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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.
—
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Leaked US cables reveal sensitive diplomacy

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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.

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26Nov/10Off

NKorea warns region is on brink of war

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea -North Korea warned Friday that U.S.-South Korean plans for military maneuvers put the peninsula on the brink of war, and appeared to launch its own artillery drills within sight of an island it showered with a deadly barrage this week.
The fresh artillery blasts were especially defiant because they came as the U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured the South Korean island to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.
None of the latest rounds hit the South's territory, and U.S. military officials said Sharp did not even hear the concussions, though residents on other parts of the island panicked and ran back to the air raid shelters where they huddled earlier in the week as white smoke rose from North Korean territory.
Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed large parts of this island, killing two civilians as well as two marines in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the sea border.
The attack — eight months after a torpedo sank a South Korean warship further west, killing 46 sailors — has also laid bare weaknesses in South Korea's defense 60 years after the Korean War. The skirmish forced South Korea's beleaguered defense minister to resign Thursday, and President Lee Myung-bak on Friday named a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the post.
The heightened animosity between the Koreas is taking place as the North undergoes a delicate transition of power from leader Kim Jong Il to his young, inexperienced son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and is expected to eventually succeed his ailing father.
Washington and Seoul have pressed China to use its influence on Pyongyang to ease tensions amid worries of all-out war, and a dispatch from Chinese state media on Friday — saying Beijing's foreign minister had met with the North Korean ambassador — appeared to be an effort to trumpet China's role as a responsible actor and placate the U.S. and the South.
The U.S., meanwhile, is preparing to send a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korean waters for joint military drills in the Yellow Sea starting Sunday.
The North, which sees the drills as a major military provocation, unleashed its anger over the planned exercises in a dispatch earlier Friday.
"The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the report in the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
A North Korean official boasted that Pyongyang's military "precisely aimed and hit the enemy artillery base" as punishment for South Korean military drills — a reference to Tuesday's attack — and warned of another "shower of dreadful fire," KCNA reported in a separate dispatch.
China also expressed concern over any war games in waters within its exclusive economic zone, though the statement on the Foreign Ministry website didn't mention the drills starting Sunday. That zone includes areas south of Yeonpyeong cited for possible maneuvers, though the exact location of the drills is not known.
China strongly protested an earlier round of drills in the region but has been largely mute over the upcoming exercises. Beijing could be withholding direct criticism to avoid roiling ties with South Korea and the U.S. and to register its displeasure with ally North Korea.
The North Korean government does not recognize the maritime border drawn by the U.N. in 1953, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island its territory.
Yeonpyeong Island, home to South Korean military bases as well as a civilian population of about 1,300 people, lies only 7 miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores and is not far from the spot where the South Korean warship sank in an explosion in March.
Gen. Sharp said during his visit to the island that Tuesday's attack was a clear violation of an armistice signed in 1953 at the end of the three-year Korean War.
"We at United Nations Command will investigate this completely and call on North Korea to stop any future attacks," he said Friday.
Washington keeps more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to protect its ally from aggression — a legacy of the Korean War that is a sore point for North Korea, which cites the U.S. presence as the main reason behind its need for nuclear weapons.
Dressed in a heavy camouflage jacket, army fatigues and a black beret, Sharp walked down a heavily damaged street strewn with debris from buildings. Around him were charred bicycles and shattered bottles of soju, Korean rice liquor.
AP photographers at an observation point on the northwest side of Yeonpyeong heard explosions and saw at least one flash of light on the North Korean mainland.
There were no immediate reports of damage. Only a few dozen residents remain on Yeonpyeong, with most of the population of 1,300 fleeing in the hours and days after the attack as authorities urged them to evacuate.
Many houses were blackened, half-collapsed or flattened, the streets littered with shattered windows, bent metal and other charred wreckage. Several stray dogs barked as they sat near destroyed houses. A group of South Korean marines carrying M-16 rifles patrolled along a seawall as the sun rose from the ocean.
On Thursday, the South's president ordered reinforcements for the 4,000 troops on Yeonpyeong and four other Yellow Sea islands, as well as top-level weaponry and upgraded rules of engagement.
He also sacked Defense Minister Kim Tae-young amid intense criticism that Yeonpyeong was unprepared for the attack and that the return fire came too slowly. Lee named former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Kim Kwan-jin to the post, the president's office announced Friday.
Despite the criticisms, South Korea assured a meeting of the European Olympic Committees on Friday that it would be able to ensure security at the 2018 Winter Games if it's picked. The chair of the Pyeongchang 2018 bid committee presented their case Friday in Belgrade.
Lee, dressed in a black suit, visited a military hospital in Seongnam near Seoul Friday to pay his respects to the two marines killed in the North Korean attack.
Lee laid a white chrysanthemum, a traditional symbol of grief, on an altar, burned incense and bowed before framed photos of the two young men. Consoling sobbing family members, he vowed to build a stronger defense.
"I will make sure that this precious sacrifice will lay the foundation for the strong security of the Republic of Korea," he wrote in a condolence book, according to his office.
—
Foster Klug reported from Seoul. AP photographer David Guttenfelder on Yeonpyeong, and writers Kwang-tae Kim, Kelly Olsen and Jean H. Lee in Seoul and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

NKorea warns region is on brink of war

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7Nov/10Off

Gates urges Congress to repeal gay ban now

MELBOURNE, Australia -U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Congress should act quickly, before new members take their seats, to repeal the military's ban on gays serving openly in the military.
He, however, did not sound optimistic that the current Congress would use a brief postelection session to get rid of the law known as "don't ask, don't tell."
"I would like to see the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" but I'm not sure what the prospects for that are," Gates said Saturday, as he traveled to defense and diplomatic meetings in Australia.
Unless the lame-duck Congress acts, the repeal effort is considered dead for now.
The current, Democratic-controlled Congress has not acted to lift the ban, which President Barack Obama promised to eliminate. In his postelection news conference Wednesday, Obama said there would be time to repeal the ban in December or early January, after the military completes a study of the effects of repeal on the front lines and at home.
With Republicans taking control of the House in January, and with larger margins in the Senate, supporters of lifting the ban predict it will be much more difficult.
Gates also urged the Senate to ratify a stalled arms control treaty with Russia before the end of the current legislative session in January.
The defense chief said the huge midterm gains for Republicans will not set back Obama's strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Obama wants to begin pulling U.S. forces home next summer, so long as security conditions allow it.
Many Republicans oppose the withdrawal plan, saying it is driven by politics and encourages the Taliban to wait out U.S. forces.
"Partly I think things will depend on our assessment next spring and early summer of how we're doing," Gates said. "I think that will have the biggest impact on the president's decision in terms of the pacing."
The House Armed Services Committee plans hearings about the war this spring, incoming committee chairman Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon said last week. Republicans generally support Obama's war plan, which combines a troop buildup with counterinsurgency and couunterterror tactics. Their only real complaint has been the announcement that withdrawal would begin in July 2011.
McKeon plans to summon commanding Gen. David Petraeus, who has finessed his early unease with the withdrawal plan. Petraeus has said he will give Obama his straight advice about whether a withdrawal is advisable, and military officials say they expect him to recommend modest pullbacks from areas considered relatively safe.
Such hearings would raise the pressure on Obama if he is planning a large withdrawal or if the spring brings erosion of the small military gains U.S. and NATO forces have made in recent months.
"We've talked all along about the withdrawals in July being conditions-based, in terms of the numbers," that would leave, Gates said. "I think that continues to be the position. It'll be based more on that than on domestic politics."

Gates urges Congress to repeal gay ban now

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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

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23Oct/10Off

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

WASHINGTON -Military documents laid bare in the biggest leak of secret information in U.S. history suggest that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now — as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.
The field reports from U.S. forces and intelligence officers also indicate U.S. forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency.
The war logs were made public in defiance of Pentagon insistence that the action puts the lives of U.S. troops and their military partners at risk.
Although the documents appear to be authentic, their origin could not be independently confirmed, and WikiLeaks declined to offer any details about them.
The 391,831 documents date from the start of 2004 to Jan. 1, 2010, providing a ground-level view of the war written mostly by low-ranking officers in the field. The dry reports, full of military jargon and acronyms, were meant to catalog "significant actions" over six years of heavy U.S. and allied military presence in Iraq.
The Pentagon has previously declined to confirm the authenticity of WikiLeaks-released records, but it has employed more than 100 U.S. analysts to review what was previously released and has never indicated that any past WikiLeaks releases were inaccurate.
Casualty figures in the U.S.-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes in a conflict opposed by many countries and a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side of the divide accuse the other of manipulating the death toll to sway opinion.
Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began, said it had analyzed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths, which would raise its total from as many as 107,369 civilians to more than 122,000 civilians.
It said most of the newly disclosed deaths included targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, torture, executions and checkpoint killings.
Al-Jazeera, one of several news organizations provided advance access to the WikiLeaks trove, reported the documents show 285,000 recorded casualties, including at least 109,000 deaths. Of those who died 66,000, nearly two-thirds of the total, were civilians.
The Iraqi government has issued a tally claiming at least 85,694 deaths of civilians and security officials were killed between January 2004 and Oct. 31, 2008.
In July of this year, the U.S. military quietly released its most detailed tally to date of the deaths of Iraqi civilians and security forces in the bloodiest years of the war.
That U.S. body count, reported by The Associated Press this month, tallied deaths of almost 77,000 Iraqis between January 2004 and August 2008 — the darkest chapter of Iraq's sectarian warfare and the U.S. troop surge to quell it. The new data was posted on the U.S. Central Command website without explanation.
In August 2008, the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. military was withholding statistics on Iraqi civilian deaths. The Pentagon did publish in June 2008 a chart on civilian death trends by month that showed it peaking at between 3,500 and 4,000 in December 2006. But it did not release the data used to create the chart.
In 2006 and 2007, the Bush administration and military commanders often played down the extent of civilian killings from revenge killings, blood feuds and mob-style violence in Iraq, much of which had no direct effect on U.S. forces.
Administration figures repeatedly denied Iraq was sliding into civil war. The war did not begin to turn around in a lasting way until the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops and the decision of key Sunni leaders to cut ties with the foreign-led al-Qaida terror group.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell called the release of the Iraq war material by WikiLeaks "shameful" and said it "could potentially undermine our nation's security."
"The biggest potential damage here, we think, could be to our forces," he said, "because there are now potentially 400,000 documents in the public domain for our enemies to mine, look for vulnerabilities, patterns of behavior, things they could exploit to wage attacks against us in the future."
He said that about 300 Iraqis mentioned in the documents are "particularly vulnerable to reprisal attacks" because of the documents' release and that U.S. forces in Iraq are trying to protect them.
The deputy minister for the Iraqi justice ministry, Busho Ibrahim, said he hadn't read the WikiLeaks documents but denied any abuse had taken place in Iraqi-run prisons.
WikiLeaks gave the AP a censored version of the files, with some names of people, countries and groups redacted. Fuller versions were offered to other news outlets ahead of time, according to a WikiLeaks member at London's Frontline Club, where a handful of journalists was given last-minute access before the war logs were released more widely.
WikiLeaks declined to make the less-redacted files available to the AP, saying journalists wanting such a copy would have to lodge a request with the organization, which would respond within a "couple of days." Asked why, a spokesman for the group who identified himself only as "Joseph" hung up the phone. Asked again when he appeared at the Frontline Club, he said: "I just can't answer any more questions."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
It was not immediately clear whether WikiLeaks released all the military records in its possession. In some cases, names and other pieces of identifying information appeared to have been redacted but it was unclear to what extent WikiLeaks withheld names in response to Pentagon concerns that people could become targets of retribution.
Allegations of torture and brutality by Shiite-dominated security forces — mostly against Sunni prisoners — were widely reported during the most violent years of the war, when the rival Islamic sects turned on one another in Baghdad and other cities. The leaked documents provide a ground's-eye view of abuses as reported by U.S. military personnel to their superiors and appear to corroborate much of the past reporting on such incidents.
—
Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter and Michael Weissenstein in London, Kim Gamel in Cairo, Lynn Dombek in New York and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

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22Oct/10Off

Jobless Rate In Alabama Slowly Improving

Huntsville- There's some good news to report about unemployment in Alabama. The State Department of Industrial Relations is reporting that

Alabama's September unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent. Over the past five months the jobless figure has been slowly but steadily going in the right direction.

Chris McLemore is employed again working a full time job. He lost his job with NASA last year but now works for Mosley Technical Services Incorporated in

Huntsville. McLemore says its encouraging that the unemployment rate seems to be slowly improving in Alabama. He says being out of work nearly a year was difficult, but he says folks in that situation have to stay focused. "You just pick up the pieces and go on, you could easily stare into the abyss and get depressed. But that's not going to help so the best thing to do is to dust yourself off and get back on the horse" McLemore said.

Mosley Technical Services provides support for the military. McLemore also works for the Huntsville Space Professionals helping others who lost jobs in the space industry.

"There is hope and there is support, there are other people going through the same things your going through so keep the faith" Mclemore said. The HSP group has held several job fairs including one last July at UA-Huntsville where McLemore got a lead that helped him land his job.

Reporter: Tim Reid treid@waaytv.com

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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

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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

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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

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8Oct/10Off

WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4 Moving to Bridge Street

Huntsville, AL - WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4 will have a brand new look soon. Starting on Monday, October 11th, the show will move from the Backyard Water Garden to the Bridge Street Town Centre.

Haley Baker will continue to host the program from it's new location. "The 4pm show will be a magazine show more than a newscast" said Keith Lowhorne, WAAY-TV's News Director. "That means there will be more interview opportunities and long format stories on a particular topic."

Brad Huffines will remain at the Backyard Water Garden on Monte Sano to provide weather forecasts, and Guy Hornbuckle will be in the WAAY 31 studios to give FirstNews at 4 viewers the top headlines of the day. However, most of the show will originate from the Bridge Street Town Centre, with WAAY's new location set up outside the Monaco Pictures building.

Monaco isn't just providing a nice backdrop for WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4, it's also going to play an integral part of future WAAY give aways. "Every Thursday is going to be our entertainment night, as we know everyone starts planning their weekend on Thursday, so at the 4:00 hour on Thursdays we're gonna be telling everyone what's going on in Huntsville, what movies are playing at the Monaco, and we're giving away free tickets, that's always a good thing."

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8Oct/10Off

WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4 Moving to Bridge Street

Huntsville, AL - WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4 will have a brand new look soon. Starting on Monday, October 11th, the show will move from the Backyard Water Garden to the Bridge Street Town Centre.

Haley Baker will continue to host the program from it's new location. "The 4pm show will be a magazine show more than a newscast" said Keith Lowhorne, WAAY-TV's News Director. "That means there will be more interview opportunities and long format stories on a particular topic."

Brad Huffines will remain at the Backyard Water Garden on Monte Sano to provide weather forecasts, and Guy Hornbuckle will be in the WAAY 31 studios to give FirstNews at 4 viewers the top headlines of the day. However, most of the show will originate from the Bridge Street Town Centre, with WAAY's new location set up outside the Monaco Pictures building.

Monaco isn't just providing a nice backdrop for WAAY 31 FirstNews at 4, it's also going to play an integral part of future WAAY give aways. "Every Thursday is going to be our entertainment night, as we know everyone starts planning their weekend on Thursday, so at the 4:00 hour on Thursdays we're gonna be telling everyone what's going on in Huntsville, what movies are playing at the Monaco, and we're giving away free tickets, that's always a good thing."

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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

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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

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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.

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2Oct/10Off

Rahm’s gone: New day, new tone for the White House

WASHINGTON -Reshaping the tone and tenor of the White House, President Barack Obama on Friday replaced the colorful and caustic Rahm Emanuel with the private Pete Rouse as his chief of staff, shifting to a new phase of his presidency with a drastically different aide as trusted gatekeeper.
Emanuel's decision to quit the White House and run for Chicago mayor had been so well known that even Obama mocked the lack of suspense. But it still felt like the most important transition to date for the Obama operation, which has been fueled for nearly two years by Emanuel's demands, drive and discipline.
At an emotional farewell, Obama said, "We are all very excited for Rahm, but we're also losing an incomparable leader of our staff." Emanuel choked up as he said his goodbye.
Into the breech steps Rouse, an Obama senior adviser known around the White House as a problem-fixing, media-shy strategist and organizer. Rouse is expected to serve as interim chief for several months and may eventually get the permanent job, as the White House is in the midst of reviewing a broader shake-up.
Considered the most consuming and influential staff job in American politics, the chief of staff shapes nearly everything at the White House — how the president spends his time, how he pursues his strategies on foreign and domestic policy, how he deals with a politically deadlocked Congress and a skeptical electorate.
Distinctive, profane and combative in his approach, Emanuel was a bruising but successful manager often known simply as "Rahm." The jarring contrast between the outgoing and incoming chiefs of staff was on full display as Obama spoke of both men in the grand East Room, which was packed with staff members.
Emanuel waved to colleagues, whispered to his children in the first row and stood familiarly with his hands on hips, as if ready to get going. Rouse was quiet and stoic except for the occasional smile. He almost seemed to shy away into the background even as Obama lauded his skills and his results.
"It's fair to say that we could not have accomplished what we've accomplished without Rahm's leadership," Obama said. The president singled out Emanuel's work on signature health care and financial reform legislation, hugged him more than once and told his audience: "I will miss him dearly."
Emanuel choked up when his turn came. He spoke of his family's immigrant background, the opportunities he's been afforded, his pride in Obama.
"I want to thank you for being the toughest leader any country could ask for," Emanuel told his boss.
In a nod to the political sensitivities of Emanuel's move, he never directly mentioned that he was running for mayor, and Obama didn't touch that, either. Emanuel, sure to be cast as an outsider by his competitors in the upcoming mayoral campaign, did not want to announce his run from Washington.
Instead, referring to the Chicago that both he and Obama call home, Emanuel said: "I'm energized by the prospect of new challenges, and eager to see what I can do to make our hometown even greater."
He is expected to formally announce his bid in the coming days, already the biggest name in a crowded race.
As for the more introverted Rouse, Obama joked: "Pete has never seen a microphone or a TV camera that he likes." Indeed, Rouse never spoke. He is not expected to become a public face of the administration or do the activities he has long avoided — appearing on the Sunday talk shows or attending political dinners.
He will move into Emanuel's giant corner office, though, and command the job of keeping the staff focused on Obama's directives. A veteran of Capitol Hill politics, Rouse offers Obama continuity and comfort, having served as his Senate chief of staff, campaign adviser and resident White House fixer.
Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama's senior advisers, put it this way: "When I walk into a room and see Pete, I feel better. And everybody else does, too."
Still, within the building, the confidence in Rouse came packaged with a sense that Obama had lost a leader.
Emanuel's biting words could get him in trouble. And his preference for results over ideology made him a sometimes hated figure for Obama's liberal base of supporters, especially when it became known that Emanuel was pushing a piecemeal approach on health care reform. (Obama trumped him on that.)
He offered, though, a force of personality and range of political experiences that worked for Obama. He swore and yelled. His stamp was everywhere.
"All of that will be missed," said David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser. "There's a talented group of people here who are ultimately motivated by the president and more than capable of carrying on. It may be that portfolios will change and be expanded because Rahm took up so much real estate. But I think we'll be fine."
Axelrod himself is expected to leave the White House next year to help shape Obama's re-election bid. Obama has already seen key departures among his economic and national security teams and is likely to see more, including Cabinet changes. It is a part of the rhythm of the White House, a grinding place to work.
Emanuel has a huge challenge ahead in the mayor's race, where other candidates have hardly been scared away by his intentions. They are all going for the seat long held by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who announced in early September that he would not seek a seventh term.
Ever the political operative, Emanuel got a reminder of his own ways earlier Friday.
Before a smiling collection of senior staff members in the Roosevelt Room, economic adviser Austan Goolsbee gave Emanuel a dead fish wrapped in Chicago newspapers. An angry Emanuel had once famously done the same thing to a Democratic pollster with whom he was less than pleased.

Rahm's gone: New day, new tone for the White House

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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

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15Sep/10Off

Firefighter charged with killing girlfriend’s 2-year-old son

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

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13Sep/10Off

Cleaning Crews Find Powdery Substance in Decatur City Hall

Cleaning crews found a powdery substance on the floor of a first floor women's bathroom inside Decatur City Hall Monday afternoon.

Decatur Fire and Rescue and Hazmat were called into the scene.

Mayor Don Stanford ordered all employees to go home when crews found the substance around 2:45 p.m.

Lt. Jonathan Green of the Decatur Police Department said he didn't think it was serious, but still precautions had to be taken.

"The substance wasn't packaged and there was no note of any kind associated with it. We have no reason to believe anything criminal was afoot. We believe the substance will turn out to be a

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13Sep/10Off

Northside High student killed in weekend crash

12Sep/10Off

Iranian prosecutor ready to release American woman

TEHRAN, Iran -A senior Iranian prosecutor said Sunday that authorities will release a jailed American woman on $500,000 bail because of health problems, another sudden about-face by Iran in a case that has added to tension with the United States.
The news came during a weekend of start-and-stop announcements about the release of Sarah Shourd, who was detained with two friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, along the Iran-Iraq border on July 31, 2009, and accused of spying.
The woman's Iranian lawyer met with the three Americans in Tehran's Evin prison on Sunday and said that he is hopeful Shourd will be released in the next two or three days.
Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said the conditions of her bail do not bar her from leaving the country, though her case will still go to trial along with those of the other two Americans, who must remain in custody.
"Based on reports and the approval of the relevant judge about the sickness of Ms. Shourd, her detention was converted to $500,000 bail, and if the bail is deposited, she can be released," the official IRNA news agency quoted Dowlatabadi as saying.
Shourd's mother has said she has been denied treatment for serious health problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells. Her mother in Oakland, California, could not be reached for comment early Sunday.
The Americans' lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, met with them in the prosecutor's office at the prison and said he provided a final letter of defense in their case. He said it was the first meeting he was allowed with them in person since he was hired by their families to represent them in late 2009.
"All of the three were fine and I was with them for about three hours," Shafiei told The Associated Press. He added that he was hopeful "Shourd will go home within the next two to three days."
Shafiei later told AP Television News that Shourd "was naturally very happy and even the two male prisoners were glad about Sarah's freedom, but Sarah had expected all three of them to be released."
Shafiei said he has been in contact with the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to make arrangements for the $500,000 bail payment for Shourd. The Swiss Embassy represents U.S. interests in Iran because the two countries do not have direct diplomatic relations.
It was not immediately clear whether such a bail payment would violate U.S. trade sanctions or whether a special waiver would be required.
Shourd, who has been held in solitary confinement, was to have been released Saturday as an act of clemency to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan after the intervention of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the judiciary abruptly halted that planned release, indicating such a decision would have to first go through the courts.
Iran has accused the three Americans of illegally crossing the border and spying in a case that has deepened tensions with Washington — which has led the push for tougher sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
Their families say the Americans were hiking in Iraq's scenic north and that if they crossed the border, they did so unwittingly.
The prosecutor said the two other Americans would remain in custody. He said the prosecution's case against the three is nearly complete and there was enough evidence for a judge to issue indictments for all three on charges of spying.
"The three are still suspects and though the accusations have not been proven yet, they had equipment and documents and received training that shows they had not come to Iraq and Iran for entertainment," Dowlatabadi was quoted as saying by the IRNA news agency. He did not elaborate.
The prosecutor rejected any link between the decision to grant Shourd bail and the return to Iran in July of nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri. Iran had accused the U.S. of abducting Amiri, while Washington said he was a willing defector who later changed his mind.
In the past, Ahmadinejad has suggested the three Americans could be traded for Iranians claimed to be held by the U.S.
The judiciary appeared to be using the issue of Shourd's release to flex its muscles in an internal political tussle with President Ahmadinejad. On Friday, the Foreign Ministry had announced that plans for her release on Saturday were the result of Ahmadinejad's personal intervention and reflected the "special viewpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the dignity of women."
Hours later, judiciary officials said the release was off — an embarrassing rebuke to Ahmadinejad. On Saturday, Dowlatabadi emphasized that any announcement about the American's release "would only come through the judiciary system."
The mixed signals point to one of the main fissures in Iran's conservative leadership: Ahmadinejad and his allies against conservative rivals in the powerful judiciary overseen by Iran's supreme leader.
At times, Iran has also sought to exploit the propaganda value of holding the three Americans.
In May, for example, Iran allowed the mothers of the three detainees to visit them, releasing them temporarily from Tehran's Evin prison for an emotional reunion at a hotel. The elaborate event received extensive coverage on the government's main English-language broadcast arm.
In the past year, Iranian authorities have allowed bail or converted jail sentences to fines for two other high-profile detainees.
In May, French academic Clotilde Reiss was freed after her 10-year sentence on espionage-related charges was commuted to a fine equivalent to $300,000.
Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari of Newsweek was freed on $300,000 bail in October 2009 after nearly four months detention following the crackdown after the country's disputed presidential election. He was later sentenced in absentia to more than 13 years in prison and 50 lashes.

Iranian prosecutor ready to release American woman

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7Sep/10Off

Teen murdered in Columbus on Labor Day

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) - The Columbus Police Department

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4Sep/10Off

Shooting leaves Columbus teenager dead

3Sep/10Off

Man killed in downtown Columbus

3Sep/10Off

WAAY-TV Teaming Up With WZDX-TV To Present Local News on Fox 54

3Sep/10Off

Friday Night Football – Call in Scores!

Call in those scores from around the valley! 256-533-3131 ext 7

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2Sep/10Off

Two Alarm Fire in Blossomwood

Huntsville Fire crews are on the scene of a two alarm house fire in Huntsville. The call went out shortly before 2pm Thursday afternoon to a home in the 800 block of Watts Drive. WAAY 31 has a crew on the scene. Neighbors say an elderly woman living at the home did get out safely. The home was engulfed when fire crews arrived. A second truck was called because the flames were threatening a neighbor's home.

Be sure to watch WAAY 31 news at 5 and 6 for video from the scene - including exclusive shots of the flames from our towercam.

Two Alarm Fire in Blossomwood

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30Aug/10Off

War and peace: Obama nears pivotal Mideast moment

WASHINGTON -Straddling war and peace, President Barack Obama is about to formally end the divisive U.S. combat role in Iraq and restart talks between Israelis and Palestinians, a moment defined more by relief and hope than triumph.
On Tuesday night, Obama will tell the nation from the Oval Office that the U.S. role in Iraq has changed for good, with the remaining U.S. troops to play a supporting role to Iraqi forces. It will be a milestone with no celebration or banners in a still unresolved war, one that wages on years longer and at greater cost than most Americans ever imagined.
The next day, Obama will make his largest investment of political capital to date in the trying Mideast peace process. He will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for individual talks and a joint dinner, the prelude to direct negotiations between the leaders on Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as host.
Put together, the events amount to what the White House considers to be the capping of Obama's initial phase of foreign policy in the region and the starting of another. Officials see a picture in which Iraq is taking on self-reliance, the Mideast process is showing life, the international sanctions against Iran are taking hold and the added military muscle Obama ordered in Afghanistan is in place. All are considered progress toward solutions requiring deep patience.
Yet there are no victories to declare, and weary Americans have seen turning points come and go. The risk for Obama comes in defining expectations on pursuits that can fall apart at any time, often over events outside his control.
In Iraq, political leaders are in such stalemate that they have been unable to form a government since the March elections. Bombers and gunmen killed more than 50 Iraqis in attacks just last week, a reminder of the terror that can come at any time. In perspective, the levels of violence in Iraq have dropped considerably, but security and democracy are highly unfinished projects.
"This is not, 'Everything is over,'" White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "We still have people there. And we'll still have violence there."
On Mideast peace, the resumption of talks is itself a victory, but Clinton set a sober tone even in announcing them. "There have been difficulties in the past; there will be difficulties ahead," she said. "We will hit more obstacles."
The focus on Iraq and the Mideast talks is Obama's most concentrated public emphasis on foreign policy and national security in weeks. That will continue throughout September as the president marks the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and heads later in the month for talks with world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.
Hastening the end of a war he never supported, Obama's message about Iraq is expected to echo a line he said about Afghanistan in his major address about that war last December.
He will say Iraqis must take responsibility for their nation because the country he wants to build most is the United States, a nod to the economic anxiety that has eroded morale at home.
There will be no reference to mission accomplished.
The U.S. role in the war was already on a path to end when Obama took office. All U.S. troops are set to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 under an accord the United States reached during Bush's presidency.
Until then, the mission of U.S. forces will be mainly to help and train Iraqi forces and take part in targeted counterterrorism missions. Obama is already framing the importance of the end of the combat mission as a promise kept.
"The bottom line is this: The war is ending. Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course," the president said over the weekend. "And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home."
Obama will be speaking on Aug. 31, his self-imposed deadline for ending the combat operation in Iraq and shrinking the U.S. footprint there to no more than 50,000 troops.
It is already below that number. When he took office, there were more than 140,000 troops in Iraq.
Obama's Oval Office address will come more than seven years after major combat operations were declared over the first time, by then President George W. Bush.
The news of Obama's speech — the deadlines met, the time of transition — has been playing out for weeks. So his mission is to honor the sacrifice of those who have served and to put Iraq in the context of an ongoing fight against terrorists, which the United States is waging in Afghanistan and other places around the world where al-Qaida has rooted.
Before the nighttime address, the president will travel to Fort Bliss, Texas, to thank troops in person. The sprawling Army base in El Paso has contributed heavy armor and tours of soldiers throughout the war.
In the public eye, much of Obama's time has been spent working on the sluggish economy, the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Democrats' re-election efforts this year.
Although the Iraq war gets less attention now, it was at the heart of the U.S. political debate when Obama launched his bid for the White House in 2007. His opposition to the war and his pledge to end it responsibly helped drive his election.

War and peace: Obama nears pivotal Mideast moment

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29Aug/10Off

W.Va. Gov. Manchin wins Dem primary for US Senate

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -Popular Gov. Joe Manchin won the Democratic nomination Saturday and will face GOP primary winner and wealthy businessman John Raese in the race to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late Robert C. Byrd.
Raese defeated a crowded field of Republicans and becomes part of the GOP quest to dismantle the Democratic Senate majority, which they are clinging to as high unemployment and the slow economic recovery take a toll on their political prospects this fall.
In Louisiana, scandal-tainted Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter appeared poised for an easy primary victory over two little-known challengers. He has already been more focused on his likely November matchup with Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, who also had two primary opponents.
Vitter survived a 2007 prostitution scandal after he admitted an unspecified "serious sin" after his phone number appeared in the records of a Washington prostitution ring. He has also shrugged off fresh questions about his judgment in allowing an aide to remain on his staff for more than two years after a violent attack on a woman police identified as his ex-girlfriend.
With little competition from his own party, he and Melancon are engaged in a war of attack ads.
The campaign manager for Vitter's best-known primary opponent, retired state Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor, says Republicans encouraged Traylor to get into the race because they feared another scandal was lurking. But Vitter appeared strong against him and little-known Republican Nick Accardo.
The primary in West Virginia was hastily called after Byrd, a 92-year-old Democrat elected to a record ninth term in 2006, died June 28. The state Legislature decided on a primary date about two weeks later and gave candidates just four days to register and about a month to campaign.
Manchin's support from coal and utility industries — which have provided more than a quarter of the $1.2 million he has raised since declaring his candidacy last month — may help him overcome national GOP attempts to paint him as a liberal who will side with President Barack Obama's administration.
Obama lost West Virginia in 2008, and his energy and environmental policies are deemed anti-coal in the nation's second-largest coal producing state. Democrats desperately need to hold the Senate seat in West Virginia, a state that Republican nominee John McCain won handily with 56 percent of the vote.
The 60-year-old Raese, who lost to Byrd in 2006, has been pumping money into a television and radio ad campaign to bolster his name recognition and to declare he won't be a rubber stamp for Obama's agenda.
Raese owns a steel fabricating business, a limestone company and is part owner of a statewide radio network and Morgantown newspaper. He defeated recent U.S. House candidate Mac Warner and a pool of unknowns including a cement contractor, a certified public accountant, a substitute teacher's aide, a gas company supervisor, a lawyer and a few retirees.
Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson is also vying for the seat in November.
—
Associated Press Writer Kevin McGill in New Orleans contributed to this report.

W.Va. Gov. Manchin wins Dem primary for US Senate

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28Aug/10Off

Man allegedly beats paramedic, stunned by police at Walmart

By Web Staff – email | Facebook | Twitter

VALLEY, AL (WTVM) – Valley police tell News Leader 9 a man caused quite a scene at Walmart.

Police were called around 11:30 p.m. Thursday to assist paramedics as they tried to calm down a combative patient in front of Walmart off Highway 29 in Valley, AL.

Twenty-five-year-old Terrell Glasco of Lanett reportedly assaulted a paramedic as they were en route to the hospital.

The paramedic told police he was

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26Aug/10Off

All-in-one bank and police precinct opens

25Aug/10Off

Ardmore High School Officials Offer Help for Grieving Teens

24Aug/10Off

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

COPIAPO, Chile -Trapped nearly half a mile inside the earth and facing perhaps four months before rescue, 33 Chilean miners began getting food, water and oxygen from above ground Monday as rescue teams worked to gauge their state of mind and brace them for the long wait ahead.
Through a newly installed communications system, each of the men spoke and reported feeling hungry but well, except for one with a stomach problem, a Chilean official said. They requested toothbrushes.
It was a positive sign, and Chile's president said the nation was "crying with excitement and joy" after engineers broke through Sunday to the men's refuge. It had been 17 days since a landslide at the gold and copper mine caused a tunnel to collapse and entombed them more than 2,200 feet below ground.
Still, doctors and psychological experts were trying to safeguard the very sanity of the miners in the months to come, and said they were implementing a plan that included keeping them informed and busy. The miners reported that a shift foreman named Luis Urzua had assumed leadership of the trapped men.
"They need to understand what we know up here at the surface, that it will take many weeks for them to reach the light," Health Minister Jaime Manalich explained.
Engineers worked to reinforce the 6-inch-wide bore hole that broke through to the refuge, using a long hose to coat its walls with a metallic gel to decrease the risk of rock falling and blocking the hard-won passage through the unstable mine.
The lubricant makes it easier to pass supplies through in capsules nicknamed "palomas," Spanish for dove. The first of the packages, which are about 5 feet long and take about an hour to descend from the surface, held rehydration tablets and a high-energy glucose gel to help the miners begin to recover their digestive systems.
Rescue teams also sent oxygen down after the miners suggested there was not enough air in the stretches of the mine that run below where the main shaft collapsed.
The shelter, a living-room-sized chamber off one of the mine's lower passages that is easily big enough for all 33 men, is far enough from the landslide to remain intact, and the men can also walk around below where the rocks fell. The temperature there is around 90 to 93 degrees (32-34 degrees Celsius).
Actual food will be sent down in several days, after the men's stomachs have had time to adjust, said Paola Neuman of the medical rescue service.
Rescuers also sent down questionnaires to determine each man's condition, along with medicine and small microphones to enable them to speak with their families during their long wait. Rescue leader Andre Sougarret said they were organizing the families into small groups to make their talks as orderly as possible.
Meanwhile, an enormous machine with diamond-tipped drills capable of carving a 26-inch-wide tunnel through solid rock and boring at about 65 feet a day was on its way from central Chile to the San Jose gold and copper mine, outside Copiapo in north-central Chile.
The machine was donated by the state-owned Codelco copper company and carried on a truck festooned with Chilean flags. Just setting it up will take at least three more days.
Engineers were also boring two more narrow shafts to the trapped men, but stopped Monday just above their refuge while they made sure that the lifeline was fully secure. Only when these three shafts are complete will they begin carving out the tunnel large enough to fit a man, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.
"We cannot be 100 percent precise, but the idea is to establish three or four points of contact so that we can guarantee better life conditions to our comrades down there," he said.
Besides their immediate physical needs such as medicine to restore their raw stomachs and sleep cycles, the rescuers were preparing psychiatric counseling. A first step was the questionnaires, which were also intended to help identify their natural leader — someone who can make sure the men are keeping busy and mentally focused.
Above ground, rescuers and family members thought that might be Mario Gomez, who at 63 is perhaps the oldest of the veteran miners down below. Gomez's letter to his wife, Liliana, which the miners tied to the drill bit, was full of expressions of faith and determination, revealing to the world that the miners were holding strong.
"Even if we have to wait months to communicate ... I want to tell everyone that I'm good and we'll surely come out OK," Gomez wrote, scrawling the words on a sheet of notebook paper. "Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive."
But Urzua, 54, was the shift foreman at the time of the collapse, and Golborne said Monday that "it seems the miners respect hierarchies."
For the miners' families, euphoria and anxiety made for a sleepless night. They shivered through the cold and fog in Chile's Atacama desert.
"We stayed up all night long hoping for more news. They said that new images would appear, so we were up hoping to see them," said one, Carolina Godoy.
The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners in northeastern China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have taken more than two weeks.
The miners' survival after 17 days is very unusual, but since they've made it this far, they should emerge physically fine, said Davitt McAteer, who was assistant secretary for mine safety and health at the U.S. Labor Department under President Bill Clinton.
"The health risks in a copper and gold mine are pretty small if you have air, food and water," McAteer said.
Mine officials and relatives of the workers were determined not to give up hope that the men were safe below where the tunnel collapsed Aug. 5 at the mine, about 530 miles north of Santiago, the capital.
Rescuers had drilled repeatedly in an effort to reach the shelter, but failed seven times. They blamed the errors on the mining company's maps. According to Gomez's note, at least some of those earlier probes were close enough that the trapped miners heard them. The eighth attempt finally worked.
Gomez wrote that the miners used vehicles for light and a backhoe to dig a channel to retrieve underground water. And while his message focused on faith and love for his family, his frustration also showed through. He wrote that "this company has got to modernize."
Chile is the world's top copper producer and a leading gold producer, and has some of the world's most advanced mining operations. But both the company that owns the mine, San Esteban, and the National Mining and Geology Service have been criticized for allegedly failing to comply with regulations. In 2007, an explosion at the San Jose mine killed three workers.
President Sebastian Pinera said Monday that "there is not going to be any impunity" and said investigations were under way.
Shortly after the accident, Pinera fired two top executives of Sernageomin, Chile's mine safety regulator, after reports that the mine had reopened too soon, and without real security improvements, after a fatal accident three years before. Pinera has also asked a commission for proposals to increase worker safety in Chile.
The miners' relatives are suing and claim their loved ones were put at risk working in a mine known for unstable shafts and rock falls. Company executives have denied the accusations and say the lawsuits could force them into bankruptcy.
—
Associated Press writers Federico Quilodran in Santiago, Chile, Peter Orsi in Mexico City and Michael Warren in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

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23Aug/10Off

Big Expansion Project at Redstone Arsenal Underway

20Aug/10Off

How to Make a Great Soldier Homecoming

19Aug/10Off

Victim Happy Escaped Inmates Were Caught

19Aug/10Off

Brand new teachers come to Muscogee County

18Aug/10Off

Discovery Middle School Shooting Suspect Moved

WAAY 31 News has confirmed that Hammad Memon, the 15 year old boy accused in the shooting death of Todd Brown at Discovery Middle School, is no longer in the Madison County Jail.

According to our sources at the Madison County Sheriff's Department, Memon was transferred from the jail to a mental health facility in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday.

The move isn't a surprise. Earlier this month, a judge ruled that Memon should be moved from the jail to the Bryce Psychiatric Hospital, where he could undergo more evaluation and treatment before his trial begins.

In early July, a judge ruled that Memon should be tried as an adult for the February 5th shooting. Memon's attorney, Bruce Gardner, says the boy suffers from hallucinations and that some doctors believe he may be suffering from the on set of schizophrenia.

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16Aug/10Off

Deadly Dirt Bike Accident

WAAY 31 News has learned the name of the Madison County man that died in a dirt bike accident.

It happened yesterday afternoon in north Madison County.

Investigators say 53 year-old William Bauer of Hazel Green was riding a dirt bike across a mound of dirt nearly 20 feet tall when the mound collapsed.

It happened around 2:15 in a field near the intersection of Charity Lane and Highway 231 in Hazel Green.

We're told the bike fell on top of Bauer, killing him at the scene.

Deadly Dirt Bike Accident

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