at least $600,000 in assets.

Ethics panel begins deliberations in Rangel case

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
12Nov/10Off

High court allows gay military ban for now

WASHINGTON -The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Pentagon to continue preventing openly gay people from serving in the military while a federal appeals court reviews the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The court did not comment in denying a request from the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, to step into the ongoing federal court review of "don't ask, don't tell." The Obama administration urged the high court not to get involved at this point.
Last month, a federal judge ruled that the policy violates the civil rights of gay Americans and she issued an injunction barring the Pentagon from applying it. But the San Francisco-based appeals court said the policy could remain in effect while it considers the administration's appeal.
"Log Cabin Republicans are disappointed that the Supreme Court decided to maintain the status quo with regards to 'don't ask, don't tell,' but we are not surprised," said R. Clarke Cooper, the group's executive director. "We are committed to pursuing every avenue in the fight against this failed and unconstitutional policy."
President Barack Obama has pledged to push lawmakers to repeal the law in the lame-duck session before a new Congress is sworn in. But administration lawyers have in the meantime defended "don't ask, don't tell" in court.
The policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was lifted for eight days in October after U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that it is unconstitutional. The Obama administration asked the appeals court to reinstate the ban until it could hear arguments on the broader constitutional issues next year.
Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the court's consideration of the issue. Kagan served as the administration's chief Supreme Court lawyer before she became a justice in August.
—
Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

High court allows gay military ban for now

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
8Nov/10Off

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

SALT LAKE CITY -Elizabeth Smart remembers not being able to make out the threat, only the feel of cold knife at her neck.
As the then-14-year-old lay in bed alongside her baby sister, the man repeated: "Don't make a sound. Get out of bed and come with me, or I will kill you and your family." She was his hostage, he told her.
"I was shocked. I thought I was having a nightmare. It was just indescribable fear," Smart, now 23, told jurors Monday on the first day of testimony in the trial of Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping her in June 2002.
That night, they fled up the hills above her home, with Smart in her red pajamas and tennis shoes, and the knife to her back.
Her younger sister — a baby blanket wrapped around her head and neck — rushed to their mother, telling of the kidnapping.
"It was utter terror," their mother, Lois Smart, testified earlier Monday. "It was the worst feeling, knowing that I didn't know where my child was. I was helpless."
Nine months later, motorists spotted Elizabeth Smart walking in a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell.
His attorneys did not dispute the facts of the abduction. But during opening statements, they said the prosecution's allegation that he was a calculating person who planned the kidnapping was wrong.
Known as a homeless street preacher named "Immanuel," Mitchell was influenced by a worsening mental illness and religious beliefs that made him think he was doing what God wanted, his attorneys said.
Mitchell, who has a long graying beard to the middle of his chest and hair to the middle of his back, was again removed from the courtroom Monday for singing hymns, so he's watching and listening from a holding cell.
Smart's mother testified that she and her children ran into Mitchell downtown and that she offered him a job doing handyman work at the family's home. One of her sons encouraged her to give him money, she said.
"He looked like a clean-cut, well-kept man that was down on his luck," she said. "I gave him $5."
Later, the family hired Mitchell to help fix a leaky roof, Lois Smart said. It was the only job he did for the family.
"I do remember having a conversation with him, hoping that he would do more work. He seemed fine," she said.
Elizabeth Smart described how Mitchell came into her bedroom. She had left a kitchen window open because her mother had burned potatoes for dinner.
"I remember him saying that I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound, get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family," she said.
Smart said she got up and he grabbed her arm, and took her into a closet. He stopped her when she reached for slippers and told her to wear tennis shoes.
After leaving the house, Smart said, they hiked three to five hours up a hill to a campsite where Mitchell's now-estranged wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, took her in a tent, sat her down on a bucket and washed her feet.
Barzee also told her to take off her pajamas and underwear and put on a robe or "she would have the defendant come in and rip them off," she said.
Smart said Mitchell entered the tent wearing a similar robe and married them by pulling a sentence from the traditional Mormon marriage ceremony, called a sealing.
"He said, 'What I seal on this earth will be sealed to me in the hereafter and I take you to be my wife,'" she said, adding that she screamed and he threatened to put duct tape across her mouth.
"He proceeded to fight me to the ground and force the robes up," Smart said quietly, pausing, "where he raped me."
"I begged him not to. I did everything I could to stop him. I pleaded with him not to touch me, but it didn't work."
Mitchell chained her to a table, making it impossible for her to flee, she said.
Lois Smart said she was awakened by daughter Mary Katherine, who was 9 at the time and slept with Elizabeth. With the baby blanket wrapped around her head, she looked like "a scared rabbit," her mother said.
"She said a man has taken Elizabeth with a gun and that we won't find her. He took her either for ransom or hostage," Lois Smart recalled Mary Katherine, now 18, saying.
Lois Smart said she went to the kitchen and immediately noticed the window was open and the screen was cut in a U-shape.
"My heart sank," she said. Then, she yelled to her husband, Ed: "Call 911. She's gone.'"
Elizabeth Smart is serving on a French mission trip for the Mormon church but plans to resume her music studies at Brigham Young University next year.
Mitchell, 57, faces life in prison if he is convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
6Nov/10Off

Officials: Saudis warned 3 weeks before attack

WASHINGTON -A Saudi tip about a possible al-Qaida effort to bring down airplanes was relayed to U.S. authorities in early October, nearly three weeks before the group's Yemen affiliate tried to ship mail bombs to the U.S. in cargo planes, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.
The Saudi intelligence tip helped to head off what could have been a devastating series of plane explosions. Western officials credit the Saudis with playing a crucial role in finding two mail bombs recovered last week in Dubai and Britain before they reached the U.S.
On Friday, the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for sending the two bombs and threatened more attacks on civilian and cargo planes. The group also said it had a role in the crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai in September, but investigators so far have insisted an accident was at fault.
The Saudi tip in October contained no mention of cargo planes, or any details of the plot carried out last week, said U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters. But they said it gave the U.S. and other Western officials enough of a warning to know what to look for when another Saudi tip arrived last week.
A CIA spokesman Friday night cited several allies that have provided key intelligence about terrorist activities.
"Over the past several months, we received intelligence — which was shared across our government — from our foreign partners about threats from AQAP and other terrorist groups," said CIA spokesman George Little. "The United States receives this kind of information from other governments on a regular basis, as you would expect. Last week, we received specific intelligence that allowed the United States and our allies to disrupt the cargo plot. Our actions were swift and aggressive."
Another U.S. official said the Yemeni terror group's interest in plane attacks has been apparent since its failed Christmas Day attempt last year to bring down a Detroit-bound plane with explosives hidden in the underwear of a suicide bomber. Both the Christmas Day attack and the mail bombs sent last week used a powerful industrial explosive PETN, and the AQAP's top bomb maker is considered a top suspect in both attempts.
But although the tip relayed in October did raise alarms about a plane attack, it did not mention cargo planes or where the plot might originate or even who the attackers might be, the official said.
U.S. intelligence had been monitoring steady intelligence on a possible attack such as this since early September, one U.S. official has said. And in late September, authorities also intercepted a group of packages shipped to Chicago which in retrospect is now seen as a likely test run by the terror group to gauge the logistics of shipping bombs by air to the U.S.
The report on the Saudi tip in October was first reported Friday by The New York Times and the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
On Friday, AQAP said it would continue to strike American and Western interests and specifically said it would target civilian and cargo aircraft.
"We have struck three blows at your airplanes in a single year," the group said in a message posted on a militant website. "And God willing, we will continue to strike our blows against American interests and the interests of America's allies."
The authenticity of Friday's claim could not be immediately verified. A U.S. intelligence official said authorities are not surprised to see this claim now.
Authorities in the U.S. and the UAE have said the Sept. 3 crash of the UPS plane in Dubai shortly after takeoff was caused by an onboard fire, but investigators are taking another look at the incident following the parcel bomb plot.
A security official in the UAE familiar with the investigations into the UPS cargo plane crash in Dubai and the mail bombs plot told The Associated Press on Friday that there is no change in earlier findings and that the UPS crash in September was likely caused by an onboard fire and not by an explosive device.
"There was no explosion," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under standing UAE rules on disclosing security-related information.
A UPS spokesman, Norman Black, said his company had "no independent knowledge of this claim by al-Qaida," and noted that both UAE officials and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board officials have so far ruled out the possibility of a bomb as cause in the crash.
In its statement, al-Qaida's Yemeni offshoot said that it "downed the UPS airplane but because the enemy's media did not attribute the act to us, we kept silent about the operation until we could return the ball once more.
"We have done that, this time with two explosives, one of them sent via UPS, the other via FedEx."
It said that its "advanced explosives" give it "the opportunity to detonate (planes) in the air or after they have reached their final target, and they are designed to bypass all detection devices."
Both mail bombs were hidden inside computer printers and wired to detonators that used cell-phone technology and packed powdered PETN, a potent industrial explosive.
The message also directed a warning to Saudi Arabia, warning: "God's curse on the oppressors."
—
Murphy reported from Dubai. Associated Press writers Samantha Bomkamp in New York City and Eileen Sullivan, Adam Goldman and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Officials: Saudis warned 3 weeks before attack

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
4Nov/10Off

GOP plans to cut spending, repeal health care law

WASHINGTON -Victorious at the polls, congressional Republicans asserted their newfound political strength on Thursday, vowing to seek a quick $100 billion in federal spending cuts and force repeated votes on the repeal of President Barack Obama's prized health care overhaul.
At the White Houses, Obama said his administration was ready to work across party lines in a fresh attempt to "focus on the economy and jobs" as well as attack waste in government. In a show of bipartisanship, he invited top lawmakers to the White House at mid-month, and the nation's newly elected governors two weeks later.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in line to become the new speaker of the House, brushed aside talk that the No. 1 GOP goal was to make sure Obama is defeated at the polls in 2012. "That's Senator McConnell's statement and his opinion," he told ABC, referring to the party's leader in the Senate and adding that his own goals included cutting spending and creating jobs.
But tentative talk of compromise competed with rhetoric reminiscent of the just-completed campaign.
In a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell said the only way to achieve key party legislative goals such as ending government bailouts, cutting spending and repealing the health care law "is to put someone in the White House who won't veto" them.
"There's just no getting around it," he added.
Obama has ruled out accepting repeal of the health care measure, and Senate Democrats responded quickly to McConnell.
"What Sen. McConnell is really saying is, `Republicans want to let insurance companies go back to denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, let them go back to charging women twice as much for the same coverage as men, and let them push millions of seniors back into the Medicare doughnut hole," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The maneuvering unfolded two days after elections that swept Democrats out of power in the House and cut deeply into their Senate majority, scripting an uncertain new era of divided government for the final two years of Obama's term.
In the House, Boehner asked members of the Republican rank and file to support him for speaker when the new Congress convenes in early January. His victory is a formality, given the huge 60-member gain he engineered as party leader.
Nor did there appear to be any competition to Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia as majority leader, the second-most powerful position in the House.
Among Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to disclose her plans. The most recent speaker whose party lost its majority, Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, resigned from Congress a few months later.
Even before the new Congress comes into office, the old one is scheduled to meet the week after next for a post-election session.
In remarks to reporters after meeting with his Cabinet at the White House, Obama urged lawmakers to avert an income tax increase that could take effect Jan 1, ratify a new arms-reduction treaty with Russia, provide unemployment aid to victims of the recession and extend expiring tax breaks for business.
Congress also must enact a spending bill that permits government to remain in operation, and the issue already has emerged as a likely flash point in the post-election meeting of Congress.
Many House Republicans campaigned on a platform of cutting government spending to levels in effect in 2008, before enactment of an economic stimulus bill and other increases that Democrats passed. Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, notified Democrats during the day that GOP lawmakers will try and implement the cuts when Congress considers the spending bill needed to keep most agencies running for the next eight months. The estimated savings total $100 billion.
"The unmistakable message sent by the American people on Tuesday is that they are justifiably angry at Washington. They want Congress to cut spending," wrote Lewis, who faces an internal challenge in his attempt to become chairman of the panel next year.
At a news conference on Wednesday, the president signaled he was ready to jettison his campaign-long insistence that tax cuts be extended for earners at incomes up to $250,000 but be allowed to expire for higher-income people.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made the hint explicit on Thursday. He said extending tax cuts permanently for upper-income earners "is something the president does not believe is a good idea," but that Obama would be open to the possibility of extending the cuts for one or two years.
Republicans responded coolly to the overture. "I take any signal that the president may be backing off his pledge to raise taxes on small businesses as a good sign, but we have to see where this discussion goes," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, in line to become the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. He and other Republicans say that the expiration of some income tax cuts would be felt on numerous small business owners.
McConnell's speech reflected his status as leader of a minority unable to originate legislation, a position different from the one Boehner will soon hold.
"We have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve, while at the same time recognizing that realism should never be confused with capitulation," the Kentucky senator said.
"On health care, that means we can — and should — propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly. But we can't expect the president to sign it."
Boehner, in his ABC interview, said he's not sure the president and other Democrats fully understand the message delivered by the voters on Tuesday. "When you have the most historic election in over 60, 70 years, you would think the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies they've put forward in the last few years."

GOP plans to cut spending, repeal health care law

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
2Nov/10Off

On Election Day, Democratic control is on the line

WASHINGTON -The Democratic Congress that enacted President Barack Obama's far-reaching health care law and plowed staggering sums into economic relief is at risk Tuesday in an election that promises to shake up the political order across the nation.
Republicans buoyantly forecast a new era of divided government, two years after Democrats sealed victory in the presidency, the House and the Senate and set about reshaping the agenda in a time of severe recession and war. Democrats did not seriously dispute expectations that they would lose the House this time, even while campaigning through the final hours to stem losses.
His campaign travels over, Obama was taping interviews with radio hosts in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Honolulu and Miami as well as one with Ryan Seacrest of "American Idol" for his national radio show, all for broadcast Tuesday as Americans vote. In one interview he pulled back from earlier remarks calling Republicans "enemies" of Hispanics.
Democrats tend to be strong closers, with a vaunted operation by the party, Obama's organizers and unions to get supporters to voting sites on Election Day. This time, they faced a ground game infused by the tea party, less polished than the other side but full of energy.
The midterm elections are a prime-time test for that loosely knit and largely leaderless coalition, a force unheard of just two years ago. Tea party supporters rattled the Republican establishment in the primaries, booting out several veteran lawmakers and installing more than 70 candidates, nearly three dozen of whom are in competitive races Tuesday.
If successful, that conservative movement could come to Washington as a firewall against expansive federal spending, immigration liberalization and more, as well as a further threat to the historic health care law that Republicans hope somehow to roll back.
In Thornton, Colo., on Monday, coffee and leftover Halloween candy fueled volunteers at campaign offices of both Senate candidates, Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet and Republican Ken Buck. Republican helper Susan Nalbone, 55, a retired schoolteacher who was phoning voters, said her side was dispirited in 2008. Not now.
"This is more intense," she said. "I know that elections are all important, all a big deal, but this one feels especially important to people."
At Bennet's office, LuAnn Lind, 52, a nurse, said she's been volunteering for Democrats for years and finding it harder now to fire people up. "It's a little less urgent among the people I'm talking to," Lind said. "I'm telling them: 'We don't want to lose ground now. We want to keep the Obama momentum moving forward.'"
Ohio Rep. John Boehner, in line to become speaker if Republicans win the House, promised Monday to hold weekly votes to cut federal spending, make jobs the top GOP priority and fight to repeal the health law. Former President Bill Clinton, campaigning for Democrats as if his own future were on the line, stumped late into the night in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida.
Republicans need 40 more seats to win the House, a goal that polls indicated they might achieve. Races for more than 100 of the 435 seats are competitive.
Republicans need a net gain of 10 to take the Senate, a tougher road that requires them to win every tight race. The GOP also made strong bids to add governors to their ranks and expand in state legislatures.
Voter mobilization efforts have been unfolding for weeks as more than 14 million Americans cast early ballots.
In Nevada, home of the hot Senate contest between Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and tea-party pick Sharron Angle, registered Democrats and Republicans came out early in similar numbers. In Pennsylvania, another battleground, more than half the early voters were Republican, by the latest count.
"I need you in the next few hours," Reid told supporters at a rally Monday with first lady Michelle Obama. "Don't hope someone else will work harder than you. You need to knock on that extra door. You need to make that extra phone call."
Some races could go days or more without a winner, thanks to the multitude of expected close contests — in Colorado, Nevada, Illinois, West Virginia, Ohio, Alaska and more — and the persistence of shaky voting systems in some places a decade after the presidential-election counting disaster in Florida.
Hundreds of lawyers from both sides are ready to roll. This was a campaign marked by the ragged anger of partisans and caustic ads by candidates, now spilling into an Election Day that's likely to lead to complaints of voting irregularities, fraud or machine meltdowns — and hair-trigger legal challenges.
One of the most unpredictable races was unfolding in Alaska, where Sen. Lisa Murkowski, upset in the GOP primaries by the tea party's pick, Joe Miller, is trying to win by having voters write her name on the ballot. Democrats injected cash late in the campaign to try to lift their candidate, Scott McAdams, over the other two.
Voters in 37 states are electing governors. Among the most competitive: the contest in Ohio between Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and former Republican Rep. John Kasich.
—
AP writers Kristen Wyatt in Thornton, Colo., and Michael R. Blood and Cristina Silva in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

On Election Day, Democratic control is on the line

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
31Oct/10Off

Obama makes last campaign stop in pivotal Ohio

CLEVELAND -President Barack Obama made Ohio his final campaign stop Sunday in the tumultuous midterm elections, trying to help hard-pressed Democrats in a state that could prove crucial to his re-election hopes in two years.
Republicans see Tuesday's vote shaping up as a stern public rejection of two more years of Democratic control on Capitol Hill.
"Obviously the other side is enthusiastic," Obama said as he ordered pancakes, eggs and turkey sausage, to go at the Valois Cafeteria in Chicago, before departing for a rally in Cleveland with Vice President Joe Biden. "We've got to make sure our side is, too," he told reporters in the noisy cafe full of surprised diners.
While Obama said he felt good about Democrats' chances if their supporters turn out in large numbers, Sarah Palin said the message that voters were ready to send to his party was anything but palatable: "You blew it, President Obama. We gave you the two years to fulfill your promise of making sure that our economy starts roaring back to life again," said Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and former Alaska governor.
Obama carried Ohio easily in 2008, and Democrats once had high hopes of re-electing Gov. Ted Strickland this year and taking the Senate seat being vacated by Republican George Voinovich. But with the recession barely losing its grip in the state and the president's approval ratings sagging, Democrats have all but given up on the Senate race and are desperate to save Strickland and several imperiled House members.
Cleveland was the last of Obama's four weekend stops, after visiting Philadelphia, Connecticut and Chicago on Saturday. All are generally friendly locations for Democrats, and the White House strategy is to fire up core voters who may feel despondent in this GOP-trending year.
Republicans are confident of picking up more than 40 House seats, which would give them the majority, but a GOP Senate majority seemed less likely. Republicans also expect to pick up numbers among governors.
"What the American people are looking at and they're saying is, 'The Obama policies aren't working. We need new policies, we need an economic-growth agenda,'" said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. "If Republicans win, that's what it will be, a repudiation of Obama's policies."
Democratic leaders tried to play down the potential losses. They pointed to tightening races and tried to focus on campaign promises by many Republicans that they say will repeal Obama's health care law and roll back other initiatives.
"This is a choice, a clear choice, not a referendum," said Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine, who was on hand in Cleveland. "They have a political and partisan agenda, which they've had from Day One. We're the problem-solvers trying to get this nation going after a lost decade that they created."
A Strickland loss to Republican John Kasich would have many ramifications beyond the state. Ohio will lose two House seats because of the 2010 census, and its governor will help oversee a redistricting process that may be fiercely partisan. Governors also can direct substantial political resources to the presidential contender of their choice.
Should Obama lose Ohio in 2012, it would make it all the more important for him to win other highly contested states such as Pennsylvania and Florida.
Illinois is the largest recipient of last-minute money for get-out-the-vote efforts from the Democratic National Committee, and Ohio is fourth. Of the nearly $2.7 million being transferred to state parties, $950,000 went to Illinois, $470,000 to Florida, $325,000 to Pennsylvania and $300,000 to Ohio.
Top Republicans say it's too little and too late.
The DNC aired a new ad featuring Obama that warns of record cuts in education and rollbacks in financial accountability if Republicans take control of Congress.
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele dismissed concerns of government gridlock if GOP lawmakers refuse to compromise with Democrats on issues such as deficit spending and taxation.
"With the Republican majority in the House or Senate or, hopefully, both, we're not going to compromise on those things," Steele said.
In many races, large numbers of voters have made their choices. In Ohio, where Democrats could lose up to six House seats, more than 721,000 votes have been cast. California officials already had in hand almost 2.5 million ballots, and Florida officials had almost 1.7 million.
More than 13.5 million votes had been cast early, either at ballot boxes that opened early or by mail. Four years ago, during the last nonpresidential election, some 19 million people voted before Election Day.
Kaine and Barbour appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Palin was on "Fox News Sunday," while Steele was on CNN's "State of the union."

Obama makes last campaign stop in pivotal Ohio

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
27Oct/10Off

Indonesia’s volcanic eruption claims 28 lives

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -Rescuers scoured the slopes of Indonesia's most volatile volcano Wednesday after it was rocked by an eruption that spewed clouds of searing ash, killing at least 28 villagers including an old man known as the mountain's spiritual gatekeeper.
The blast eased pressure that had been building up behind a lava dome perched on the volcano's crater, but experts said the worst may not be over. The lava dome could unleash deadly gases and debris if it collapses.
"It's a little calmer today," said Surono, the chief of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. "No hot clouds, no rumbling. But a lot of energy is pent up back there. There's no telling what's next."
Mount Merapi, which translates as "Fire Mountain," has erupted many times over the last 200 years, often with deadly results. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were incinerated, leaving up to 1,300 dead.
Still, as with other volcanoes in Indonesia, more than 11,000 people call its fertile slopes home.
Though thousands streamed into makeshift emergency shelters after Tuesday's powerful eruption, many defied officials' warnings and started returning Wednesday, saying they had to tend to their crops and protect their homes.
"We'll do everything we can to stop them," said Hadi Purnomo, the district chief in Sleman, describing several formerly plush villages south of the crater as 'death zones.' "There's no life there. The trees, farms, houses are scorched. Everything is covered in heavy gray ash."
Several other areas, however, were virtually untouched.
"I keep thinking about what's happening up there," said Hadi Sumarmo, who has a farm in Srumbung, a village three miles (seven kilometers) from the cone. "I just want to go back to check. If I hear sirens, I'll get out again quickly."
Even as rescue officials contended with the volcano — one of 129 to watch in the world's largest archipelago — officials were trying to assess the impact of a 7.7-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra island that triggered a three-meter (10-foot) -high tsunami, killing more than 100 people and leaving scores missing.
The twin disasters happened hours apart in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet.
Officials said earlier that by closely monitoring the famously active volcano they thought they could avoid casualties, but the death toll was quickly rising.
Aris Triyono, of the national search and rescue agency, said his teams were scouring the southern slope of the mountain, which has been pounded by rocks and debris, in search of victims and survivors.
Marno, an officer at the Sardjito hospital's morgue said 28 people were killed. More than a dozen others have been hospitalized, mostly with burns, respiratory problems and other injuries.
Among the dead was Maridjan, an 83-year-old man who had been entrusted by a highly respected late king to watch over the volcano's spirits.
"We found his body," said Suseno, a member of the search and rescue team, amid reports that the old man was found in the position of praying, kneeling face-down on the floor.
Maridjan, who for years led ceremonies in which rice and flowers were thrown into the crater to appease spirits, has angered officials in the past by refusing to evacuate even during eruptions.
—
Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini, Irwan Firdaus and Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta contributed to this report.

Indonesia's volcanic eruption claims 28 lives

Tagged as: , , , , , , , No Comments
25Oct/10Off

School Bus Safety Report

The nation's longest and most thorough investigation of whether seat belts should be required on school buses concluded on Monday when the Governor's Study Group on School Bus Seat Belts received the results of a three-year pilot project.

The Alabama School bus seat belt pilot project found school bus seat belts are costly and the costs exceed the benefits.

The study showed if funding is to be spent on school bus safety, more lives could be saved by investing in enhanced safety measures in loading/unloading zones.

This was the most definitive study of its kind in the nation. The state of Alabama

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
24Oct/10Off

Obama preps for reshaped postelection presidency

WASHINGTON -Preparing for political life after a bruising election, President Barack Obama will put greater emphasis on fiscal discipline, a nod to a nation sick of spending and to a Congress poised to become more Republican, conservative and determined to stop him.
He is already giving clues about how he will govern in the last two years of his term.
Obama will try to make gains on deficit reduction, education and energy. He will enforce his health care and financial overhauls and try to protect them from repeal should Republicans win control of Capitol Hill. He will use executive authority when blocked by Congress, and steel for scrutiny and investigations if the GOP is in charge.
While trying to save money, Obama will have to decide whether to bend to Republican and growing Democratic pressure to extend Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthy, that expire at year's end. Obama wants to extend them for people making less than $200,000 and married couples making less than $250,000, but a broader extension is gaining favor with an increasing number of Democrats.
Moving to the fore will be a more serious focus on how to balance the federal budget and pay for the programs that keep sinking the country into debt.
In other times, that discussion might seem like dry, Washington talk. Not now. People are fed up with federal spending, particularly as many remain jobless.
The White House refuses to talk about how the president will have to adjust his style or goals if power in Congress tilts right, for fear of undermining what Obama is still campaigning hard to do: keeping Democrats in power. There is no conceding as Obama recruits voters and rallies supporters all the way to Nov. 2.
Yet if polls and analysts are on target, Republicans are poised to win big, possibly taking control of the House and gaining seats in the Senate, where Obama's party already lacks the votes to overcome bill-killing delay tactics. Obama probably will operate in an environment with even fewer moderate Republicans.
The president has signaled that at the start of the new year, he will speak more directly to the country about the financial choices ahead. "If we're going to get serious about the deficit, then we're going to have to look at everything: entitlements, defense spending, revenues. ... And that's going to be a tough conversation," he said.
It's one that will be framed by a bipartisan debt commission, whose ideas this December will give Obama political cover on where to suggest unpopular cuts.
Obama says the most frustrating part of his presidency is that he had to keep spending money and adding to the deficit in his first six months in office "to save the economy." He has from the start called deficit reduction a goal, but one that had to get bumped in favor of sparking the economy.
Almost 60 percent of likely voters now say cutting the yearly budget shortfall is the priority, even if that means the government can't spend on new education programs, develop alternative energy sources or enact his health care overhaul or alternative energy policies, an Associated Press-GfK poll found.
Obama defends the huge economic stimulus plan and the bailout of U.S. automakers, and doesn't blame people for getting tired of all the spending. But he does accuse Republicans of showing a lack of genuineness about fixing the systemic problems that have driven up the debt long before he won the White House.
And there rests the true trouble.
Even though Obama and the Republicans ostensibly share the goals of reducing debt and creating jobs, they disagree fundamentally on their approaches. That problem appears to be worsened by the lack of a serious working relationship among the leaders. If divided government simply leads to more division over the budget and economy, newly empowered Republicans and a Democratic president seeking re-election may both pay the price.
"It's going to be very hard to find common ground," said James Thurber, a professor of government at American University. "To a certain extent, (Obama's) strategy depends on the strategy of majority of the House, and what can be found in the Senate, where's he's basically going to be deadlocked."
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said if Obama and his team are going to work with the new Congress, then they must accept the end of government stimulus efforts as a means for creating jobs. Boehner and fellow Republicans have outlined a plan for governing that includes deep spending cuts and a repeal of Obama's health care law, among other changes. Boehner is likely to ascend to House speaker if his party wins a majority.
"They're going to have to signal some kind of willingness to work with Republicans to cut spending," Boehner told The Associated Press. "Cutting government spending is what the American people want, and it's an approach neither party has tried yet."
The yearly budget deficit stands at $1.3 billion.
Obama may succeed in getting Republican support for trade pacts on a new education law that insists on school reforms. He will go for an immigration overhaul and energy legislation, but have to accept smaller, piece-by-piece results. Capping of greenhouse gas emissions, for one, seems to be going nowhere.
"It's a very different reality for the president for the next two years, which is not to say that nothing gets done," said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Even in a rancorous and nasty environment, it seems to me there may some areas of opportunity."
Either real compromise or political pressures may pull Obama and enough Republicans together to get some priorities done. President Bill Clinton managed to rebound and work with Republicans after they swept into office in 1994, teaming up on welfare and balanced-budget legislation.
Never to be ignored are the core Democrats who helped get Obama elected and who, in some cases, are disgruntled about the pace of progress. "He's got to be careful to manage his base," said Ann Crigler, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California. "His election is going to start Nov. 3."

Obama preps for reshaped postelection presidency

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
24Oct/10Off

Local Representative Helps Those Living in Poverty

HUNTSVILLE, AL—Obtaining a GED is 22-year-old Lacreica Gatewood's dream, and thanks to Huntsville's Symposium on Poverty, she's one step closer.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
18Oct/10Off

2 workers killed in Tenn. post office shooting

HENNING, Tenn. -Two post office workers were killed Monday in a shooting at a post office in West Tennessee during a possible robbery attempt, authorities said.
The Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department told The Associated Press that two female employees were killed Monday morning in what may have been a robbery at the Henning post office. Officers are searching for a maroon Chevrolet Malibu with two men inside.
A witness told a state employee at the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, Tony Burns, that the shooting happened during a robbery attempt. Burns said his sister-in-law, a postal service worker, was assigned to the Henning office Monday. He said she told him she escaped unharmed.
Jeff Dew, of the Dennis Dew Termite Co., told the AP that his brother, Eric Banks, was driving through the area when a woman flagged him down near the post office.
He said that his brother reported the shooting to police. He said he hasn't been able to speak to his brother because his brother has been talking with police since about 9 a.m.
Beth Barnett, a U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman, said there had been an incident at the post office but didn't yet have further details.
The FBI and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation are helping the postal service investigate.
Henning, about 45 miles northeast of Memphis, was the hometown of "Roots" author Alex Haley.

2 workers killed in Tenn. post office shooting

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Oct/10Off

Arraignments Today in Bingo Case

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Four state senators, three lobbyists, two casino owners and two others face arraignment on charges accusing them of conspiring to buy and sell votes on pro-gambling
legislation.

The arraignment is scheduled Friday morning in federal court in Montgomery. An attorney for casino owner Milton McGregor, Joe Espy, says McGregor will plead innocent and he expects the same plea from the other 10.

The 11 people were indicted by a federal grand jury that investigated legislation that would have expanded and taxed electronic bingo casinos. The bill passed the Senate in March but died in the House.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
14Oct/10Off

As Chile celebrates, mine’s future in question

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile -Chileans reveled Thursday in the stunning glory and jubilation of a record-setting mine rescue. As the celebration fades, however, several key questions await resolution.
Officials at the copper and gold mine whose collapse trapped the 33 men for more than two months still have to answer why it was allowed to operate at all.
Attention will also focus in coming days on the rescued miners themselves, their emotional scars must be tended — and, eventually, it remains to be seen how many will want to return the underground profession that nearly killed them.
President Sebastian Pinera seemed unequivocal after Wednesday's rescue about the fate of the San Jose mine.
"This mine will definitely never open again," he said after a dizzying day in which the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in under 23 hours — far less than originally forecast.
Pinera also said the conditions that allowed the accident "will not go unpunished. Those who are responsible will have to assume their responsibility."
Pinera said the rescue would end up costing "somewhere between $10 (million) and $20 million," a third covered by private donations with the rest coming from state-owned Codelco — the country's largest company— and the government itself.
Mining accounts for 40 percent of the Chilean state's earnings and the rescue's details were run by its operations manager, Andre Sougarett.
The Aug. 5 collapse brought the 125-year-old San Jose mine's checkered safety record into focus and put Chile's top industry under close scrutiny. Many believe the collapse occurred because the mine was overworked and violated safety codes.
The families of 27 of the 33 rescued miners have sued its owners for negligence and compensatory damages.
Also suing the San Esteban company is Gino Cortez, a 40-year-old miner who lost his left leg from the knee down a month before the accident as he was leaving the mine after his shift and a rock fell on him. He contends he was hurt because the mine was short on the metallic screens that protect miners from such collapses.
Pinera said he would in the coming days be offering a new proposal for better protecting Chilean workers.
After the collapse, he fired top regulators and created a commission to investigate both the accident and the industry's Sernageomin regulatory agency. Some action was swift: the agency shut down at least 18 small mines for safety violations.
"The mine has been proven dangerous, but what's worse are the mine owners who don't offer any protection to men who work in mining," said Patricio Aguilar, 60, of nearby Copiapo, during celebrations of the meticulously executed rescue.
Advances in technology notwithstanding, mining remains a dangerous profession in the smaller mines here in northern Chile, which employ about 10,000 people.
Since 2000, about 34 people have died every year on average in mining accidents in Chile — with a high of 43 in 2008, according to Sernageomin data.
Most of the rescued miners live in Copiapo, a gritty, blue-collar city surrounded by the Acatama desert. Copiapo's central plaza was jammed with thousands of revelers watching the operation on a giant screen as street vendors hawked Chilean flags bearing the faces of "Los 33."
The last miner, shift foreman Luis Urzua, emerged from the Phoenix rescue capsule after the 2,041-foot ascent to a joyous celebration. Pinera, eyes moist with emotion, told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration."
No one is known to have survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether the men were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
With hardhats held to their hearts, the pair led the rescue team in singing the national anthem. Broadcast by state TV, it seemed ubiquitous in small country of 16 million roiling with pride.
"Chile today is more united and stronger than ever and I think that Chile is today a country more respected and more esteemed by the world," Pinera said after chatting with Urzua on live TV about how the men endured.
The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Initially, officials said it might December before the men could get out. Once the drill that opened the escape shaft pierced the men's subterranean prison, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get everyone out.
The actual time: 22 hours, 39 minutes.
The only real glitch was indeed minor — it became bit difficult as the day wore on to open and close the escape capsule's door as the day wore on, said Laurence Golborne, the mining minister who Pinera put in charge of the rescue. Early Thursday morning, the last rescuer who helped the miners into the escape capsule came up safely to end the operation.
Golborne has won high marks for his deft management of the closely scrutinized rescue, and Chilean media have been abuzz with discussion of him as Pinera's most likely successor. Elected in December 2009 to a four-year term, Pinera is constitutionally barred from running again.
Once rescued, the miners were taken to a hospital in Copiapo for observation. Initially, officials said all would be there a full 48 hours after emerging from the mine.
But Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some would probably be able to leave Thursday. First lady Cecilia Morel confirmed that to The Associated Press.
"They are being kept more as a preventative measure than to treat anything," she said. Better to be in the hospital "than at home where they could be given meat and fried pork rinds," she said.
All but a few of the men emerged in very good health, officials said.
Manalich said many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
But it became clear that they also faced emotional challenges from their ordeal.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said miner Jimmy Sanchez, at 19, the youngest of the group and the father of a 4-month-old baby, appeared to be having a hard time adjusting and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," Swett said.
Chile has promised to care for the miners for six months at least — until they can be sure each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts predict their lives will be anything but normal.
Pinera said he would visit all of them in the hospital Thursday and then host them at the government palace in Santiago, the capital.
Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable mine for about $1,600 a month.
At some point, the men will need to decide whether they will return to the mines.
Many of their relatives are dead-set against it, but they also acknowledged that they probably couldn't stop the miners from going down again.
Mario Medina Mejia, a local geologist. said plenty of Chilean miners have returned underground after close calls, and he compared it to sailors who survive shipwrecks only to ply the waves again.
"If they need the work they will return to the mine," he said. "It's their life, their culture, the way they make their living."
—
Associated Press Writers Michael Warren, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.

As Chile celebrates, mine's future in question

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
13Oct/10Off

Fifth of 33 men rescued from Chilean mine

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile -To hugs, cheers and tears, rescuers using a missile-like escape capsule began pulling 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom at last early Wednesday, 69 days after they were trapped in a collapsed mine a half-mile underground.
Five men were pulled out in the first five hours of the apparently problem-free operation in the Chile's Atacama desert — a drama that saw the world captivated by the miners' endurance and unity as officials meticulously prepared their rescue.
First out was Florencio Avalos, who wore sunglasses to protect him from the glare of bright lights. He smiled broadly as he emerged and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, Bairon, and wife, then got a bearhug from Chilean President Sebastian Pinera shortly after midnight local time.
A second miner, Mario Sepulveda Espina, was pulled to the surface about an hour later — his shouts heard even before the capsule surfaced. After hugging his wife, Elvira, he jubilantly handed souvenir rocks from his underground prison nearly 2,300 feet (700 meters) below to laughing rescuers.
Then he jumped up and down as if to prove his strength before the medical team took him to a triage unit.
"I think I had extraordinary luck. ... I was with God and with the devil — and God took me," Sepulveda said later in a special interview room set up by the government.
He praised the rescue operation, saying: "It's incredible that they saved us from 700 meters below."
A third Chilean miner, Juan Illanes, followed after another hour, the lone Bolivian, Carlos Mamani, was pulled out fourth, and the youngest miner, 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, was fifth. He was encouraged to lie down more quickly on a stretcher after sharing hugs on arrival.
Mamani was greeted by his wife, Veronica, with a hug and kiss that knocked off her white hardhat as Chile's president and first lady held small Bolivian flags. Mamani also gestured with both forefingers at his T-shirt, which said "Thank You Lord" above a Chilean flag. He shouted "Gracias, Chile!" before a round of backslapping with rescuers.
Through the first five rescues, the operation brought up a miner roughly every hour — holding to a schedule announced earlier to get all out in about 36 hours. Then, rescuers paused to lubricate the spring-loaded wheels that give the capsule a smooth ride through the hard-rock shaft.
When the last man surfaces, it promises to end a national crisis that began when 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5, sealing the men in the lower reaches of the mine.
After the first capsule came out of the manhole-sized opening, Avalos emerged as bystanders cheered, clapped and broke into a chant of "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!" — the country's name.
Avalos gave a thumbs-up as he was led to an ambulance and medical tests following his more than two months deep in the gold and copper mine — the longest anyone has ever been trapped underground and survived.
Avalos, the 31-year-old second-in-command of the miners, was chosen to be first because he was in the best condition.
Pinera later explained they had not planned for Avalos' family to join rescuers at the opening of the shaft, but that little Bairon insisted on being there.
"I told Florencio that few times have I ever seen a son show so much love for his father," the president said.
"This won't be over until all 33 are out," he added.
"Hopefully this example of the miners will stay forever with us because these miners have demonstrated ... that when Chile unifies, and we always do it in the face of adversity, we are capable of great things," Pinera said.
After he emerged, Sepulveda criticized the mine's management, saying "in terms of labor, there has to be change."
Pinera promised it would.
"This mine has had a long history of accidents and that's why this mine will not reopen while it doesn't assure and guarantee the integrity, safety and life of who work in it are clearly protected. And the same will occur with many other mines in our country," said Pinera, who ordered a review of safety regulations after the collapse.
Minutes earlier, rescue expert Manuel Gonzalez of the state copper company Codelco grinned and made the sign of the cross as he was lowered to the trapped men — apparently without incident. He was followed by Roberto Rios, a paramedic with the Chilean navy's special forces.
The last miner out has been decided: Shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited for helping the men endure 17 days with no outside contact after the collapse. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow borehole to send down more food.
Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter.
"This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said, echoing the solidarity that the miners and people across Chile have expressed.
The paramedics can change the order of rescue based on a brief medical check once they're in the mine. First out will be those best able to handle any difficulties and tell their comrades what to expect. Then, the weakest and the ill — in this case, about 10 suffer from hypertension, diabetes, dental and respiratory infections and skin lesions from the mine's oppressive humidity. The last should be people who are both physically fit and strong of character.
Chile has taken extensive precautions to ensure the miners' privacy, using a screen to block the top of the shaft from the more than 1,000 journalists at the scene.
The rescue was carried live on all-news channels from the U.S. to Europe and the Middle East. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Beirut on his first state visit there. But the coverage was interrupted with every new miner rescued.
The miners were ushered through a tunnel built of metal containers to an ambulance for a trip of several hundred yards (meters) to a triage station for a medical check before being flown by helicopter to a hospital in Copiapo, a 10-minute ride away.
Two floors at the hospital were prepared for the miners to receive physical and psychological exams while being kept under observation in a ward as dark as a movie theater.
Relatives were urged to wait to greet the miners at home after a 48-hour hospital stay. Health Minister Jaime Manalich said no cameras or interviews will be allowed until the miners are released, unless the miners expressly desire it.
The only media allowed to record them coming out of the shaft will be a government photographer and Chile's state TV channel, whose live broadcast was delayed by 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected. Photographers and camera operators were on a platform more than 300 feet (90 meters) away.
The worst technical problem that could happen, rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press, is that "a rock could fall," potentially jamming the capsule in the shaft.
Panic attacks are the rescuers' biggest concern. The miners aren't be sedated — they need to be alert in case something goes wrong. If a miner must get out more quickly, rescuers will accelerate the capsule to a maximum 3 meters per second, Manalich said.
The rescue is risky simply because no one else has ever tried to extract miners from such depths, said Davitt McAteer, who directed the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Clinton administration.
"You can be good and you can be lucky. And they've been good and lucky," McAteer told the AP. "Knock on wood that this luck holds out for the next 33 hours."
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, said authorities had already thought of everything.
"There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job," Golborne said. "We have hundreds of different contingencies."
As for the miners, Manalich said "they're actually much more relaxed than we are."
Rescuers finished reinforcing the top of the 2,041-foot (622-meter) escape shaft Monday, and the 13-foot (four-meter) capsule descended flawlessly in tests. The capsule — the biggest of three built by Chilean navy engineers — was named Phoenix for the mythical bird that rises from ashes. It was painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag.
The miners were monitored closely in the capsule. A video camera watched for panic attacks. They also had oxygen masks and two-way voice communication. Their pulse, skin temperature and respiration rate were measured by a monitor around their abdomens. To prevent blood clotting from the quick ascent, they took aspirin and wore compression socks.
They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to keep them from vomiting as the capsule rotated 10 to 12 times through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
The miners also had sweaters for the shift in climate from about 90 degrees underground to near freezing on the surface after nightfall.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
Neighbors looked forward to barbecues and parties to replace the vigils held since their friends were trapped.
Urzua's neighbors told AP he probably insisted on being the last one up.
"He's a very good guy — he keeps everybody's spirits up and is so responsible — he's going to see this through to the end," said neighbor Angelica Vicencio, who has led a nightly vigil outside the Urzua home in Copiapo.
U.S. President Barack Obama praised rescuers, who include many Americans. "While that rescue is far from over and difficult work remains, we pray that by God's grace, the miners will be able to emerge safely and return to their families soon," he said.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each one has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal.
Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined. Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
—
Associated Press writers Frank Bajak and Vivian Sequera contributed to this report.

Fifth of 33 men rescued from Chilean mine

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
10Oct/10Off

Late Night Wreck Lands Three In The Hospital, Including A Huntsville Police Officer

Huntsville-A late night car accident sent three people to the hospital, including a Huntsville Police Officer.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
9Oct/10Off

Hungary town evacuated, fears of new sludge flood

AJKA, Hungary -A town in Hungary was evacuated Saturday after new cracks were found in the reservoir of toxic red sludge that flooded the area and killed at least seven people, an official said.
The action in Kolontar was taken because experts detected new fissures in the reservoir walls and thought a new leak could occur, disaster management spokesman Tibor Dobson told The Associated Press. No new waste, however, has escaped from the huge container so far, Dobson said.
The evacuation of the town of 800 people began before dawn.
"People were evacuated in buses and they were also allowed to leave in their own cars," Dobson said. Residents taking the buses were allowed to bring up to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of luggage, he said.
In neighboring Devecser, with a population of 5,300 and next after Kolontar in the likely path of a new sludge deluge, police asked residents to put their most essential belongings into a single bag and prepare for possible evacuation.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban was scheduled to hold a news conference in Ajka, a city near Kolontar where some residents were transported in the buses.
In addition to the fatalities, more than 120 were injured when the walls of a reservoir at an alumina plant gave way Monday and up to 700,000 cubic meters (184 million gallons) of toxic waste flooded several towns in western Hungary. The amount was not much less in under an hour than the 200 million gallons (757 million liters) the blown-out BP oil well gushed into the Gulf of Mexico over several months.
But the concentration of toxic heavy metals where Hungary's red sludge spill entered the Danube has dropped to the level allowed in drinking water, authorities said, easing fears that Europe's second longest river would be significantly polluted.
The red sludge devastated creeks and rivers near the spill site and entered the Danube on Thursday, moving downstream toward Croatia, Serbia and Romania. Monitors were taking samples every few hours Friday to measure damage from the spill but the sheer volume of water in the mighty Danube appeared to be blunting the red sludge's immediate impact.
Test results released by Hungary's disaster agency show the pH level of the water where the slurry entered the Danube was under 9 — well below the 13.5 measured earlier in local waterways near the site of the catastrophe. That is diluted enough to prevent any biological damage, Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said.
Despite the apparent good news, the risk of pervasive and lasting environmental damage remained at the site of the spill, with Greenpeace presenting laboratory tests that it said showed high concentrations of heavy metals in the sludge.
The disaster's confirmed death toll rose from four to seven. An 81-year-old man died from injuries sustained in the torrent and two bodies were found Friday on the outskirts of Devecser. The unidentified victims were likely two of three Kolontar residents still missing.
The location of the bodies suggested they were swept over two miles (three kilometers) by the torrent.

Hungary town evacuated, fears of new sludge flood

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
8Oct/10Off

Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway -Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for using non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland. The award ignited a furious response from China, which accused the Norwegian Nobel Committee of violating its own principles by honoring "a criminal."
Chinese state media immediately blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel prize reports from Internet websites.
The Nobel committee praised Liu's pacifist approach, ignoring not-so-subtle threats by Chinese diplomats even before the announcement that such a decision would result in strained ties with Norway.
Unlike some in China's highly fractured and persecuted dissident community, the 54-year-old Liu has been an ardent advocate for peaceful, gradual political change, rather than confrontation with the government.
The committee cited Liu's participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 and the Charter 08 document he recently co-authored, which called for greater freedom in China and an end to the Communist Party's political dominance.
Liu was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for subversion.
In Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry lashed out at the decision, saying the award should been used instead to promote international friendship and disarmament.
"Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law," the statement said. Awarding the peace prize to Liu "runs completely counter to the principle of the prize and is also a blasphemy to the peace prize."
It said the decision would damage bilateral relations between China and Norway.
In China, broadcasts of the announcement by CNN were blacked out. Popular Internet sites removed coverage of the Nobel prizes, placed prominently in recent days for the science awards. Messages about "Xiaobo" to Sina Microblog, a Twitter-like service run by Internet portal Sina.com, were quickly deleted. Attempts to send mobile text messages with the Chinese characters for Liu Xiaobo failed.
The Nobel committee said China, as a growing economic and political power, needed to take more responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens.
"China has become a big power in economic terms as well as political terms, and it is normal that big powers should be under criticism," prize committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said, calling Liu Xiaobo (LEE-o SHAo-boh) a symbol for the fight for human rights in China.
More than a dozen friends and supporters of Liu gathered near the entrance to Ditan Park in central Beijing, holding up placards congratulating Liu. They shouted "Long Live Freedom of Speech, Long Live Democracy" and wore yellow ribbons on their clothes to signify, they said, their wish that he be freed.
The small demonstration, initially undisturbed by police, pointed out the troubling status of China's dissident community. Liu is almost unknown in China except among political activists. Passersby on foot and bike did not stop, ignoring the demonstration.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told national broadcaster NRK he saw no grounds for China to punish Norway as a country for the award.
"I think that would be negative for China's reputation in the world, if they chose to do that," Stoltenberg said.
It was the first Nobel for the Chinese dissident community since it resurfaced after the country's communist leadership launched economic, but not political reforms three decades ago. The win could jolt a current debate among the leadership and the elite over whether China should begin democratic reforms and if so how quickly.
Only one other Nobel peace laureate is imprisoned: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 prize and has been detained 15 of the past 21 years.
She is due to be released from house arrest Nov. 13, a week after Myanmar's first elections in two decades. Suu Kyi's political party won the last elections in 1990 but the ruling junta never allowed it to take power.
The Nobel citation said China's new world status must entail increased responsibility.
"China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights," it said, citing an article in China's constitution about freedom of speech and assembly. "In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens."
The Charter 08 document called was an intentional echo of Charter 77, the famous call for human rights in then-Czechoslovakia that led to the 1989 Velvet Revolution that swept away communist rule.
"The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer," Charter 08 says.
Thousands of Chinese signed Charter 08, and the Communist Party took the document as a direct challenge.
Police arrested Liu hours before Charter 08 was due to be released in December 2008. Given a brief trial last Christmas Day, Liu was convicted of subversion for writing Charter 08 and other political tracts and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
"Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China," the award citation said.
Jagland told The Associated Press that the committee had not tried to reach the imprisoned laureate or his wife, but they would try to make contact with the Chinese Embassy in Oslo.
In a year with a record 237 nominations for the peace prize, Liu had been considered a favorite, with open support from winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and others.
When the Tibet-born Dalai Lama won the peace prize in 1989, both the Chinese government and some of the public were angry — the exiled Buddhist leader was endlessly vilified in official propaganda as a traitor for his calls for more autonomy for Tibet.
The Dalai Lama on Friday issued his public congratulations to Liu.
"I would like to take this opportunity to renew my call to the government of China to release Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression" the Dalai Lama said.
The son of a soldier, Liu joined China's first wave of university students in the mid-1970s after the chaotic decade of the Cultural Revolution.
Liu's writing first took a political turn in 1988, when he became a visiting scholar in Oslo — his first time outside China.
Liu cut short a visiting scholar stint at Columbia University months later to join the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989. He and three other older activists famously persuaded students to peacefully leave the square hours before the deadly June 4 crackdown.
Liu went to prison after the crackdown and was released in early 1991 because he had repented and "performed major meritorious services," state media said at the time, without elaborating.
Still, five years later Liu was sent to a re-education camp for three years for co-writing an open letter that demanded the impeachment of then-President Jiang Zemin.
President Barack Obama won the Nobel peace prize last year.
—
Associated Press writers Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo and Cara Anna in Beijing contributed to this report.

Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
5Oct/10Off

US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

BERLIN -An American missile strike killed five German militants Monday in the rugged Pakistan border area where a cell of Germans and Britons at the heart of the U.S. terror alert for Europe — a plot U.S. officials link to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — were believed in hiding.
The attack, part of a recent spike in American drone strikes on Pakistan, came as Germany said it has "concrete evidence" that at least 70 Germans have undergone paramilitary training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and about a third have returned to Germany.
Authorities across Europe have heightened security at airports and other travel hubs as well as at main tourist attractions following the U.S. warning of an al-Qaida-linked terror plot targeting London, Paris, Berlin and other European capitals.
Washington warned Americans over the weekend to use caution when traveling in Europe and imposed a curfew on some U.S. troops based in Germany. On Monday, Britain, Japan and Sweden issued warnings of their own, advising their citizens traveling in Europe to be on alert for possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups.
Police officers with sniffer dogs patrolled subways in Britain on Monday, while soldiers and mounted police were dispatched to two major churches in Paris — Notre Dame in the heart of the city and Sacre Coeur on the Right Bank. Paramilitary troops were also seen patrolling the area around the Eiffel Tower — twice evacuated in recent weeks for unspecified threats.
The U.S. missile strike in Pakistan killed five German militants taking shelter in a house in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a known hub for foreign militants with links to al-Qaida, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The terror cell said to be behind the Europe plot — eight Germans and a Briton — were believed to have been in hiding in the region. A second Briton was killed in a U.S. strike last month.
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that his office was checking the report of the latest killings. He declined to be named in keeping with policy.
However, the German police agency responsible for terrorism investigations, the Federal Criminal Police Office, said as many as 220 people have traveled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for paramilitary training, and at least 70 have received it. A Pakistani intelligence official last week said there are believed to be around 60 Germans in North Waziristan now.
Despite the growing evidence of a terror plot, France, Britain and Germany — the nations believed to be the targets of the scheme — have not changed their terror threat levels. On Monday, the German government played down the fears by declaring there is "no reason to be alarmist."
The threat is being viewed differently by Washington and European capitals, and some analysts said it was a matter of approach. Such differences have played out repeatedly in the years since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, they said.
British intelligence prefers to keep targets under surveillance as they plan attacks, often waiting until the final stages to intervene — hoping to gather evidence and to gain information about contacts in Britain and overseas.
"That cuts significantly too close to the bone for the United States. They are not happy to let plots run for too long," said Tobias Feakin, director of national security and resilience at London's Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank.
In Germany, the homeland security spokesman for the main opposition Social Democratic party said there is a different security culture in Europe and the United States.
"After 9/11 there were almost daily warnings of new threats in the U.S. which — thank God! — never became a reality" in Germany, Dieter Wiefelspuetz said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that the travel advisory was issued because of extensive evidence of a plot.
"We felt, having tracked intelligence over a lengthy period of time, it was appropriate to issue this alert at this moment," he said.
"We specifically have said continue with your travel plans, but just be cautious because we are aware of active plots against the United States, American citizens and other allies around the world."
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere insisted his nation had no concrete evidence of an imminent attack. "There is no reason to be alarmist at this time," de Maiziere said.
He said he had spoken with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the travel advisory and that it is not "in keeping with our assessment of the situation."
In a rare public speech last month, MI5 director general Jonathan Evans warned that the risk of attacks can never be completely eradicated.
"We appear increasingly to have imported from the American media the assumption that terrorism is 100 percent preventable and any incident that is not prevented is seen as a culpable government failure. This is a nonsensical way to consider terrorist risk," Evans said.
Many tourists said they planned to be vigilant but would not change their plans.
"I'm very happy to be here in France. I think we're very safe, and I trust the French government to keep us safe," said James O'Connell, 59, of Pittsburgh.
Hannah Haskins, an 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon, who has been in Spain for a month working as an au pair, said she is headed to Britain next week for a visit and will be on guard but not obsessed with the terror alert.
"I probably will be alert and it is going to be high on my mind, but it won't change my plans," she said.
"I will catch the subways, go to the museums and enjoy. There are so many threats and this one is very vague. There is always a threat, so what's the difference?"
—
Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Paisley Dodds and David Stringer in London, Juergen Baetz in Berlin Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Eileen Sullivan and Matthew Lee in Washington, Jorge Sainz in Madrid and AP Television News reporter Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed to this report.

US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
4Oct/10Off

Bingo Bust : You Tell Us

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Two Alabama casino owners, four state senators and five others arrested in a vote-buying investigation have been released on bond after arriving in court in shackles.

Federal agents spread out across the state Monday to arrest 11 people indicted by a grand jury in Montgomery. They are accused of trading votes on a pro-gambling bill for millions of dollars in payments and campaign donations.

The 11 had their first court appearance Monday afternoon. A judge allowed all to go free on bonds ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. The highest bonds were set for casino operators Milton McGregor and Ronnie Gilley.

Gilley's attorney, Doug Jones, says there is no question the charges are tied to Montgomery politics and the upcoming election for governor, where the biggest issue is electronic bingo.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
30Sep/10Off

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

RALEIGH, N.C. -The North Carolina Highway Patrol says three people were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in skidded off a rain-slicked road and tumbled into a ditch filled with water.
State Highway Patrol Trooper Gary Edwards said troopers initially reported five people were killed because two children, 2-year-old twins, did not have a pulse when emergency workers arrived on scene. But the children survived and were being treated late Thursday afternoon.
Edwards said the family of five from Atlanta was traveling westbound on U.S. 64 east of Creswell around 12:20 p.m. Thursday when their Jeep hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded off the highway into the ditch.
Creswell is approximately 145 miles east of Raleigh.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Five people were killed Thursday when a vehicle skidded off a road that had been slicked by a massive rainstorm that drenched the East Coast, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.
The storm flooded parts of coastal North Carolina, driving some people from their homes, and snarled train, air and car traffic in the Northeast. Tornado watches extended from the Outer Banks to New Jersey. State Highway Patrol Sgt. J.E. Brewer said five people were in the car that wrecked in Creswell, about 145 miles east of Raleigh. The car hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded into a ditch, Brewer said.
The hardest rain fell in North Carolina, where Jacksonville picked up 12 inches of rain — nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall — in the six hours between 3:30 and 9:30 a.m.
The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday.
"This more like what you'd expect from a tropical system. But this is not a tropical system. It's just a storm with a deep feed coming straight off the Atlantic," said Hal Austin, a meteorologist with the weather service's Newport, N.C., office.
Much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast were starting to move into a drought after the dry summer. But the early fall storm spread several inches of rain across the region.
Farmers in northern New England rejoiced. Erin Bickford of Walpole, N.H., said the deluge was a welcome sight for her eight acres of vegetables. She said she hoped the moisture would recharge wells that went dry in the town.
"We had almost no rain at all. Often, we could see it raining across the river, but it didn't come here. It was just dust. Even if it did rain, it would be a tiny bit, maybe half an inch," she said.
Crews throughout the northeast worked to pull fallen leaves from storm drains. Schools in North Carolina were closed and some farther north planned to cancel classes Friday so students wouldn't have to travel on flooded roads.
Josh Barnello, 12, took advantage of his day off to take a look at a pond that overflowed its banks in Carolina Beach.
"Someone was paddling a canoe down the street earlier," said Barnello, a budding meteorologist who used a wind speed gauge he got for Christmas to record gusts of 53 mph near his house.
Forecasters expected those heavy winds to spread up the coast, possibly toppling trees and power lines made unstable by the saturated ground.
The winds were also churning up big waves that were eating away at a "living shoreline" of rocks, sand and grasses built this year on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, said Bob Gilbert from his waterfront home in Churchton, about 10 miles south of Annapolis.
"There's not a boat in sight," Gilbert said. "The waves are really choppy and nasty-looking."
The rain caused numerous accidents Thursday. In Maryland, authorities said 26 people, including high school students, were hurt after a Metro bus rear-ended another bus from the Washington-area transit system in pouring rain.
Standing waters and fallen limbs on tracks slowed several Amtrak trains, while some Northeast airports reported flight delays of up to three hours.
Wilmington, N.C., got a brief break from the rain Thursday morning, but the downpours quickly moved back in. Back-to-back storms have dropped a third of the rain the city usually gets all year in just five days. The 21 inches collected since Sunday was the highest five day total in nearly 140 years of records, topping Hurricane Floyd's mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.
The rain caused some scatted evacuations across the state, but no major damage.
"I have to walk through an inch of water to get from the living room to the bathroom," said Sheila Mezroud. Sandbags only kept the floodwaters out of her Carolina Beach home for a short time.
In New York City, the rain didn't cause too many problems beyond wet shoes for the morning commute.
"I think we're expecting pretty bad weather later on," said Allen Saunders, a financial adviser who travels to Manhattan from Melville. I'll probably leave work a little early."
—
Associated Press writers Skip Foreman in Raleigh, N.C.; Jim Fitzgerald, Deepti Hajela and Frank Eltman in New York; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
30Sep/10Off

Amy Bishop Anderson Cleared in Bomb Case

BOSTON (AP) - A former professor accused of killing three colleagues this year and her brother in 1986 won't be charged in an attempted mail-bombing in Massachusetts.

Amy Bishop and her husband were questioned in the 1993 mailing of two pipe bombs to Dr. Paul Rosenberg, but never charged. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz reviewed the investigation after Bishop was charged with the shootings at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in February.

Rosenberg received the pipe bombs shortly after Bishop left a job as a researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, partly due to a poor review by Rosenberg. The bombs did not detonate.

On Thursday, Ortiz announced her office's review didn't uncover enough evidence to charge anyone. She said the investigation is closed.

In June, Bishop was indicted in the 1986 shooting death of her brother, Seth.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
29Sep/10Off

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

MADISON, Wis. -Buck up. Stop whining. And get to work.
Clearly frustrated by Republicans' energy — and his own party's lack of enthusiasm — President Barack Obama scolded fellow Democrats even as he rallied them Tuesday in an effort to save the party from big GOP gains in the crucial midterm elections. In the final month of campaigning, he's trying to re-energize young voters, despondent liberals and other Democrats whose excitement over his election has dissipated.
"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines," the president declared in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. He said that supposed supporters who are "sitting on their hands complaining" are irresponsible because the consequences of Republican congressional victories could be dashed Democratic plans.
He gave an example during a backyard conversation with New Mexico voters, arguing that Republicans would reverse the progress he's made on education reform and student aid. "That's the choice that we've got in this election," Obama said, underscoring the stakes of Nov. 2.
Later, at an outdoor rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the president urged thousands of students to stay as inspired and involved in this election as they were two years ago.
"We can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight," he said to loud applause.
It was the first of four large rallies planned for the campaign homestretch as the president tries to rekindle some of his 2008 campaign magic and fire up young supporters and others who helped elect Obama but who Democrats fear may stay home this fall. Top lieutenants Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine and Cabinet members also fanned out on other college campuses to call party foot soldiers to action.
At Penn State University in State College, Pa., Biden noted he was criticized a day earlier in New Hampshire for urging Democrats to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives."
"All I heard when I got here in Happy Valley was the roar of lions. Folks, it's time for us to roar," Biden said, pressing his audience to knock on doors, make phone calls and commit to vote.
With the elections looming, the White House and Democratic Party are focused primarily on trying to compel their core voters — liberals and minority groups — as well as the ideologically broad coalition that helped elect Obama in 2008 to participate in the first congressional elections of his presidency.
They have little choice.
Midterm contests largely turn on which party can get out more of its backers. And polls show that Republicans are far more enthusiastic this year partly because of tea party anger. Also, polls show Democrats can't count on independent voters who carried them to victory in consecutive national elections.
Mindful of that and armed with polling, the White House has started arguing that voters who backed Obama in 2008 must turn out for Democrats this year because the GOP wants to undo what the president has accomplished.
"We are focused on motivation, not laying blame or pointing fingers, because the consequences for sitting this election out could be disastrous," said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.
White House aides said House Republicans "Pledge to America" last week made it easier for Obama to do something he's been trying for weeks: to frame the election as a choice between Democrats' ideas and Republicans' proposals. By signaling plans for deep spending cuts in popular areas such as education, officials said, the GOP pledge presented an opportunity for the White House to remind voters, and particularly the base, what's at stake in November.
Aides say Obama was trying to underscore those stakes in his interview with Rolling Stone, and the final-stretch strategy — in everything from rhetoric to events — is to underscore that midterm elections have consequences.
"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama said in the interview. "Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign."
"But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place," Obama said.
He was speaking to all Democrats, including first-time voters in 2008 and liberals who have complained that Obama sacrificed his campaign promises on health care and national security for legislative compromise.
Democratic-leaning groups have largely been missing from the TV airwaves this fall as GOP-aligned organizations pummel Democratic House and Senate candidates with attack ads. Seeing allies outspent 6-1, White House aides recently decided to use that disparity to compel their base to vote.
Several Democratic strategists privately fear that the strategy to motivate Democrats with sternness could backfire partly because it runs counter to Obama's carefully cultivated hopeful, uplifting image. There's also some concern that it could further alienate liberals and other Democratic critics who don't think Obama has done enough to pursue issues important to them.
"It's not helpful," said John Aravosis, the editor of the progressive AMERICAblog.com. "The base is depressed and they're depressing it even more, and it's not clear why."
Said DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas: "They wouldn't be in this predicament if they delivered on their campaign promises, rather than waste the last two years putting bipartisanship above action."
Obama's tough-love comments came just days before more than 300 liberal groups planned to participate in a rally on the National Mall on Saturday.
During the three-day trip, Obama also was trying to counter the notion that he's out of touch as well as sway undecided voters with a series of backyard visits — in Albuquerque, Des Moines, Iowa; and Richmond, Va. — that give him time to explain his policies in everyday settings. He's recently embraced this form of intimate-but-televised event to defend and explain his record on the economy, health care and other topics.
—
Sidoti reported from Washington.

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
29Sep/10Off

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

MADISON, Wis. -Buck up. Stop whining. And get to work.
Clearly frustrated by Republicans' energy — and his own party's lack of enthusiasm — President Barack Obama scolded fellow Democrats even as he rallied them Tuesday in an effort to save the party from big GOP gains in the crucial midterm elections. In the final month of campaigning, he's trying to re-energize young voters, despondent liberals and other Democrats whose excitement over his election has dissipated.
"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines," the president declared in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. He said that supposed supporters who are "sitting on their hands complaining" are irresponsible because the consequences of Republican congressional victories could be dashed Democratic plans.
He gave an example during a backyard conversation with New Mexico voters, arguing that Republicans would reverse the progress he's made on education reform and student aid. "That's the choice that we've got in this election," Obama said, underscoring the stakes of Nov. 2.
Later, at an outdoor rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the president urged thousands of students to stay as inspired and involved in this election as they were two years ago.
"We can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight," he said to loud applause.
It was the first of four large rallies planned for the campaign homestretch as the president tries to rekindle some of his 2008 campaign magic and fire up young supporters and others who helped elect Obama but who Democrats fear may stay home this fall. Top lieutenants Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine and Cabinet members also fanned out on other college campuses to call party foot soldiers to action.
At Penn State University in State College, Pa., Biden noted he was criticized a day earlier in New Hampshire for urging Democrats to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives."
"All I heard when I got here in Happy Valley was the roar of lions. Folks, it's time for us to roar," Biden said, pressing his audience to knock on doors, make phone calls and commit to vote.
With the elections looming, the White House and Democratic Party are focused primarily on trying to compel their core voters — liberals and minority groups — as well as the ideologically broad coalition that helped elect Obama in 2008 to participate in the first congressional elections of his presidency.
They have little choice.
Midterm contests largely turn on which party can get out more of its backers. And polls show that Republicans are far more enthusiastic this year partly because of tea party anger. Also, polls show Democrats can't count on independent voters who carried them to victory in consecutive national elections.
Mindful of that and armed with polling, the White House has started arguing that voters who backed Obama in 2008 must turn out for Democrats this year because the GOP wants to undo what the president has accomplished.
"We are focused on motivation, not laying blame or pointing fingers, because the consequences for sitting this election out could be disastrous," said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.
White House aides said House Republicans "Pledge to America" last week made it easier for Obama to do something he's been trying for weeks: to frame the election as a choice between Democrats' ideas and Republicans' proposals. By signaling plans for deep spending cuts in popular areas such as education, officials said, the GOP pledge presented an opportunity for the White House to remind voters, and particularly the base, what's at stake in November.
Aides say Obama was trying to underscore those stakes in his interview with Rolling Stone, and the final-stretch strategy — in everything from rhetoric to events — is to underscore that midterm elections have consequences.
"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama said in the interview. "Bringing about change is hard — that's what I said during the campaign."
"But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place," Obama said.
He was speaking to all Democrats, including first-time voters in 2008 and liberals who have complained that Obama sacrificed his campaign promises on health care and national security for legislative compromise.
Democratic-leaning groups have largely been missing from the TV airwaves this fall as GOP-aligned organizations pummel Democratic House and Senate candidates with attack ads. Seeing allies outspent 6-1, White House aides recently decided to use that disparity to compel their base to vote.
Several Democratic strategists privately fear that the strategy to motivate Democrats with sternness could backfire partly because it runs counter to Obama's carefully cultivated hopeful, uplifting image. There's also some concern that it could further alienate liberals and other Democratic critics who don't think Obama has done enough to pursue issues important to them.
"It's not helpful," said John Aravosis, the editor of the progressive AMERICAblog.com. "The base is depressed and they're depressing it even more, and it's not clear why."
Said DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas: "They wouldn't be in this predicament if they delivered on their campaign promises, rather than waste the last two years putting bipartisanship above action."
Obama's tough-love comments came just days before more than 300 liberal groups planned to participate in a rally on the National Mall on Saturday.
During the three-day trip, Obama also was trying to counter the notion that he's out of touch as well as sway undecided voters with a series of backyard visits — in Albuquerque, Des Moines, Iowa; and Richmond, Va. — that give him time to explain his policies in everyday settings. He's recently embraced this form of intimate-but-televised event to defend and explain his record on the economy, health care and other topics.
—
Sidoti reported from Washington.

Obama both rallies, scolds Dems in campaign trip

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
28Sep/10Off

Madison County Cracking Down on Bad Check Writers

Huntsville, AL - The Madison County District Attorney's Office is cracking down on bad check writers.

On Tuesday morning, they began rounding up people they call the biggest offenders, hoping it would persuade others to pay up rather than be hunted down.

Bonnie Smith Priest is one of those accused of being a major offender - with 53 arrest warrants out in her name. Investigators say she's passed more than $10,000 in bad checks at grocery stores around the county. Brandy Griffin was another of those arrested today. Police say her 23 checks add up to more than $17,000.

"These particular crimes are a headache as far as we and the merchants go." said Kevin Turner, an investigator in the D.A.'s office. "We want to set a new standard and be aggressive with this."

Turner says you have until October 1st to pay your debt, or else deputies may show up at your home or even work to arrest you.

Reporter : Rachel Keith, rkeith@waaytv.com

Web Producer : Mike Brown, brown@waaytv.com

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
28Sep/10Off

Overpass Construction On Research Park Boulevard Causing Traffic Problems

Madison County, AL - Thousands of drivers in Madison County can expect some inconvenient changes during their commute.

A major construction project began Monday on Research Park Boulevard. Workers have permanently closed crossovers at Dan Tibbs and Blake Bottom roads. The State Department of Transportation is building an overpass at the intersection of Research Park Boulevard and Highway 53. Because of the construction drivers will be detoured nearly two miles out of the way.

County resident Bill Bowen isn't too happy about that prospect. "I'm not going up there and turning around because its going to be a mess and I hope its going to be the biggest mess" Bowen said. "And I hope it backs up plum to the arsenal". Some other residents like Vera Stancil are being more optimistic about the road project. "Well its growing pains, but if we want progress we've got to put up with it for awhile" Stancil said. "And I think it's a great idea, we need an overpass."

15,000 motorists use travel Blake Bottom road everyday. The project could take as long as two years to complete. Thousands of residents living in the Blake Bottom area have signed a petition asking the state to build an overpass for Dan Tibbs and another for Blake Bottom Roads to help ease traffic.

Reporter : Tim Reid, treid@waaytv.com

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
26Sep/10Off

Ga. megachurch pastor pledges to fight accusations

LITHONIA, Ga. -The famed pastor of a Georgia megachurch said Sunday that he will fight allegations that he lured young men into sexual relationships, stressing that he'd be back to lead the church the next week.
Addressing a New Birth Missionary Baptist Church sanctuary packed with thousands, Bishop Eddie Long neither discussed specifics of the lawsuits filed against him nor flatly denied the accusations. But he drew thunderous applause when he addressed his flock publicly for the first time since the first lawsuits were filed several days ago.
"There have been allegations and attacks made on me. I have never in my life portrayed myself as a perfect man. But I am not the man that's being portrayed on the television. That's not me. That is not me," he said as applause interrupted him.
Four young men have filed lawsuits in the past week — three who live in Georgia and one from Charlotte, N.C., who attended one of Long's satellite churches there. Two claim they were members of the church's LongFellows Youth Academy, a program that taught teens about sexual and financial discipline, when Long gave them gifts and took them on trips to seduce them.
Long — who has been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and whose church has counseled gay members to become straight — have been named as defendants in the lawsuits, which claim the pastor abused his "spiritual authority." But federal and state authorities have said they will not investigate the allegations because all four men were 17 and 18 years old when the relationships with Long began — older than Georgia's age of consent, which is 16.
Long told the crowd that his lawyers had advised him not to "try this case in the media." He spoke little about the legal case during the service and a news conference afterward, though Long spoke at length about enduring painful situations.
"We are all subject to face distasteful and painful situations. Bishop Long, Eddie Long — you can put your name in that blank — will have some bad situations," he said. "The righteous face painful situations with a determined expectancy. We are not exempt from pain, but He promises to deliver us out of our pain."
Long's final remarks during the service invoked the biblical story of the small David doing battle with the gargantuan Goliath.
"I've been accused; I'm under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, I am not a perfect man," he said, briefly pausing for effect. "But this thing I'm going to fight."
"I want you to know one other thing, I feel like David against Goliath. But I got five rocks, and I haven't thrown one yet."
Long is scheduled to speak again at an 11 a.m. service.
Church members who heard Long's speech pledged to stand by their pastor. Annie Cannon, who has attended New Birth for seven years, said she had no plans to worship elsewhere.
"We know and we love bishop," Cannon said, referring to Long. "We love our place of worship. My son goes to school here. We do everything here."
Cheryl Barnett has attended New Birth since Long became senior pastor more than 20 years ago. She said she agreed wholeheartedly with his remarks.
"I was very much fulfilled with what he had to say," she said. "It was simple. It was direct. He's standing in the scriptures. That's what we would expect from our minister."
About 100 people waited at the doors of the church more than an hour before the first service. Some held signs of support, while others prayed for their embattled leader. A small group sang the hymn "White as Snow" while outside.
Members in their seats clapped and swayed as the service began around 8 a.m., with several people with microphones singing on stage. Later in the service, hundreds began dancing and chanting, "Jesus, Jesus." A small group of young people held Apple iPads high over their heads, with the screens scrolling white letters against a black background reading, "It's time to praise him."
Long, a father of four children, came to the stage holding hands with his wife, Vanessa, and wearing a cream-colored suit.
Over the past 20 years, Long became one of the most powerful independent church leaders in the country. He led New Birth as it grew from a suburban Atlanta congregation of 150 to a 25,000-member powerhouse with a $50 million cathedral and a roster of parishioners that includes athletes, entertainers and politicians.
He flashed his prosperity by wearing diamonds and platinum jewelry, while building strong political ties and a close relationship with the family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The 2006 funeral for King's widow, Coretta Scott King, was held at New Birth. Their daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, is also a pastor at Long's church and spoke during Sunday's first service.
—
Online:
New Birth Missionary Baptist:
http://www.newbirth.org/

Ga. megachurch pastor pledges to fight accusations

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , No Comments
25Sep/10Off

Pakistani plane lands in Sweden after bomb threat

STOCKHOLM -A Pakistan International Airlines jet carrying 273 people bound from Toronto to Karachi landed Saturday in Stockholm after Canadian authorities received a tip that a man on the plane was carrying explosives, airport and police officials said.
The Boeing 777 landed safely at Stockholm's Arlanda airport and was parked at a ramp away from the terminals as Swedish police prepared to board the aircraft and remove the man.
"We are not evacuating the plane," Stockholm police spokeswoman Sussie Illum said. "We are going in to apprehend this person."
Another police spokesman, Janne Hedlund, said the suspect was a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin.
"He is not on any list (of people banned from flying) and he's been through the security check in Canada," Hedlund said. "We're in contact with the pilot. Everything is calm on board."
Bomb technicians were heading to the scene but police didn't see an immediate need to evacuate because the plane and the passengers had cleared security checks in Toronto.
The plane was on its way from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan, when the pilot requested permission to land in Stockholm, Arlanda airport spokesman Anders Bredfell said. The airport remained open to air traffic.
In Pakistan, a spokesman for state-run Pakistan International Airlines confirmed the incident involved flight PK782 to Karachi.
"The plane has landed at the Stockholm airport due to security reasons, airline spokesman Sultan Hassan said.
Calls to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada's public safety department were not immediately returned.
—
Associated Press Writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS spelling of Bredfell.)

Pakistani plane lands in Sweden after bomb threat

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
23Sep/10Off

Police in Mentone Seek Help Identifying Burned Body

Police in Mentone, Dekalb County are asking for your help identifying a body found in a burning truck.

On Wednesday night, a volunteer fire fighter noticed a large grass fire on a steep hillside about a hundred feet below

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
19Sep/10Off

Authorities search for 13 from ‘cult-like’ sect

PALMDALE, Calif. -Deputies searched a wide swath of Southern California early Sunday for a break-off religious sect of 13 people that included children as young as three and left behind letters indicating they were awaiting an apocalyptic event and would soon see Jesus and their dead relatives in heaven, authorities said.
The group of El Salvadoran immigrants, described as "cult-like" by sheriff's officials, was led by Reyna Marisol Chicas, a 32-year-old woman from Palmdale in northeast Los Angeles county, sheriff's Captain Mike Parker said.
The group left behind cell phones, identifications, deeds to property, and letters indicating they were awaiting the Rapture.
"Essentially, the letters say they are all going to heaven to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "Some of the letters were saying goodbye."
The items came from a purse that a member of the group had left with her husband Saturday and asked him to pray over. He eventually looked inside and he and another member's husband called authorities, Parker said.
The men told investigators they believe group members had been "brainwashed" by Chicas, and one expressed worries that they might harm themselves, Parker said.
An address listed in Chicas' name, a two-story green stucco residence with a three-car garage in a suburban subdivision in Palmdale, a high-desert city of 139,000, appeared to be empty early Sunday. A sheriff's deputy sat in a car parked in front and kept reporters from walking on to the property.
Whitmore said the major crimes unit, helicopter patrols and many other deputies were looking for missing people.
They were searching for three vehicles: a silver Toyota Tundra pickup, a 1995 Mercury Villager and a 2004 white Nissan.
Parker said the materials the group left behind suggested they would be in the Antelope Valley area not far from their homes.
About six months ago, the group had planned to head to Vasquez Rocks, a wilderness area near Palmdale, to await a catastrophic earthquake or similar event, but one member of the group revealed details of the trip to relatives, Parker said. The trip was called off and the member kicked out.
The group had broken off from a mainstream Christian church in Palmdale.
Parker did not know what church they had belonged to previously, and it does not appear that they had given their sect a name.
"We've got a group here that's practicing some orthodox and some unorthodox Christianity," Parker said. "Obviously this falls under the unorthodox."
According to an emergency bulletin put out by the governor's office, in addition to Chicas, the missing include: Norma Isela Serrano, 31, Alma Alicia Miranda Pleitez, 28; Martha Clavel, 39; Jose Clavel, 15; Crystal Clavel, 3; Roberto Tejada, 18; Jonathan Tejada, 17; Hugo Tejada, 3; Ezequel Chicas, 15; Genisis Chicas, 12; Bryan Rivera, 17; Stephanie Serrano, 12.

Authorities search for 13 from 'cult-like' sect

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
19Sep/10Off

17th Annual Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride

17Sep/10Off

Dems to voters: You may hate us, but GOP is worse

WASHINGTON -With just six weeks to avoid a possible election catastrophe, Democrats are trying to limit the damage with a closing argument that's more plea than platform: We know you voters are furious with us, but just let us explain why the Republicans would be worse.
The strategy requires an autumn influx of voters willing to view the election as a choice between two imperfect parties — and imperfect candidates on each ballot line — rather than as a chance to slap the Washington establishment that the public seems to dislike so deeply.
But the Democrats admit the Republicans have a big emotional advantage with voters who are fed up with high unemployment, soaring deficits and what many see as an arrogant Congress and administration that rammed a revolutionary health care plan down their throats.
If voters keep burning with the throw-the-bums-out fever that animated so many primaries, Democrats would be likely to lose more than 40 House seats, costing them the majority and positioning Republicans to block virtually any Obama initiatives in the next two years. Losing the Senate majority, which would require a 10-seat Republican gain, is less likely.
Democratic candidates want to convince these voters that no matter how much they hate the status quo, they would be worse off under a Republican Party that hasn't learned from its mistakes and is lurching ever harder to the right.
"This needs to be a choice, not a referendum" on the Democratic-led Congress and Obama administration, said Erik Smith, a Democratic campaign adviser.
President Barack Obama, campaigning for a Senate contender in Connecticut Thursday, said of Republicans: "All they are going to be feeding us is anger and resentment and not a lot of new ideas. But that's a potent force when people are scared and they're hurting."
Democrats already have given up on keeping several seats, including a House seat in Tennessee and a Senate seat in North Dakota. Party insiders aren't quite in full panic mode. But they are intensely debating how to frame the final message, which candidates to help with last-minute spending, and where to best focus ground troops.
Senate campaign officials said they have made no final decisions about how to allocate money, but Democrat Brad Ellsworth is no longer airing TV ads in his bid to hold the Indiana Senate seat left open by retiring Democrat Evan Bayh. Republican nominee Dan Coats leads in polls there.
Ellsworth spokeswoman Liz Farrar said her campaign will resume TV ads at some point. "Voters in Indiana have not seen or heard the last of Brad Ellsworth," she said.
Eric Schultz of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would not discuss aid to Ellsworth, but he said, "We have to make a lot of spending decisions in the next 45 days."
For Democratic House candidates, triage is already under way. The Washington-based party headquarters recently cut off aid to Brett Carter, seen as having little chance to hold the Tennessee House seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon.
Financial reports show House and Senate candidates have raised nearly $1.2 billion in this election cycle, well ahead of the pace for previous contests. Overall, Democratic and Republican candidates have raised nearly equal amounts. But the Democratic Party, including its state affiliates, has a 3-2 fundraising advantage over the GOP and its affiliates.
Helping close the gap is a web of conservative groups that have spent millions of dollars to help Republican candidates. Among the most prominent is American Crossroads and its allied groups, created under the direction of former Bush political strategist Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.
What's more, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce aims to spend up to $75 million on the election, mostly for Republicans.
Organized labor plans to spend $100 million or more for Democrats. The AFL-CIO has pledged to spend more than $50 million, and the Service Employees International Union has a $44 million political budget. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is also pledging millions to assist Democrats, has been airing ads in key battlegrounds.
In a possible bright spot for Democrats, national party officials say they will spend $50 million for on-the-ground organizing, sending out volunteers to contact voters and targeting "persuadable" people. That includes 15 million to 20 million who voted for the first time in 2008, when Obama inspired many young and minority voters.
GOP House campaign spokesman Paul Lindsay says that every poll shows far more intensity among Republican voters than Democrats, so his party may not need to pour as much money into labor-intensive get-out-the-vote efforts.
Obama remains a relatively popular president, certainly compared to Congress, and he recently transferred $4.5 million from his presidential campaign account to Democratic House, Senate and gubernatorial efforts. He plans campaign stops in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, all of which have competitive Senate and/or gubernatorial races.
National Democratic officials, meanwhile, are sparring over how best to frame their argument in the final six weeks. A chief dispute is how to respond to the tea party's remarkable success, capped by Tuesday's Delaware Senate Republican primary. Insurgent Christine O'Donnell stunned political pros by defeating longtime lawmaker Mike Castle, a moderate.
Veteran Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis was drafting a memo Friday urging candidates and party officials to boost their efforts to portray the GOP as a party hijacked by extremists with unorthodox ideas such as dismantling Social Security. Democratic candidates should woo two crucial groups — persuadable independents and disillusioned liberals — by highlighting the threat of "a radical, extreme fringe that will control and does control the Republican Party," Kofinis said in an interview.
So far, Obama and other top Democrats are sticking more closely to a different theme: If voters return Republicans to power, they say, it will bring back Bush administration policies that led to the financial near-collapse of 2008-2009. This past-is-prologue warning depicts veteran Republican lawmakers, such as House Minority Leader John Boehner, as unrepentant Bush loyalists and entrenched lackeys of wealthy special interest groups.
Obama likes to warn voters against returning the government's car keys to those who "drove us into the ditch" in the first place.
Kofinis thinks the tea party gives Democrats a better, more forward-looking opening. "I don't think the Bush argument works," he said. "No one knows who Boehner is."
Democratic candidates should marry the two messages, not choose between them, says Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's efforts to win House seats. Tea party nominees, he said, "represent Bush economic policy on steroids."
Establishment Republicans such as Boehner already want to loosen regulations on Wall Street, the workplace and other areas, Van Hollen said. Libertarian-leaning tea party activists will push them even further.
Matt Bennett, vice president of the Democratic-leaning group Third Way, cites polls showing that most voters, despite an overall anger with the establishment, support Democrats on many specific issues, such as tax cuts for the wealthy. Democratic House and Senate candidates, he said, should constantly tell voters "there's only two choices, there's no other."
Specific issues will hardly matter, however, if Democrats can't persuade middle-of-the-road voters to calmly weigh the ramifications of lashing out at the party in power.
"The most important thing Democrats can do is unnationalize the election," said Democratic strategist David DiMartino. "In every state and every district, it has to be a choice between them and us. Our policies are more popular than theirs."
—
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.

Dems to voters: You may hate us, but GOP is worse

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
15Sep/10Off

Big night for tea party: O’Donnell wins Delaware

-It's tea time in America.
Conservative Christine O'Donnell pulled off a stunning upset over nine-term Rep. Mike Castle in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware Tuesday, propelled by tea party activists into a November showdown with Democrat Chris Coons. After a primary season shaped by economic pain and exasperated voters, the grass-roots, anti-establishment movement can claim wins in at least seven GOP Senate races, a handful of Republican gubernatorial contests and dozens of House primary campaigns, and it influenced many others.
In the fight for New Hampshire's Republican Senate nomination, a second insurgent trailed in vote counting that was still going on Wednesday. After lagging in early returns, former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte moved ahead of Ovide Lamontagne with a lead of roughly 1,000 votes, with results tallied from 85 percent of precincts. Ayotte was backed by establishment Republicans and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; Lamontagne, a former chairman of the state Board of Education, campaigned with the support of tea party activists.
In New York, tea party ally Carl Paladino dealt another shock to the GOP establishment, defeating former Rep. Rick Lazio in the race for the party's nomination for governor. Paladino will face state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the prohibitive favorite.
The Delaware outcome reflected the energy and enthusiasm of the tea partiers, but O'Donnell also enters the race against Coons as an underdog, putting GOP control of the Senate further out of reach. Former George W. Bush political adviser Karl Rove told Fox News Channel, "This is not a race we're going to be able to win."
Speaking at an Elks Lodge in Dover, Del., O'Donnell thanked Sarah Palin for her endorsement as well as the Tea Party Express, a California political committee that spent at least $237,000 to help her defeat Castle, a moderate and a fixture in Delaware politics for a generation.
"Never underestimate the power of 'We the People,'" said O'Donnell, who predicted the general election campaign would focus on jobs and rising national debt. "'We the People' will have our voice heard once again in Washington, D.C."
Her victory set off a round of accusations and fingerpointing inside and outside the GOP.
Republican Party officials who saw Castle as their only hope for winning the Delaware seat once held by Vice President Joe Biden made clear they will not provide funding for O'Donnell in the general election. The Republican state chairman, Tom Ross, has said O'Donnell "could not be elected dogcatcher," and records surfaced during the campaign showing that the IRS had once slapped a lien against her and that her house had been headed for foreclosure. She also claimed — falsely — to have carried two of the state's counties in a race against Biden six years ago.
In Minneapolis, former President Bill Clinton said the Republican Party is pushing out pragmatic voices in favor of candidates that make former President George W. Bush "look like a liberal." Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said in a statement that O'Donnell harbors "extreme views on the economy, health care, and women's and reproductive rights."
The victories by O'Donnell and Paladino are the latest evidence of the influence of the tea party movement, a loose-knit coalition of community groups that advocate limited government, tightfisted spending and free markets.
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who was aided by spending by the Tea Party Express, became an overnight Republican star in January when he claimed the seat held for decades by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Brown's win set the stage for a year of outsider candidates, and the tea party has scored prominent primary election wins in Utah, Nevada, Kentucky, Colorado and Alaska.
But can they win in November?
O'Donnell and other tea party candidates have called for an abrupt turn toward austere government, and the question will be how far voters want to go to reshape Washington.
The movement's spirited rallies have attracted tens of thousands of people, and they've made their presence felt at the polls: Republican turnout in the primary season has well outpaced Democratic. Even in races where the tea party has been less visible, its influence is evident in candidates' arguments. In the California race for governor, Democrat Jerry Brown is depicting himself as a tax-cutter who keeps his eye on the bottom line.
But for all its enthusiasm, the tea party has elevated sometimes unpolished or flawed candidates who — in some cases — will be more vulnerable in November, particularly in states or districts that are more moderate. The movement has also opened fissures with the GOP establishment. In Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was defeated by tea party favorite Joe Miller, is considering a write-in candidacy and says the Alaska Republican party was "hijacked" by the Tea Party Express, which she calls an "extremist group." The committee, based in California, endorsed Miller and ran ads supporting him.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada once appeared headed for near-certain defeat in the state that has the nation's highest unemployment, but he's now running even with tea party favorite Sharron Angle, a Republican who wants to phase out Social Security for younger workers, opposes abortion in all cases, including rape and incest, and would break up the federal Education Department.
In Colorado, Republicans tried to get their nominee for governor, tea party favorite Dan Maes, to quit the race after embarrassing missteps. He's claimed he worked as an undercover police officer in Kansas — statements that have not been corroborated by authorities — and he once suggested that a Denver bike-sharing program is part of a U.N. conspiracy to control American cities.
For the GOP, the tea party "is a mixed blessing," said Bill Whalen, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
The movement's voters are energized but "anyone but Sharron Angle would have Harry Reid dead to rights. Abolishing the Education Department, it's a little too much," Whalen said.
The loosely connected movement, which took shape in early 2009 in reaction to bailouts and rising government debt, has no central organization that endorses candidates. There are thousands of local chapters, some of which are tethered to national groups.
Tea party candidates have been aided by support from conservative political committees that share the movement's limited government, free market agenda, including the Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund.
The financial arm of the Tea Party Express — the Our Country Deserves Better PAC — has spent about $1.6 million in advertising and mailings in a handful of races, including $237,000 in Delaware. It pumped $588,000 into the GOP primary in Alaska to lift Miller over Murkowski.
The Tea Party Express' biggest investment has been in Nevada, where it has spent $790,000 on Angle's behalf. It also spent about $350,000 in Massachusetts to help Brown win.
—
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.

Big night for tea party: O'Donnell wins Delaware

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , No Comments
   Older Entries »

Categories

Archives

Tags