2 US eyes 'compromise' strategy in Afghanistan: report
by Stephen Collinson, AFP
32 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washington is settling on a new-look Afghan strategy to secure 10 major population centers, a newspaper said Wednesday, as President Barack Obama neared a decision on whether to hurl thousands more troops into the fray.
Obama's advisers, after weeks of in-depth meetings, are coalescing around a strategy aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers in Afghanistan, The New York Times said.
The strategy would fall short of a full counter-insurgency strategy against the Taliban and other elements but still seek to foster stability, the newspaper said, quoting unnamed senior officials. |
3 Brussels targets bailed-out banking giants
AFP
54 mins ago
| BRUSSELS (AFP) - First, it was Commerzbank, ING and now Northern Rock -- European Union competition regulators are imposing tough conditions on banks that benefited from state bailouts, deepening concerns for the likes of Lloyds, RBS and Dexia.
EU competition regulators on Wednesday approved the state aid contained in plans to break up and sell British nationalised bank Northern Rock in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said the proposed changes "will allow the bank to become viable in the long-term and limit distortions of competition." |
4 Police station attack tests Greek government
by John Hadoulis, AFP
Wed Oct 28, 8:20 am ET
| ATHENS (AFP) - Greece's new socialist government faced its first test against extremism on Wednesday after an automatic weapons attack on a police station injured six officers, two of them seriously.
Four assailants on two motorbikes opened fire on the police station in the northern suburb of Agia Paraskevi on Tuesday night. A total of 99 cartridges were later recovered from the scene, with a police source saying two Kalashnikov rifles were used in the attack.
Investigators also found a grenade pin, but it was not immediately clear if one of the officers had used a flash grenade against the attackers. |
5 Senate healthcare bill draws skeptics, opponents
By Donna Smith and John Whitesides, Reuters
Tue Oct 27, 8:16 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A healthcare reform bill with a government-run insurance option faced an uncertain future in the Senate on Tuesday, with many centrist Democrats uncommitted and Senator Joe Lieberman strongly opposed.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's decision to include a government-run "public" option in the Senate bill failed to sway about a dozen moderates who said they wanted more details before making their decisions.
Democrats said Reid was still short of the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles and pass a bill with a public option, which has become one of the most contentious issues in the debate on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. |
6 Car bomb kills 100 in Pakistani city of Peshawar
By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer
41 mins ago
| PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A car bomb struck a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 100 people - mostly women and children - as visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged U.S. support for Islamabad's campaign against Islamic militants.
More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest in a surge of attacks by suspected insurgents this month. The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against al-Qaida and Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border.
The bombing was the deadliest since explosions hit homecoming festivities for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in October 2007, killing about 150 people. Bhutto was later slain in a separate attack. |
7 Gunmen storm UN guest house in Kabul, 11 dead
By RAHIM FAIEZ and AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writers
1 hr 17 mins ago
| KABUL - Taliban militants wearing suicide vests and police uniforms stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital Wednesday, killing 11 people including five U.N. workers.
The two-hour attack, which began shortly before 6 a.m., sent people jumping out of windows or hopping from roof to roof to escape a fire that engulfed part of the three-story building. A man from Kansas City, Mo., said he held off gunmen with a Kalashnikov until a group of guests escaped through the laundry room.
It was the biggest in a series of attacks intended to undermine next month's presidential runoff election. At least 25 U.N. staff were staying at the guest house, most of them advisers for the Nov. 7 balloting. |
8 Democrats struggle to find unity on health plan
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 25 mins ago
| WASHINGTON - Democrats are struggling to bridge differences among their rank and file to push health overhaul legislation through Congress and fulfill President Barack Obama's goal of signing a bill this year.
In the wake of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that the Democratic bill would include the option of a government insurance plan, moderates in his own party lost no time in voicing their displeasure. The Nevada Democrat needs every Democrat to break the filibusters that Republicans are vowing to mount. But some of the moderates refuse to say whether they'll stick with their leader on procedural votes, let alone those on the merits of the bill.
"We are a long way from reaching conclusion," said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. |
9 New home sales fall a surprising 3.6 percent
By ALAN ZIBEL, AP Real Estate Writer
22 mins ago
| WASHINGTON - The number of buyers snapping up new homes dipped unexpectedly last month as the effects of a temporary tax credit for first-time owners started to wear off.
The 3.6 percent drop in September's new home sales, reported by the Commerce Department on Wednesday, was the first decline since March and a distinct sign of weakness in a market that had rebounded strongly over the summer.
The report surprised Wall Street. Stocks fell Wednesday with the Dow Jones industrial average off 36.88 to 9,845.29 in midday trading. Homebuilder stocks also tumbled with Hovnanian Enterprises leading the way with a 9 percent drop, or 38 cents, to $3.92. |
10 NASA's new moon rocket makes first test flight
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
51 mins ago
| CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's newest rocket successfully completed a brief test flight Wednesday, taking the first step in a back-to-the-moon program that could yet be shelved by the White House.
The 327-foot Ares I-X rocket resembled a giant white pencil as it shot into the sky, delayed a day by poor weather.
Nearly twice the height of the spaceship it's supposed to replace - the shuttle - the skinny experimental rocket carried no passengers or payload, only throwaway ballast and hundreds of sensors. The flight cost $445 million. |
11 UN: Ivory Coast arms, diamond embargoes violated
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 28, 12:18 am ET
| UNITED NATIONS - The government and former rebels in Ivory Coast have repeatedly violated a U.N. arms embargo - and a ban on diamond exports is being flouted with help from many countries, according to a report by U.N. exports.
The West African nation was split into a rebel-controlled north and government-controlled south after an attempted coup sparked civil war in 2002. A peace deal in March 2007 brought key rebel leaders into the administration and offered the best hope yet of a single government after years of foundering accords and disarmament plans - but deep divisions remain.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Tuesday, the experts recommended that Burkina Faso investigate the transfer of arms, ammunition and other military equipment across the border to the rebel-controlled north "without delay." They said the systematic transfer of weapons may be linked to the smuggling of cocoa. |
12 Big brewers battle it out in calorie-cutting
By EMILY FREDRIX, AP Food Industry Writer
Tue Oct 27, 5:36 pm ET
| MILWAUKEE - How low can beer makers go? Having conquered the beer-belly set, some of the nation's biggest brewers are trying to win over the six-pack-ab crowd with ultra-low-calorie suds.
The question is: Are drinkers willing to sacrifice flavor and a bit of the buzz? And: How long before beer gets turned back into water?
Most regular American beers, such as Budweiser, have about 150 calories and 5 percent alcohol, while most light beers contain around 100 calories and 4 percent alcohol. |
13 Matthew Hoh: new poster boy for critics of Afghanistan war
By Mark Sappenfield, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Oct 27, 5:00 am ET
| Matthew Hoh, perhaps unintentionally and unavoidably, has instantly made himself the poster boy for Vice President Joe Biden, liberal Democrats, and every American who looks at a troop surge in Afghanistan with deep skepticism.
Mr. Hoh, a respected retired marine captain, resigned his post as a Foreign Service officer in Afghanistan last week, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The reason: "I fail to see the value or the worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war," he said in his resignation letter. |
14 Pakistan Army against Taliban: What are the Waziristan goals?
By Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Oct 27, 5:00 am ET
| New Delhi - Pakistan's "South Waziristan offensive" has long had the billing of something epic - a beaches-of-Normandy assault on the mountain caves that form the closest thing to an enemy capital in the war on terror.
In the week and a half since launching its three-pronged attack on the Taliban stronghold, the Pakistan Army claims it has killed more than 160 militants and lost two dozen soldiers. Today, the Army claimed it had killed 42 in its march toward Taliban strongholds. Over the weekend, it recaptured the key town of Kotkai, which has switched hands three times since the offensive began - a sign of the fierce resistance the Taliban is putting up.
Given the Pakistani military's lack of capacity and a diminished enemy, however, analysts suspect Pakistan won't try to reclaim all of South Waziristan. Instead, they say, its aims are more modest and surgical: to eradicate a group of Al Qaeda-linked Uzbek militants and some local supporters. |
15 Islamic countries push a global 'blasphemy' law
By the Monitor's Editorial Board
Tue Oct 27, 5:00 am ET
| Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still - but now in a forum with international legal implications.
For years, Islamic nations have succeeded in passing "blasphemy" resolutions at the United Nations (in the General Assembly and in its human rights body). The measures call on states to limit religiously offensive language or speech. No one wants their beliefs ridiculed, but the freedom to disagree over faith is what allows for the free practice of religion. The resolutions are misguided, but also only symbolic, because they're nonbinding.
Symbolism no longer satisfies the sponsor of these resolutions - the Organization of the Islamic Council. Under the leadership of Pakistan, the 57-nation OIC wants to give the religious antidefamation idea legal teeth by making it part of an international convention, or legally binding treaty. Members of the UN Human Rights Council are passionately debating that idea in Geneva this week. |
16 AIDS experts say Russia needs new HIV strategy
By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer
25 mins ago
| MOSCOW - AIDS experts urged Russian officials on Wednesday to scrap their abstinence-based strategy for curbing the spread of HIV, saying the country's fast-growing epidemic could be entering a dangerous new phase.
AIDS specialists meeting here urged Russia to adopt successful strategies like needle-exchange programs and heroin substitutes such as methadone for drug addicts.
The number of HIV infections in Russia has doubled in the past eight years and there is evidence that in this region the virus is increasingly being spread by heterosexual sex. |
17 Kurd leader demands control of oil-rich Kirkuk
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 14 mins ago
| BAGHDAD - The president of Iraq's Kurdish region demanded Wednesday that oil-rich Kirkuk be incorporated into his autonomous area, as parliament prepared for a showdown on the contentious issue of which of the northern city's residents can vote in upcoming elections.
Massoud Barzani's comments ratcheted up the pressure on the eve of a vote on the electoral law that will lay the groundwork for January's key parliamentary ballot. Lawmakers are split over amendments on which voting list will be used in Kirkuk - one favoring Kurds or one favoring Arabs.
The city has large populations of Arabs and ethnic Turkmens who resent the Kurds' aggressive efforts to take over the city. The Kurds see Kirkuk as historically theirs and describe it as their "Jerusalem." |
18 Nazi hit man goes on trial in Germany
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 28, 9:47 am ET
| AACHEN, Germany - Confessed Nazi hitman Heinrich Boere went on trial Wednesday in the western city of Aachen, charged with the 1944 murders of three Dutch civilians in reprisal for partisan attacks.
The 88-year-old was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair and had a doctor by his side as the proceedings began, but looked alert and attentive as he answered the presiding judge's questions with simple one-word responses.
The resident of Eschweiler, on the outskirts of Aachen, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, if convicted of the killings of a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian while part of an SS death squad code named "Silbertanne," or "Silver Pine." |
19 Envoy: No China-US climate pact from Obama visit
By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 28, 9:31 am ET
| SHANGHAI - President Barack Obama's visit to China next month is not likely to yield a separate accord on countering global warming, though both countries are pushing for progress for upcoming global talks in Copenhagen, the top U.S. envoy on climate change said Wednesday.
"I don't think we're going to get an agreement per se," said Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy for climate change. However, he said Obama will work with Chinese President Hu Jintao toward facilitating an agreement at the international meeting.
Just over a month is left before the U.N. ministerial conference in Copenhagen, which will cap two years of negotiations on a global climate change treaty to replace the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon dioxide emissions. |
20 Silvio Berlusconi says communist judges out to destroy him
By Philip Pullella, Reuters
Wed Oct 28, 9:20 am ET
| ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave a foretaste of how he may defend himself when he goes back on trial for corruption next month, attacking the judicial system as overrun by "communists" out to destroy him.
"The real Italian anomaly is not Silvio Berlusconi but communist prosecutors and communist judges in Milan who have attacked him again and again since he entered politics and decided to attack the power of the communists," an angry Berlusconi said on television on Tuesday night.
The comment in a telephone call to the show from his home, was his first public reaction to a ruling by a Milan court hours earlier which upheld a conviction against British lawyer David Mills for accepting a bribe from Berlusconi in 1997. |
21 Former French PM Villepin takes aim at presidency
By Sophie Hardach, Reuters
Wed Oct 28, 8:48 am ET
| PARIS (Reuters) - Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is positioning himself as a challenger to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election, using a political trial to re-launch his career.
While awaiting a verdict on the accusation that he tried to smear Sarkozy before the last election, Villepin has seized a shift in the public mood to attack the president and raise the prospect of an internal split in the French right.
"I want to work toward an alternative force," he told French radio on Wednesday after a battle-cry speech on Tuesday. |
22 Mozambique wraps up polls tipped for ruling party sweep
by Joshua Howat Berger, AFP
37 mins ago
| MAPUTO (AFP) - Voting ended Wednesday in Mozambique's fourth democratic elections, with the ruling party set to cement its 34-year rule over an opposition weakened by a recent split and a series of ballot-box losses.
Election officials and international observers said early reports indicated the vote had gone smoothly.
"No incidents have been reported so far," said Lucas Jose, spokesman for the election administration authority. |
23 Tax-cutting Merkel kicks off second term
by Simon Sturdee, AFP
1 hr 41 mins ago
| BERLIN (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel formally embarked on a second term on Wednesday at the head of a new coalition pledging to make Europe's biggest economy emerge stronger from the financial crisis.
After her general election victory on September 27, a majority of German MPs voted for a second term for Merkel, with 323 in favour, 285 against and four abstentions, meaning at least nine from her own bloc didn't support her.
"I accept the result and thank you for your trust," she said, as lawmakers applauded and presented her with bouquets of flowers in the main chamber of the Reichstag parliament building. |
24 One month on Guineans protest against massacre
AFP
39 mins ago
| CONAKRY (AFP) - Many residents of Conakry and other Guinean towns stayed at home Wednesday in a quiet protest at the army's massacre of opposition demonstrators exactly a month earlier.
Opponents of the military junta in the west African country called on the population to stay at home to commemorate the massacre on September 28.
At least 150 opposition protesters were killed by troops in a Conakry stadium as they gathered to urge junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara not to run in a presidential election he has slated for January. |
25 France jails 'Angolagate' power players
by Pascale Juilliard, AFP
Tue Oct 27, 4:08 pm ET
| PARIS (AFP) - A French court slapped jail terms Tuesday on the main players in a network that smuggled arms to war-torn Angola and included an ex-minister and the son of the late president Francois Mitterrand.
Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkady Gaydamak was convicted in absentia for organising the 1990s arms sales and sentenced to six years in jail at the trial that exposed a ring of corruption at the highest levels of Paris politics.
The huge Soviet-made arsenal that fuelled Angola's grim civil war included 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, and six warships and was worth 790 million dollars. |
26 Al Qaida in Iraq claims attacks that crippled Baghdad government
By Sahar Issa and Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Oct 27, 5:06 pm ET
| BAGHDAD -- Militants linked to al Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for a pair of powerful truck bombs that killed 155 people and wounded 600 in the latest insurgent assault on the fragile Iraqi government.
The carnage Sunday was the second coordinated attack that al Qaida in Iraq has claimed recently in an apparent campaign to bring down Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's administration ahead of January elections, which are in jeopardy of being postponed by political wrangling and security concerns.
Senior Iraqi officials announced a tentative agreement on the drafting of a new election law, but the measure still requires approval from legislators, who remain divided on several major issues. Kurdish factions also are wary of the handling of disputed territories in the agreement, which is scheduled for discussion in parliament Wednesday. |
27 Brother Karzai on CIA Payroll: Drugs, Spies, Controversy
By ARYN BAKER, Time Magazine
Wed Oct 28, 10:00 am ET
| The claim that Ahmed Wali Karzai has been on the pay roll of the CIA for the past eight years, as reported in today's New York Times, won't come as a surprise to most Afghans, who have long considered his brother, Afghan president Hamid Karzai, to be an American puppet. The revamped allegations that Karzai frere is deeply involved in Afghanistan's annual $4-billion drug industry isn't much of a shocker either - on the streets of Kabul and Kandahar the name 'Wali' has long been synonymous with someone who can get away with a crime because he has friends in the right places. Diplomats, counter-narcotics officials and commanders from the International Security Assistance Force, NATO's military wing in Afghanistan, have all privately (and not so privately) expressed frustration with President Karzai for not reining in his brother. In fact, the people most likely to be shocked by the revelations are Americans back at home, who are already wondering why we should be sending more soldiers and money to a country whose leadership has rarely proved an adequate partner. |
| From Yahoo News U.S. News |
28 Alabama lawmakers say Pentagon tanker rules unfair
By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
Tue Oct 27, 6:48 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alabama lawmakers blasted the Pentagon's bidding rules for a multibillion dollar contract to replace the Air Force's aerial refueling fleet, saying the procedure unfairly favors Boeing.
"I believe it's already tilted toward Boeing. I believe it's a sham," Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican, told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.
Alabama stands to gain jobs if rival Northrop Grumman and its partner, Airbus parent EADS, win the contract again because much of the final assembly work would be done in that state. |
29 Ford picks China's Geely as preferred bidder for Volvo
by Veronica Smith, AFP
2 hrs 9 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US auto giant Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it had picked Chinese carmaker Geely as preferred bidder for Volvo Cars, its premium Swedish nameplate.
Ford, which announced last December it wanted to sell the loss-making unit, said that it would step up negotiations with a consortium led by Zheijang Geely Group Holding, but stressed "no final decisions have been made."
The possible sale to Geely, one of the largest privately owned Chinese carmakers, comes as Ford struggles to restructure amid an ailing US auto sector that was eclipsed as the world's largest by China in January. |
30 NY court rules out UAE as America's Cup venue: Alinghi
AFP
Tue Oct 27, 5:48 pm ET
| MADRID (AFP) - The New York Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the next edition of the America's Cup can not take place in the UAE as planned by Alinghi according to the rules that govern the sailing regatta, the Swiss defender said.
"The New York Supreme Court today ruled that the 33rd America's Cup, scheduled in February 2010, must take place in a venue in the Southern Hemisphere as per the strict reading of the competition's governing document, the Deed of Gift, or in Valencia, Spain, as the only exception to that rule," Alinghi said in a statement.
In a surprise move, Alinghi in August announced that it had selected the Gulf emirate of Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates as the site for its February duel in multihull boats against US challenger Oracle to decide the 33rd edition of sailing's premier competition. |
31 The Public Option: Let's Not Opt Out and Say We Did
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD, Time Magazine
1 hr 40 mins ago
| Insurers are furious that Senate majority leader Harry Reid's health-care-reform bill will include a public option - even though it lets states opt out if they don't want the government-run insurance alternative. Liberals are ecstatic with Reid over that same public option - even though opt-out states would be able to keep their markets completely private, which would limit the public plan's power to negotiate volume-based discounts in other states. |
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