"Anti-laundering compliance costs mount"

By MADLEN READ, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:13 p.m., Sunday, July 8, 2007

NEW YORK -- Complying with anti-money laundering laws has been much more expensive than banks anticipated, and some still aren't meeting all requirements, a new survey says.

Banks around the world saw compliance costs jump an average of 58 percent over the past three years -- more than in the previous three years, and higher than the 43 percent increase banks predicted in 2004, said a survey commissioned by Swiss cooperative KPMG International.

Among the six regions surveyed, North American banks saw the highest percentage cost increase, with costs rising 71 percent over the last three years.

The Middle East and Africa region was close behind with a rise of 70 percent.

Banks' compliance costs rose 58 percent in Europe; 37 percent in Asia; 59 percent in Central and South America; and 60 percent in Russia.

Most of the money went toward buying technological systems and hiring experienced personnel to monitor transactions, said the KPMG report, which did not measure the dollar value of the costs.

"A lot of institutions were not automated to the degree regulators were expecting them to be," said Teresa Pesce, U.S. partner at KPMG's forensic practice.

North America respondents said they predict a cost increase of 28 percent in the next three years.

Globally, costs are expected to increase 34 percent in the next three-year period.

Many governments require that banks take steps to prevent money laundering.

Money laundering involves making certain financial transactions to hide the source, nature or destination of illegal funds.

The United States has the Bank Secrecy Act, which was passed in 1970 and amended by the USA Patriot Act of Oct. 26, 2001.

It has since been used increasingly to stop the flow of financing to terrorist organizations.

According to KPMG's survey, 93 percent of North American respondents said they had a formal system in place, meaning 7 percent of banks were not in compliance with the Act's testing requirements.

Noncompliance can be costly.

Last year, Fort Lauderdale-based BankAtlantic agreed to forfeit $10 million to the U.S. government to avoid criminal charges that it permitted millions of dollars in suspected drug money to be laundered through its accounts.

And in 2005, Riggs Bank, now owned by Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc., agreed to pay a $16 million fine and pleaded guilty to a felony charge of failing to report suspicious transactions involving foreigners including former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and members of his family.

Despite the possible ramifications, just 63 percent of the survey's North American respondents said anti-money laundering issues were a high priority for senior management.

Independent research agency RS Consulting surveyed 224 of the world's 1,000 largest banks, in 55 countries, through telephone interviews over a six-week period.

Ninety-five percent of North American banking executives surveyed said the number of suspicious activity reports had increased, and 63 percent of those same executives said the number had increased "substantially."

"The better your systems are, the better your monitoring is, the more you'll see -- that's going to drive up the number to some extent," Pesce said.

"China links promotions to unrest control"

Associated Press

Last updated: 3:32 a.m., Sunday, July 8, 2007

BEIJING -- Local Chinese leaders will have a better chance of winning job promotions if they can limit social unrest in rural areas, state media on Sunday quoted a ruling Communist Party official as saying.

The party has become increasingly concerned at protests in recent years by ordinary Chinese venting their anger over official corruption, a yawning rich-poor gap and land grabs.

Unrest also can occur when simple accidents or arguments attract large crowds and quickly spin out of control.

"Officials who perform poorly in maintaining social security in rural areas will not be qualified for promotion," Ouyang Song, deputy head of the Organization Department of the party's Central Committee, was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.

Xinhua said the comments were made Thursday at a conference for senior officials in Beijing.

At the same conference, Public Security Vice Minister Liu Jinguo told the police to launch a monthlong inspection into social disorder in rural areas, the report said.

"Fugitive criminals and underworld gangs, as well as those who steal rural production materials, produce or sell fake and substandard commodities, kidnap children and women and smuggle drugs, explosives and guns will be targeted," Liu said.

He also urged the police to investigate and report on the disputes which may give rise to "mass incidents" or crimes in rural areas.

Xinhua said that from January to September 2006, about 385,000 rural people participated in "mass incidents."

It did not define what constituted a mass incident.

In March, a newspaper connected to the Communist Party called on local governments to use less force when dealing with such protests.

The Study Times, a weekly sponsored by the party's Central Committee, appealed to local governments and police to distinguish between a "collective appeal for help from violations of the law."

It followed a protest in Hunan against rising bus fares that reportedly drew 20,000 residents and prompted a harsh police crackdown in which witnesses said one person was killed.

"Musharraf will let clerics negotiate"

By SADAQAT JAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:33 a.m., Monday, July 9, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Monday gave clerics more time to persuade defiant militants to lay down their arms and surrender a mosque they have defended against thousands of government troops, security officials said.

The decision came at a high-level meeting grappling with how to crack the weeklong armed resistance at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in the heart of the capital.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said among the mediators would be Taqi Usmani, a former teacher of the besieged mosque's senior cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Some clerics, including Usmani, have attempted without success to persuade Ghazi to end the siege peacefully since the crisis erupted.

The government claims the mosque is being defended by wanted terrorists.

A group of about 20 lawmakers from radical religious parties were stopped by soldiers from approaching the mosque as intense gunfire again erupted in the area mid-afternoon.

The group was attempting to also act as mediators.

A mosque spokesman, meanwhile, claimed hundreds of men and women died in a military assault on the mosque and adjoining Islamic school.

It was impossible to verify either claim in the escalating battle of gunfire and rhetoric between the government and the defenders of Islamabad's Red Mosque.

Musharraf sent in troops last Wednesday, a day after supporters of the mosque's radical clerics fought gunbattles with security forces sent to contain their campaign to impose Taliban-style rule in the capital.

At least 24 people have died so far, including a special forces commando shot as the military blasted holes in the walls of the fortified compound.

Officials said they hoped hundreds of students allegedly being held hostage in the mosque could use the gaps to escape.

The siege sparked an anti-government protest Monday by some 20,000 tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding assault rifles, in the northwest region of Bajur.

Many chanted "Death to Musharraf" and "Death to America" in a rally led by Maulana Faqir Mohammed, a cleric wanted by authorities and who is believed to be a close lieutenant of al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

"All of Musharraf's policies are against Islam and the country therefore he has become our enemy."

"He will not be spared and revenge will be taken against him for these atrocities," he said.

"Innocent scholars and students are being martyred, mosques are being ruined only to please America," he said.

Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz ul-Haq said terrorists, including a suspect in a plot against Pakistan's prime minister, were in control of the mosque.

"I can only tell you they are involved in many terrorist activities inside and outside" Pakistan, ul-Haq said.

"And there are a few who are very renowned, very well known, more well known than al-Qaida and the Taliban."

Ul-Haq provided no details.

However, Musharraf has said members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a radical group involved in fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and with links to al-Qaida, was involved.

A military official who said he was not allowed to speak on the record said intercepts of telephone calls from the mosque indicated the defenders also had links to Harkat Jihad-e-Islami.

Some members of Harkat have been suspected of involvement in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002, and in a bombing the same year in the city that killed 11 French engineers.

"The very fact that they can use heavy automatic weapons with some expertise shows that they are not just ordinary 14-, 15-year-old students," government spokesman Tariq Azim said.

Journalists were being kept 500 yards away and security forces were blocking clerics hoping to mediate.

The local Geo television channel quoted an unnamed spokesman inside the mosque as saying 305 men and women had been killed in the Saturday night's assault.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque's leader, had said he and his followers prefer martyrdom to surrender.

He also said dozens of his followers were already killed before that raid.

Ul-Haq dismissed his claims as propaganda, and challenged Ghazi to allow ambulances to come and take away the bodies of the dead.

------

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan, Denis D. Gray and Stephen Graham contributed to this report.

"African farmers hit by climate change"

By JOSEPH J. SCHATZ, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 6, 1:45 PM ET

PEMBA, Zambia - Corn farmers in southern Zambia used to be able to predict the year's first rainfall, almost to the day.

Now, October often stretches into November, and November into December, before the rain comes.

The rainy season in this largely poor southern African nation, a study shows, has been getting shorter, more intense and more erratic, especially over the last 20 years — symptoms of longer-term climatic changes occurring across Africa.

When the Live Earth global concerts kick off Saturday for a weekend of raising climate-change awareness, part of the focus will be on Africa, which is likely to be hit particularly hard by climate change, even though it is the lowest emitter of greenhouse gases.

One of the eight concerts is in the South African metropolis of Johannesburg.

Between fluctuating rainfall and slowly rising temperatures, Zambian farmers are very vulnerable to climate changes, says a study completed last year by the Center for Environmental and Economic Policy of Africa at South Africa's University of Pretoria.

Timothy Hampuwo, a 66-year-old farmer and local government councilor, agrees.

"It's unpredictable."

"It's a pure gamble," he said at an agriculture show in Pemba, a farming town about 100 miles south of the capital, Lusaka.

The rains used to fall from October to March.

They still end in March, but last year no serious rains fell until Christmas.

Some farmers have moved to wetter parts of Zambia, while Hampuwo is staying put and learning, as he says, "to go with the weather."

He uses a maize seed engineered to mature early and survive drought years.

"It resists heat even when you have a short rainfall," he says.

It was developed by the Maize Research Institute, a Lusaka-based company that constantly updates its seed varieties.

In southern Africa, a region already wracked by poverty, AIDS and malaria, climate changes will make things worse unless businesses and governments adapt, scientists warn.

Shorter rainy seasons mean more frequent and harsher droughts, while heavier rainfall means more flooding.

The South African government expects malaria to surge back in regions that previously faced little risk, as rising temperatures lead to increased mosquito breeding.

Africa's subsistence farmers could be most threatened, because they have little access to information or money to buy modern irrigation equipment.

Some have switched to crops such as sweet potatoes which mature earlier and need less water.

But governments have long supported corn-growing and it's the basis of nshima, the Zambian daily staple.

So farmers are reluctant to stop growing it.

"It's harder to convince these guys to stop growing maize than to convince these G-8 countries to stop climate change," said Gilbert Vlahakis, a Zambian seed distributor.

While wealthy donor nations, as well as some government officials in Zambia and other African nations, focus on climate change, farming in southern Africa faces other threats.

At the Conservation Farming Unit, a part of the Zambia National Farmers' Union that is teaching farmers conservation-friendly planting techniques, officials say government policies are inefficient and fixated on maize.

Last year's South African study advises the Zambian government to stop subsidizing crops that do poorly in a changing climate, and to invest in climate data collection and weather forecasting.

The Zambian government is trying to attract foreign investment in hydroelectric dams.

Francis Yamba, an engineer who runs the Center for Energy, Environment and Engineering in Lusaka, said another idea is to channel water from the Congo River to the Zambezi.

Yamba also says farmers should turn their agricultural waste into energy.

Nations in the region lack cash and expertise for grand engineering schemes.

But not all solutions have to rely on advanced technology.

Every summer in Zambia's Western province, when flood waters move in, the king of the Lozi tribe leads his people from the flood plains to higher ground, near his summer palace.

Environmental experts are wondering whether it could work elsewhere.

"They're indigenous coping measures," Yamba says.

"They've been doing that for hundreds and hundreds of years."

"Why not use traditional Lozi culture?"

And speaking about dealing with corrupt public officials ....

"China executes ex-food and drug chief"

By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 7 minutes ago

BEIJING - China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.

The execution of former State Food and Drug Administration director Zheng Xiaoyu was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.

During Zheng's tenure from 1998 to 2005, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to previous state media reports.

One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.

"The few corrupt officials of the SFDA are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," agency spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety.

Yan was asked to comment on Zheng's sentence and that of his subordinate, Cao Wenzhuang, a former director of SFDA's drug registration department who was last week sentenced to death for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty.

Cao was given a two-year reprieve, a ruling which is usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.

"We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases."

"We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said.

Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the State Food and Drug Administration.

His death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.

Fears abroad over Chinese-made products were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol imported from China.

It was passed off as harmless glycerin.

Yan said she did not have any information about whether the Chinese manufacturer, Taixing Glycerin Factory, and the Chinese distributor, CNSC Fortune Way, had been punished.

"We will try to get more information from the department concerned and we will release it to you," Yan said.

She wouldn't elaborate.

China admitted last month that it was the source of the deadly chemical that ended up in cough syrup and other treatments but insists the chemical was originally labeled as for industrial use only.

Beijing blames the Panama traders who eventually bought the shipment for fraudulently relabeling it as medical-grade glycerin.

In North America earlier this year, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Yan said the food and drug administration was working to tighten its safety procedures and create a more transparent operating environment.

The administration has already announced a series of measures to tighten safety controls and closed factories where illegal chemicals or other problems were found.

But Yan acknowledged that her agency's supervision of food and drug safety remains unsatisfactory and that it has been slow to tackle the problem.

"China is a developing country and our supervision of food and drugs started quite late and our foundation for this work is weak, so we are not optimistic about the current food and drug safety situation," Yan said.

Chinese officials have already said the country faces social unrest and a further tarnished image abroad unless it improves the quality and safety of its food and medicine.

The government has faced increasing pressure from its international trading partners to improve quality controls after a series of health scares attributed to substandard or tainted Chinese food and drug exports.

The list of food scares within China over the past year includes drug-tainted fish, banned Sudan dye used to color egg yolks red, and pork tainted with clenbuterol, a banned feed additive.

China has also stepped up its inspections of imported products and said some U.S. products are not safe.

In the latest case, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday that a shipment of sugar-free drink mix from the United States had been rejected for having too much red dye.

Last week, China's food safety watchdog said almost 20 percent of products made for consumption within China were found to be substandard in the first half of 2007.

Canned and preserved fruit and dried fish were the most problematic, primarily because of excessive bacteria and additives, the agency said.

This BUSH MOUTHPIECE Anthony "TONY" Snow has got more excuses for George W. Bush's BOTCHED-UP policies in IRAQINAM than Carter has little liver pills ....

"Bush not considering Iraq troop pullout"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

9 July 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush is not contemplating withdrawing forces from Iraq now despite an erosion of support among Republicans for his war policy, the White House said Monday.

The administration also tried to lower expectations about a report due Sunday on whether the Iraqi government is meeting political, economic and security benchmarks that Bush set in January when he announced a buildup of 21,500 U.S. combat forces.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said that all of the additional troops had just gotten in place and it would be unrealistic to expect major progress now.

"You are not going to expect all the benchmarks to be met at the beginning of something," Snow said.

"I'm not sure everyone's going to get an 'A' on the first report."

But at the same time, he said that Sept. 15 is not "the drop dead date" by which everything should be completed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Monday that Democrats won't wait for the reports and will move forward with anti-war legislation.

By week's end, the Senate will vote on a proposal by Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., that would require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat.

Another proposal, by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., would order troop withdrawals in 120 days.

"The surge (in troops) was supposed to provide Iraq political leaders the space to make the compromises necessary to unite this nation."

"It hasn't happened, despite the bravery of our troops," said Reid, D-Nev.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates shortened a planned trip this week so he would be in Washington to attend policy meetings aimed at coming up with the report to Congress.

In Florida for a military ceremony, Gates participated in a video conference Monday morning with the president's national security team, said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.

He was to have continued on to Latin America, but changed his plans so he could return to Washington Monday afternoon.

Asked if Pentagon officials were studying a change in Iraq strategy, Whitman would say only that the military is "focused on implementing" the current strategy.

The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, with the tally for Iraq alone nearing a half-trillion dollars, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.

The figures call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost only $5.6 billion through the end of September.

Bush is under growing pressure even within his own party to shift course in Iraq as the war drags on and casualties climb.

At least 3,605 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003.

Bush's approval rating in the polls has sunk to record lows.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said there had been "a steady erosion for the president's policy in Congress because of the "tremendous loss of life among our troops" in June and "the failure of the Iraqi government to pursue the political reforms that are necessary to quell the sectarian violence."

Earlier this year Bush vetoed legislation that would have set a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals.

In recent days three Republicans — Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio and Pete Domenici of New Mexico — have announced they can no longer support Bush's Iraq strategy and have called on the president to start reducing the military's role there.

Several Republicans, including Collins and Domenici, have signed on to legislation that would call on Bush to adopt the findings of the Iraq Study Group.

The bipartisan independent panel recommended the U.S. take certain diplomatic steps to pave the way for a redeployment of troops by spring 2008.

Reid indicated he wasn't interested in calling for a vote on the measure unless it forces a change in strategy.

"What we do has to be more than something that feels good," Reid said.

"It has to be something that calls for real change in our policy in Iraq."

"It's something that is far overdue."

But Snow said any debate happening right now among Bush and his aides is a continuation of discussions they have always had about the goal the president set from the beginning: bring troops home eventually, but only based on improvement "on the ground, not on politics."

"There is no intensifying discussion about reducing troops," he said.

"We are continued to be committed to letting the surge work."

Snow said that neither the upcoming report required by Congress or the eroding support among Republicans — which he denied is happening — was prompting any change at the White House.

"There will be no red squares on the calendar at the end of the week," he said.
__

Associated Press reporters Pauline Jelinek, Andrew Taylor, Jennifer Loven and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

"Bush denies Congress access to aides"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

9 July 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of federal prosecutors.

The White House, however, did offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews.

In a letter to the heads of the House and Senate Judiciary panels, White House counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith and refused lawmakers' demand that the president explain the basis for invoking the privilege.

"You may be assured that the president's assertion here comports with prior practices in similar contexts, and that it has been appropriately documented," the letter said.

Retorted House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers:

"Contrary what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally," the Michigan Democrat said in a statement.

The exchange Monday was the latest step in a slow-motion legal waltz between the White House and lawmakers toward eventual contempt-of-Congress citations.

If neither side yields, the matter could land in federal court.

In his letter regarding subpoenas the Judiciary panels issued, Fielding said, "The president feels compelled to assert executive privilege with respect to the testimony sought from Sara M. Taylor and Harriet E. Miers."

Fielding was responding to a 10 a.m. EDT deadline set by the Democratic chairmen, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Conyers, for the White House to explain it's privilege claim, prove that the president personally invoked it and provide logs of which documents were being withheld.

As expected, Fielding refused to comply.

He said he was acting at Bush's direction, and he complained that the committees had decided to enforce the subpoenas whether or not the White House complied.

"The committees have already prejudged the question, regardless of the production of any privilege log," Fielding wrote.

"In such circumstances, we will not be undertaking such a project, even as a further accommodation."

Leahy also questioned the explanation.

"I have to wonder if the White House's refusal to provide a detailed basis for this executive privilege claim has more to do with its inability to craft an effective one," he said in a statement.

The privilege claim on testimony by former aides won't necessarily prevent them from appearing under oath this week, as scheduled.

Leahy said that he expected Taylor, Bush's former political director, to testify as scheduled before the Senate panel on Wednesday.

Fielding tried to head off any possibility that she would tell the story the president believes is protected under the privilege.

"I respectfully request that you inform Ms. Taylor that the president has directed her not to provide this testimony," Fielding wrote in a letter Monday to Neil Eggleston, her lawyer.

Eggleston did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Taylor was included on e-mails about the firings released earlier this year by the Justice Department, and Leahy believes she could answer questions about those and other matters.

She also sent potentially thousands of e-mails on a Republican National Committee account outside the White House.

Leahy said those communications are are not covered by executive privilege.

The House Judiciary scheduled Miers' testimony for Thursday, but it was unclear whether she would appear, according to congressional aides speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were under way.

The probe into the U.S. attorney firings was only one of several Democratic-led investigations of the White House and its use of executive power spanning the war in Iraq, Bush's secretive wiretapping program and his commutation last week of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence.

Fielding's letter welcomed lawmakers back to town with a clear indication that relations between Congress and the White House had soured during the break.

Bush's counsel cloaked his tough rejoinder to the Democratic committee chairmen in gentlemanly language, but his message was unequivocal: the White House won't back down, and believes the congressional legal argument to be far weaker than its own and its attitude less appealing.

Fielding dismissed the chairmen's attempt to "direct" the White House to provide the legal underpinning of Bush's executive privilege claims and a detailed listing of the documents he is withholding.

He said the White House already has provided its legal argument and so does not need to do so again — and won't.

"We are aware of no authority by which a congressional committee may 'direct' the Executive to undertake the task of creating and providing an extensive description of every document covered by an assertion of Executive Privilege," he wrote.

Fielding suggested that asserting executive privilege on the testimony comes as a result of this impasse and the lack of good faith it demonstrates on the part of Congress.

More broadly, Fielding suggested that the congressional inquiry into the entire matter of the U.S. attorneys' dismissals has no constitutional basis, in large part because the president has sole authority to hire and fire federal prosecutors.

"Although we each speak on behalf of different branches of government, and perhaps for that reason cannot help having different perspectives on the matter, it is hoped you will agree, upon further reflection, that it is incorrect to say that the President's assertion of executive privilege was performed without 'good faith,' " Fielding's letter said.
___

Associated Press Writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this story.

end quotes

Okay ....

So ....

On the one hand, President Bush invoked executive privilege Monday to deny requests by Congress for testimony from two former aides about the firings of federal prosecutors ...

BUT ....

On the other hand, the White House, however, did offer again to make former counsel Harriet Miers and one-time political director Sara Taylor available for private, off-the-record interviews .....

SO ...

There really is no executive privilege .....

IF the BUSHCOS are willing to let Congress talk to these people off-the-record, then in fact, the BUSHCOS are willing to let Congress talk to these people, plain and simple .....

That makes the EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE argument put forth by the BUSHCOS patently ludicrous .....

What the BUSHCOS really don't want is a public record being made .....

They want everything to be a secret .....

Like this were a military dictatorship such as George W. Bush's stooge over there in Pakistan operates ....

And so ...

"Pakistani troops seize Red Mosque"

By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

3 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani troops raided Islamambad's Red Mosque on Tuesday and attempted to flush out the remaining militants entrenched inside a women's religious school in fierce fighting that left at least 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said.

The troops stormed the mosque compound before dawn.

Ten hours later, they were still trying to root out the well-armed defenders said to be holding a number of hostages.

Officials said at least 50 women were allowed to go free from the complex.

Some 26 children had earlier escaped.

Clashes this month between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hardline clerics prompted the siege.

The religious extremists had been trying to impose Taliban-style morality in the capital through a six-month campaign of kidnappings and threats.

At least 80 people have been killed since July 3.

Amid the sounds of rolling explosions, commandos attacked from three directions about 4 a.m. and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, army spokesman Gen. Waheed Arshad said.

Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said.

Two dozen others fleeing were captured by security forces, Arshad said, without giving further details about those trapped inside.

Arshad said more hostages were being held and that fighting continued to be intense.

"We are taking a step-by-step approach so there is no collateral damage," he told reporters.

"We are fighting room by room."

He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.

In addition to the women, Arshad said about 50 suspected militants, some of them youngsters, have been captured or emerged from the mosque since the fighting erupted Tuesday.

He said the army attack was now focused on the women's school but that some militants were still firing from the tops of the mosque's minarets.

He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards.

An officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said troops had cornered the mosque's chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, in the basement of the school but held back from an all-out assault because a number of children were being held there as hostages.

Troops demanded four times that he surrender but his followers responded with gunfire and Ghazi said he was ready to die rather than give up, the officer said.

The government, eager to avoid a bloodbath that would damage President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's embattled administration, had earlier said it would not storm the mosque so long as women and children remained inside.

The mosque itself has been cleared of the militants — who are armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and gasoline bombs.

They put up tough resistance from the basement of the mosque, Arshad said, adding rebels also fired from minarets and booby trapped some areas.

"Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed," he said.

Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq — quoting the mosque's leader — said foreign militants were among the defenders.

He did not give the numbers or their nationalities.

The assault began minutes after a delegation led by a former prime minister left the area declaring that efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to a week-old siege had failed.

An associate of the mosque's chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, told the private Geo Television network that troops had seized the mosque but that resistance was continuing from inside the religious school.

The assault was signaled by blasts and gunfire.

About three and a half hours after the assault started, Arshad said 50 to 60 percent of the complex had been "cleared" but resistance continued in "various places."

Some 40 militants had been killed and between 15 to 20 had been wounded.

Arshad said three special forces commandos were also killed and 15 wounded.

Ghazi told Geo TV that his mother had been wounded by gunshot.

There was no immedidate official confirmation of his claim but one of Ghazi's aides, Abdul Rahman, later said she had died.

"The government is using full force."

"This is naked aggression," he said.

"My martyrdom is certain now."

He said that about 30 militants were resisting security forces but were only armed with 14 AK-47 assault rifles.

As the fighting roiled on, emergency workers at an army cordon waiting for access to the compound.

Women police officers were on standby to handle any female survivors or casualties.

A senior civilian official said troops had arrested dozens of people inside the compound and that part of the madrassa had caught fire.

The official requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.

Tuesday attack followed a botched commando raid on the high-walled mosque compound over the weekend.

On Monday, Musharraf assigned ex-premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to try and negotiate a peaceful end to the standoff.

But Hussain and a delegation of Islamic clerics returned crestfallen from the mosque before dawn Tuesday after about nine hours of talks with rebel leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi via loudspeakers and cell phones.

"We offered him a lot, but he wasn't ready to come on our terms," Hussain told reporters waiting at the edge of the army cordon.

Rehmatullah Khalil, a senior cleric who was part of a 12-member delegation of mediators, accused Musharraf of sabotaging a draft agreement to end the siege.

He said Hussain had prepared an agreement under which Ghazi was to be briefly held in protective custody, and the government would agree to free the students.

Only those being sought by police were to be detained.

"We were happy and hoping that the nation will hear a good news, but the government changed almost all clauses of the draft agreement," he told The Associated Press.

"We were stunned on seeing changes in the draft agreement, and we don't know why the government did so."

"The government is responsible for today's bloodshed."

Hussain rejected the claim that the president's office had made changes to the draft.

"No this is not correct," he said.

Ul-Haq said the negotiations broke down on the issue of what would happen to foreign militants within the compound.

The minister said that during the talks, Ghazi suddenly asked what would happen to the foreign militants.

The government side, he said, responded that they would be dealt with according to the law.

"On hearing it, Ghazi stopped the telephone conversation," ul-Haq said.

He said it was the first time that Ghazi acknowledged that foreign militants were present inside the mosque.

Several loud explosions were heard just as the vexed looking delegates were getting into their cars and sporadic shooting was also heard.

About two dozen relatives of people trapped inside the complex waited anxiously at the army cordon during the assault.

The government has said wanted terrorists are organizing the defense of the mosque, while Ghazi has accused security forces of killing scores of students.

In his comments on Tuesday, Ghazi said he had offered to show the mediators that they had no heavy weapons, foreign militants or other wanted people inside the mosque.

The siege has given the neighborhood the look of a war zone, with troops manning machine guns behind sandbagged posts and from the top of armored vehicles.

It has also sparked anger in Pakistan's restive northwest frontier.

On Monday, 20,000 tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding assault rifles, held a protest in the frontier region of Bajur.

Many chanted "Death to Musharraf" and "Death to America" in a rally led by Maulana Faqir Mohammed, a cleric wanted by authorities and who is suspected of ties to al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
___

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad and Habibullah Khan in Khar contributed to this report.

"New self-defense laws cause confusion"

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

Mon Jul 9, 1:45 PM ET

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Norman Borden fought back twice — once against three assailants on the street, then again in a courtroom where he was charged with murder for killing two of them.

Borden, 44, was walking his dogs last year when three men in a Jeep tried to run him down.

He pulled a gun and shot five times through the windshield, then moved to the side of the vehicle and fired nine more rounds.

He thought the shooting was self-defense, but a prosecutor put him on trial in the deaths, despite a new Florida law that grants wide latitude to people using deadly force to protect themselves.

The case highlights the confusion surrounding so-called "stand-your-ground" laws, which have been adopted in at least 14 states.

The laws have perplexed judges and prosecutors, and, in some cases, forced attorneys to change the way they review evidence.

In Borden's case, a prosecutor filed charges against him, even though he privately thought Borden might have been correct to open fire.

In Kentucky, a man suspected of murder was offered a plea agreement because the law was too difficult to explain to jurors.

Florida was the first state to enact such a law in 2005, removing the requirement that people who think they are in immediate peril must first try to retreat from the confrontation before using deadly force.

Prior to passage of the law, only people defending themselves in their own homes, for the most part, could use deadly force without first trying to flee.

Most states let authorities determine whether deadly force was reasonable, even inside the home.

But the new laws create an automatic presumption that a person is justified in using deadly force to ward off an attacker in just about any public place.

"We believe that self-defense is an innate human right and the law should never put the innocent victim of a crime in a position of having to second-guess themselves," said Ashley Varner, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, which pushed for the laws.

For defense attorneys, the laws offer protection to clients who have struck back at assailants.

"The more defenses the better," said Jack King, spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

He added: "Most people would rather be judged by 12 than carried by six," referring to juries and pallbearers.

Gun-control groups worry that the laws will embolden shooters to pull the trigger first rather than as a last resort.

"If you are protecting yourself or your family in self defense, that's a basic legal right anyway," said Elizabeth Haile, an attorney for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

At least 14 states have revised their laws to ensure that people don't have to retreat from an attacker.

Those states are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, according to the NRA.

There is no way to tell exactly how many times the law has been used as a defense because the statutes are still too new to collect statistics.

In Kentucky, prosecutors offered a plea deal to a man they accused of murder because the statute was too confusing to explain to jurors.

Judge Sheila Isaac, who presided over the case, said the law apparently "went right through the Legislature without a single attorney looking at it."

She said the law was addressing a problem that didn't exist, a sentiment shared by law enforcement officials across the country.

"You just don't see cases where people are prosecuted when they are defending themselves," Isaac said.

Former Republican state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who sponsored Florida's bill, argues that the law was needed to empower citizens.

"Our judicial system tries to be so careful to protect the criminal's rights, we have neglected the right of the common citizen to protect themselves," Baxley said.

In West Palm Beach, Borden faced up to life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of murder and attempted murder.

One of his would-be attackers, 21-year-old Juan Mendez, admitted in testimony at Borden's trial that the three men in the Jeep planned to "rough him up."

A baseball bat was also found in the vehicle.

Prosecutor Craig Williams argued that Borden exceeded justified force when he continued firing after shooting the driver and stopping the Jeep.

But Borden's defense argued that he did not have to retreat, citing the new law.

Williams said he pursued the charges because he thought a jury needed to decide the case.

But he privately wondered how he would have behaved in the same situation.

When Borden was acquitted, the prosecutor was almost relieved.

The assailants "were bringing an arsenal," Williams conceded after the trial.

"It was pretty clear what the right thing to do was here."

___

AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

IS PRESIDENT OF ALL THERE IS FOR LIFE GEORGE W. BUSH NOW DEFENDING PROSTITUTION IN PAKISTAN?

"Cleric in radical Pakistan mosque killed"

By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

16 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A radical cleric whose besieged mosque sought to impose strict Islamic morality on the Pakistani capital was killed Tuesday after refusing to respond to troops who demanded his surrender, officials said.

About 50 militants and eight soldiers died when the military stormed the sprawling Red Mosque compound.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the public face of the pro-Taliban mosque that challenged the government's writ in Islamabad, had vowed to die rather than give himself up.

An army official said Ghazi had received bullet wounds and when he was told to surrender, he gave no reply.

Commandos then fired another volley of bullets and found Ghazi dead, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.

Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed Ghazi's death and said the cleric's body was still lying in the compound, and that "battle hardened" militants were defending themselves.

Officials, who earlier said the military held back on an all-out assault on Ghazi because there were children being held in the basement as hostages, offered no details on who was with him when he died.

"The government is using full force."

"This is naked aggression," Ghazi said hours before his death.

"My martyrdom is certain now."

Troops had stormed the sprawling mosque compound in the capital before dawn after efforts to bring a peaceful end to a weeklong standoff with security forces failed.

Ghazi and his brother Abdul Aziz, the mosque's chief cleric, had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the mosque.

Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said as many as 50 women were the first to be freed by the militants and had emerged from the complex following the escape of 26 children.

Mohammed Khalid Jamil, a reporter for the local Aaj television network, was among journalists who said they saw dozens of women and girls walking on a road away from the mosque.

They were wearing burqas, he said.

A military official who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the women included the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, who was arrested while trying to flee the complex last week.

It was not clear how many noncombatants were being held hostage or were staying behind because they believed in the mosque's cause.

Last week, a number of those who left the mosque, including young women, said their colleagues were there of their own free will and prepared to die.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said hostages were still being held and that fighting was intense: "We are fighting room by room."

He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.

He said about 50 militants have been killed in Tuesday's assault, while eight soldiers had died and 29 were wounded.

Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of the private relief agency Edhi Foundation, told reporters that the army had asked him to prepare 400 white shrouds used for covering the dead.

The siege of one of the capital's most prominent mosques was prompted by clashes last Tuesday between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hardline clerics.

More than 80 people have been killed in the fighting since July 3.

The vigilante anti-vice campaign has proved an embarrassment to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in its war on terror, and underlined his administration's failure to control extremist religious schools.

But a major loss of life at the Red Mosque could further turn public opinion against the president, who already faces mounting opposition for his bungled attempts to fire the country's chief justice.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the militants were given many warnings before the commandos moved in.

"The government of Pakistan has proceeded in a responsible way," Casey said.

"All governments have a responsibility to preserve order."

To protest the siege, more than 100 armed tribesmen and religious students near the northwestern town of Batagram temporarily blocked a road that leads to neighboring China, police officials said.

And in the eastern city of Multan, more than 500 Islamic religious school students rallied, chanting "Down with Musharraf" and blocking a main road by burning tires.

The U.S. Embassy recommended that Americans in Pakistan to limit their movement in the area of the northwestern city of Peshawar, warning that "terrorist elements" were threatening attacks on Pakistani government, police and army institutions in retaliation for the Red Mosque siege.

The army raid began about 4 a.m. after a government-backed effort led by ex-premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to try and negotiate a peaceful end to the standoff failed.

One cleric in the mediation team, Rehmatullah Khalil, accused Musharraf of sabotaging a draft agreement with the mosque's chief cleric, which the government denied.

Soon after the mediators left the environs of the mosque, commandos attacked from three directions and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, Arshad said.

Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said.

Besides the women, Arshad said about 50 suspected militants, some of them youngsters, have been captured or emerged from the mosque since fighting began Tuesday.

Arshad said the army attack was now focused on the women's school.

He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards.

About 80 percent of it had been cleared, he said.

An officer, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said troops had demanded four times that Ghazi surrender, but his followers responded with gunfire.

Ghazi said he was ready to die rather than give up, the officer said.

Arshad said the well-trained militants were armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and gasoline bombs and had booby-trapped some areas.

Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said foreign militants were among those fighting with the mosque defenders, quoting Ghazi.

Ghazi told the private Geo TV network in a telephone interview about two hours after Tuesday's assault began that his mother had been wounded by gunshot.

One of Ghazi's aides, Abdul Rahman, later said she had died.
____

Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan and Stephen Graham contributed to this report.

end quotes

Interesting ....

This Ghazi and his brother Abdul Aziz, the mosque's chief cleric, had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the mosque ....

And that in turn greatly angered the BUSH PUPPET Musharaff, who apparently is for prostitution ....

I mean, hey, there is a lot of money to be made off of prostitution, and governments are always in need of money ....

So Musharaff had this Ghazi killed to protect prostitution .....

And then, in Washington, one of "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice's mouthpieces, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the militants were given many warnings before the commandos moved in ....

"The government of Pakistan has proceeded in a responsible way," Casey said.

"All governments have a responsibility to preserve order."

SOOOoooo .....

HHhhhmmmmm ....

Part of protecting order, then, is protecting prostitution, from what I can make of all of this ....

And since this State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, is really a BUSHCO ....

That would indicate that the BUSHCO REGIME here in America will step up to the plate to defend prostitution around the world, including IRAQINAM .....

And so ...

That's good to know ...

That's part of what we are fighting for over there ....

Just like Viet Nam ...

And so ...

"Bush to defend Iraq policy amid clamor for change"

By Tabassum Zakaria

53 minutes ago

PARMA, Ohio (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will emphasize on Tuesday that his strategy in Iraq is aimed at eventually bringing U.S. troops home, as he seeks to stem growing Republican defections from his war policy.

"Troop levels will be decided by our commanders on the ground, and not by political figures in Washington, D.C.," Bush, who was to speak about Iraq later in Cleveland, told reporters during a stop in Parma, Ohio.

With senior Republican lawmakers calling for a shift, the White House is increasingly worried about a further erosion of Republican support.

Bush has asked for more time to allow the troop surge he ordered at the start of the year to work.

A report he must deliver to Congress by July 15 on progress by Iraq's government will show mixed results and is likely to fuel debate.

It "will present a picture of satisfactory progress on some benchmarks and not on others."

"This is to be expected, given the report is a preliminary snapshot of what are the early stages of the full surge," a senior administration official said.

In Cleveland, Bush will stress that the troop buildup is part of an attempt to lay the groundwork for an eventual drawdown of U.S. forces.

"The president will continue to talk about how he believes that we should try to get to the goal that all Americans, we believe, want, and that is a stable, peaceful Iraq," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters.

'ADDRESS THE REALITY'

Reflecting growing impatience among Republicans for change, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander pushed a proposal to embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group calling for a shift for U.S. troops away from a combat role and toward training and supporting Iraqi troops.

"The surge by itself in my opinion is not a strategy," Alexander told CNN.

Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, "Clearly we're at the crossroads of hope and reality, and now I think we have to address the reality, and that includes the president."

Bush has said repeatedly that the troops will return from Iraq when security conditions warrant.

"There is this impression that the president doesn't want to bring the troops home."

"He does," Stanzel said.

But Stanzel and other White House officials have insisted that a "precipitous" withdrawal from Iraq would leave it vulnerable to becoming a haven for terrorists.

Bush vehemently rejects the idea of a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

Public support for the war has plummeted and Bush's own approval ratings are at the lowest of his presidency.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll showed on Tuesday that more than seven in 10 Americans favor withdrawing nearly all U.S troops from Iraq by April.

Sixty-two percent said the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, marking the first time that number has topped 60 percent in that survey.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Vicki Allen in Washington.)

AP

"Treasurys Up Sharply on Housing Concerns"

Tuesday July 10, 11:26 am ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. Treasury bond prices rose sharply on Tuesday as renewed fears about the health of the housing market and speculation about stronger demand for the securities from pension funds tipped off a buying spree.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the 10-year Treasury note was up $5.63 per $1,000 in face value, or 18/32 point, from its level at 5 p.m. Monday.

Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction, fell to 5.07 percent from 5.15 percent.

The 30-year bond rose 1 4/32 point.

Its yield fell to 5.16 percent from 5.24 percent.

The 2-year note rose 4/32 point.

Its yield fell to 4.90 percent from 4.95 percent.

Yields on 3-month Treasury bills were 4.96 percent as the discount rate rose 0.02 percentage point to 4.82 percent.

Bond prices and yields move inversely.

Part of the buying impetus came from dire reports from homebuilder D.R. Horton and Home Depot.

D.R. Horton, the nation's largest homebuilder, warned of a third-quarter loss due to a 40 percent dive in orders for new homes.

The announcement coincided with Home Depot lowering its earnings projection for this year by 15 percent, citing weaker conditions in the housing market.

Investors, fearing this could mark a watershed in the deterioration of the U.S. housing market, bought into government paper.

"It's just more of the same in the housing market, which is giving a bid to the (shorter maturities)," said Richard Gilhooly, senior fixed-income strategist at BNP Paribas.

"But I don't think the Fed will listen to those concerns as long as they're dealing with inflation."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to speak about inflation at the National Bureau of Economic Research at 1 p.m. EDT.

However, investors are preoccupied with broader issues, with many focused on some disturbing signals from the credit market.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's weighed in with what could be a heavy blow for structured credit and derivatives investors, placing 612 subprime mortgage-backed securities on watch for downgrade.

Though the move isn't unexpected, it won't help mounting anxiety over falling valuations.

Nerves are frayed particularly among the hedge fund community, which has been under a cloud in the weeks since Bear Stearns announced two of its hedge funds most active in the subprime mortgages market were in trouble.

This raised the suspicion that more of these lightly-regulated vehicles are in distress, and failures will start to come to light.

Also giving Treasurys a boost in early trade was chatter that the recent improvement in government finances could start to impact more markedly on its borrowing plans.

Talk also focused on a possible trend of pension funds shifting their investment to favor bonds over equities.

Deborah Lynn Blumberg contributed to this article.

"Home Depot lowers 2007 expectations"

By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:43 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2007

ATLANTA -- The Home Depot Inc., the world's largest home improvement store chain, on Tuesday cited continued weakness in the housing market and the sale of its wholesale distribution business as it issued a bleaker-than-expected financial outlook for the year.

But the Atlanta-based company also said it was launching a tender offer for 250 million shares of its common stock at a price range of $39 to $44 per share as part of a larger program to buy back up to $22.5 billion of its stock.

Home Depot shares rose 26 cents to $40.49 in afternoon trading.

"We want to do better, we want to go faster," Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome said in an interview.

"But we are making progress."

"I think the public, as they shop in our stores, will see that."

Home Depot said it now expects its earnings per share to decline by 15 percent to 18 percent for fiscal 2007.

In May, the company had projected an earnings per share decline of 9 percent for the year.

The earlier guidance included an estimated 18 cents of earnings per share contribution from the company's HD Supply unit for the last six months of the fiscal year.

Last month, Home Depot said it was selling the unit to a group of private equity firms for $10.3 billion.

Home Depot said Tuesday it was updating its guidance to reflect the unit as a discontinued operation.

Market factors are also hurting Home Depot, the company said in its announcement Tuesday.

The company said it now expects total retail sales to be down 1 percent to 2 percent for the year and sales at stores open at least a year to be down in the mid-single digit range.

"We look at the overall market and say there's still correction that lies ahead of us," Chief Executive Frank Blake, referring to the housing market, told investors hours after Home Depot gave the lowered guidance.

"But again, we're pretty far along in the correction process."

At the same time, Blake said Home Depot sees "continued headwinds through 2007 and probably some into 2008 as well."

That concern was underscored Tuesday by an announcement by Fort Worth, Texas-based D.R. Horton Inc. that the homebuilder will post a loss for the spring quarter after net orders fell 40 percent and the value of unsold houses is written down.

A glut of unsold new homes has pushed prices lower.

Builders have responded by canceling options on land where they had planned to build.

The market aside, Blake said Home Depot still faces operational challenges.

He noted Home Depot has been underperforming compared to others in its market.

He said Home Depot is working to improve customer service, in part by giving employees financial incentives for doing good work.

Home Depot's revised fiscal 2007 earnings per share targets reflect 52 weeks and do not include the impact of the 53rd week.

The company will have 53 weeks of operating results in its fiscal 2007 financial results.

Home Depot projects that the 53rd week will add approximately 3 cents to its consolidated earnings per share guidance for fiscal 2007.

The company said its updated earnings per share guidance does not include the gain on the sale of HD Supply.

Meanwhile, the tender offer launched Tuesday is scheduled to expire on Aug. 16.

Last month, the company announced a stock repurchase program in which its board had authorized the company to buy back up to $22.5 billion of Home Depot stock.

The tender offer is part of that plan.

At the midpoint of the tender offer's price range, the 250 million shares represent less than half of the value of the total stock repurchase authorization.

Home Depot has said it wants to complete the stock buyback plan as quickly as possible.

Tome said Tuesday that Home Depot is using a "phased approach" to its stock repurchase program.

Under terms of the tender offer, shareholders are given an opportunity to specify prices, within the stated price range, at which they are willing to tender shares.

Upon receipt of the tenders, Home Depot will select a final price that enables it to purchase up to the stated amount of shares from those shareholders who agreed to sell at or below the company-selected price.

There is no guarantee that shares tendered will be purchased.

Home Depot said it may purchase up to an additional 39.5 million shares in the tender offer without extending the tender offer.

Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler said in a research note that Home Depot's guidance cut is "modest in the grand scheme" of things, and he said Home Depot's tender offer is positive news.

Home Depot, which has more than 2,000 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China, said Tuesday it will open approximately 108 new stores in fiscal 2007.

That's down from the 115 stores it previously said it would open this year.

Tome attributed the lower number to the logistics of opening new stores, not a change in strategy.

------

On the Net:

The Home Depot Inc.: http://www.homedepot.com

"East swelters in 2nd day of heat wave"

By CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 13 minutes ago

NEW YORK - There was plenty of complaining about the weather on Tuesday.

But it's not hot enough to suit Shai Shavit.

"When you have hot days, the cars overheat," said Shavit, 41, owner of Tri State Towing, who has been carting away people's cars in the city for 20 years.

A high of around 93 was predicted for Tuesday in New York — but combined with humidity it was expected to feel like 98 degrees.

On Monday, the temperature hit 92 in Central Park.

Cooler weather and storms were forecast by Wednesday.

Monday's heat spread as far south as Virginia, where temperatures in the 90s prompted state officials to issue a hazardous weather alert.

Richmond city officials opened three cooling shelters.

The West Virginia town of Bluefield offered free lemonade Tuesday after temps surpassed 90 degrees the day before, following a decades-old tradition.

In Washington, D.C., forecasters predicted a high of 96 degrees, which will feel like 101 with the humidity.

At least one school closed Tuesday because of a lack of air conditioning, several neighborhood cooling centers were open and public buses offered free rides in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

Pennsylvania's state parks and swimming areas reopened Tuesday to those seeking relief from the heat, after a state budget deadlock forced a daylong furlough Monday of more than 24,000 state employees and shut down non-essential services.

New York City officials opened 290 cooling centers at city-run senior centers and community centers, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents to help prevent blackouts by conserving power and to not exert themselves.

Last year, a heat wave that struck in late July and early August caused 40 deaths directly from heat stroke and contributed to the deaths of another 60 people, city health officials said.

And on one of the hotter days that we have had up here this summer, the power company has turned off our power ....

"Power coming back on in Troy - Mayor blasts National Grid"

By JIMMY VIELKIND, BOB GARDINIER , KENNETH C. CROWE II , CATHLEEN CROWLEY and MARC PARRY, Staff writers

Last updated: 5:24 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2007

TROY -- On one of the hottest days of the year, National Grid today turned off power to the city of Troy to preserve its long-term ability to provide electrical service to other parts of the sweltering region.

National Grid Spokesman Patrick Stella said that the storm system damaged several substations, transmission lines and poles.

As temperatures rose yesterday, additional demands were placed on the already strained system, and parts of it were taken off-line.

"In Troy, specifically, we did intentionally take down some equipment to avoid an overload," said Stella.

"We hope to have the majority of the people who are out up by the end of the day today [11:59 p.m. on Tuesday]."

"But there may be some scattered outages."

"Due to the damage from the storm, the equipment that was not damaged has been taking on additional load while we make repairs, and due to the rising temperature today, some of our equipment that was already stressed by the additional loads from the storm damage were in danger of overloading," he said.

National Grid's decision had the mayor of the Collar City hot under the collar.

Mayor Harry Tutunjian said the outage came without warning.

"We would have liked to have known something was happening so we could do some planning," said Tutunjian who added National Grid kept the city in the dark about what was happening for nearly five hours.

By 4 p.m., power had been restored to most of the city, though the North Central neighbor and other scattered pockets around the city remained without power.

"National Grid could be more forthcoming in providing information whether it would be days or hours in restoring the power," Tutunjian said.

At it's high point, the outage left roughly 80 percent of Troy without electrical service and city officials grappling with how to keep its 43,000 residents cool as temperatures crept toward the 90s.

"This is big, this is really big," Troy Public Works Commissioner Robert Mirch said after city officials mapped out a plan to transport the sick and the elderly to temporary shelters with airconditioning at Doyle Middle School and the Frear Park Ice Arena.

Though power was being restored, the city planned to keep the shelters open Tuesday nigh.

The Troy outage occurred as National Grid was already fighting to return service to thousands of area homes and businesses that were left in the dark by powerful storms on Monday.

By Tuesday morning, more than 50,000 customers, most of them in Albany and Rensselaer counties were without power.

But the company slowly restored service throughout the day.

Stella said the utility has 130 crews working around the clock, including 45 tree crews.

Workers have come from Massachusetts and Central New York to join the workforce in the Capital District.

Tuesday afternoon, Troy's sidewalks filled with workers as they vacated dark offices and what little cool air lingered in their workplaces.

Stoops on residential streets were also filling up as air conditioning ground to a halt.

The near lunch-hour blackout had restaurant workers worried.

"We just have to get everything perishable into the big walk-in cooler and keep our fingers crossed," said William Horan, cook and dishwasher at Manory's Restaurant.

"We're open but who knows how long."

At the Subway shop on Second Street, their lunch-time sandwich rolls were not completely baked when the power went out.

"We are going to lose that batch," said manager Don Mintline looking at the over with half-risen rolls inside.

"We are also slowly losing air conditioning so this could get really interesting."

The sound of a diesel engine could be heard behind the police station running a generator that provided light and air for city court and the police department.

Over at City Hall, a ceremony to swear in seven new police officers proceeded despite the lack of power.

In the streets horns honked as car and truck drivers tried to be patient getting through intersections with no lights.

The labs in the RPI's Center for Biotechnology, where much of the work requires temperature controls, all have backup generators.

"Most of the work that's going to be done with live cultures and such would mostly be taking place in the Center for Biotechnology," said RPI spokeswoman Gabrielle DeMarco.

"We also have portable generators."

While Troy's hospitals report no power problems, a Troy-based visiting nurses group is busy checking on clients who depend on electricity for oxygen, drug delivery and other medical problems.

The Eddy Home Care Division, which operates out of the Hedley building on River Street, also had to deal with its own power outage, said vice president Michelle Mazzacco.

The staff used their cell phones to call their high-priority patients because their phone system was down.

The visiting nurses agency has more than 1,000 high-priority patients need to be contacted during power outages.

"We are constantly juggling," she said.

Mazzacco said the medical devices have battery backup systems, but the batteries have a limited life span.

Nurses delivered extra batteries to some clients who use drug infusers, oxygen concentrators and Lifeline notification systems that use base units in a patient's home to contact authorities in case of an emergency.

"At least 3 killed in Green Zone barrage"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:33 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Extremists unleashed a barrage of more than a dozen mortars or rockets into the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing at least three people -- including an American -- and wounding 18 in an area once considered the safest in the Iraqi capital.

An Iraqi and a "third country national" were also killed in the attack, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

The embassy said the 18 wounded included five Americans -- two military members and three civilian contract employees.

The 3.5-square-mile district along the Tigris River in the center of Baghdad includes the U.S. and British embassies as well as Iraq's parliament and the offices of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Attacks against the Green Zone have increased in recent months, adding to the concern over the safety of key Iraqi and international officials who live and work in the zone.

In a report last month, the United Nations office in Baghdad said the "threat of indirect fire" -- meaning rockets and mortars -- into the Green Zone had increased, adding that the barrages had become "increasingly concentrated and accurate."

The report said such attacks increased from 17 in March to 30 in April and 39 by May 22.

Between Feb. 19 and the end of May, at least 26 people were killed in Green Zone attacks, the report said.

No group claimed responsibility for the barrage, which began after 4 p.m.

But some of the fire appeared to have come from the eastern side of the city where the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr operates.

Security officials had warned of a heightened security threat against the Green Zone following a series of U.S. military operations against Shiite militias suspected of ties to Iran.

In the latest attack, a joint U.S.-Iraqi force raided parts of Sadr City before dawn Tuesday.

Attacks against the Green Zone have continued despite the Baghdad security crackdown, which began in mid-February.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top military commander Gen. David Petraeus are due to give a preliminary report to Congress this week outlining progress in efforts to improve security here.

The report is due as opposition to the U.S. mission is increasing in Congress, even among President Bush's own party.

Attacks against the zone have also renewed concern about security at the new U.S. Embassy, which is due to open this year within the protected area.

The embassy will be the world's largest and most expensive foreign mission, though it may not be large enough or secure enough to cope with the chaos in Iraq.

Also Tuesday, at least 46 violent deaths were reported around the country.

In Baghdad, police reported finding the bodies of 23 people tortured and slain, presumably by Shiite and Sunni death squads which still operate despite the security crackdown.

Sixteen of their bodies were found on the west side of the city, which is more religiously mixed.

The British military said Tuesday warplanes struck the day before in the southern town of al-Majar al-Kabir near the Iranian border, killing three militants suspected of smuggling weapons into Iraq.

Iraqi police officials said a British helicopter strike killed the brother and two guards of radical Shiite cleric Sheik Abu Jamal al-Fartousi, whom the British military accused of being a leader in Iran's elite Quds Force suspected of arming militants.

The U.S. military said American special operations forces in a raid Sunday captured 12 militants in Baghdad who had broken away from the Mahdi Army and had carried out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops

AND AS THE COST TO AMERICA AND ITS PEOPLE OF LOSER GEORGE W. BUSH'S EGO-DRIVEN BOTCH-JOB IN IRAQINAM CONTINUES TO SPIRAL UPWARDS AND OUT OF SIGHT ....

"Report: Wars cost US $12 billion a month"

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

Last updated: 9:43 p.m., Monday, July 9, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.

All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam.

Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.

The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.

For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.

The Vietnam War, after accounting for inflation, cost taxpayers $650 billion, according to separate CRS estimates.

The $12 billion a month "burn rate" includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs.

That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations.

Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion.

Among the reasons for the higher costs is the cost of repairing and replacing equipment worn out in harsh conditions or destroyed in combat.

But the estimates call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost only $5.6 billion through the end of September.

If Congress approves President Bush's pending request for another $147 billion for the budget year starting Oct. 1, the total bill for the war on terror since Sept. 11 would reach more than three-fourths of a trillion dollars, with appropriations for Iraq reaching $567 billion.

Also, if the increase in war tempo continues beyond September, the Pentagon's request "would presumably be inadequate," CRS said.

The latest estimates come as support for the war in Iraq among Bush's GOP allies in Congress is beginning to erode.

Senior Republicans such as Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Richard Lugar of Indiana have called for a shift in strategy in Iraq and a battle over funding the war will resume in September, when Democrats in Congress begin work on a funding bill for the war.

Congress approved $99 billion in war funding in May after a protracted battle and a Bush veto of an earlier measure over Democrats' attempt to set a timeline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

The report faults the Pentagon for using the Iraq war as a pretext for boosting the Pentagon's non-war budget by costs such as procurement, increasing the size of the military and procurement of replacement aircraft as war-related items.

The new estimate comes as the White House and Democrats are fighting over spending bills for next year.

That battle is over about $22 billion -- almost the cost of two months' fighting in Iraq.

"Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to protecting Americans from terrorism, improving security at our ports and airports, and increasing border security," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"Will Turkey invade northern Iraq?"

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press

Last updated: 8:14 p.m., Monday, July 9, 2007

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Reports that Turkey has massed a huge military force on its border with Iraq bolstered fears that an invasion targeting hideouts of Kurdish rebels could be imminent.

But how deeply into Iraq is the Turkish army willing to go, how long would it stay and what kind of fallout could come from allies in Washington and other NATO partners?

All these questions weigh on Turkey's leaders, who have enough on their hands without embarking on a foreign military adventure.

Turkey is caught up in an internal rift between the Islamic-rooted government and the military-backed, secular establishment, less than two weeks ahead of July 22 elections that were called early as a way to ease tensions in a polarized society.

A military operation could disrupt Turkey's fragile democratic process by diverting attention from campaign topics such as the economy, and raise suspicion about whether the government and its opponents are manipulating the Iraq issue to win nationalist support at the polls.

On Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Turkish television that Turkey would take whatever steps were necessary if the United States fails to fulfill its pledge to help in the fight against Kurdish rebels, but he appeared reluctant to order an invasion before the elections.

"We are seeing with great grief that America remains quiet as Turkey struggles against terrorism."

"Because there were promises given to us, and they need to be kept."

"If not, we can take care of our own business," Erdogan said.

"We hope there won't be an extraordinary situation before the election."

"But there'll be a new evaluation after the elections."

The aim of any military push into Iraq would be to hunt separatist rebels of the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, who rest, train and resupply in remote bases in the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq before crossing mountain passes into Turkey to attack targets there.

In recent months, rebels have stepped up assaults, adding to a sense of urgency in Turkey that something must be done.

A claim Monday by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd from northern Iraq, that Turkey had massed 140,000 soldiers on its border with Iraq rattled nerves on both sides of the border.

Turkey's military had no comment, and the Bush administration said there has been no such mass buildup.

Although Turkish military commanders have said an invasion is necessary, it is difficult to know how prepared they are because many areas along the Iraqi border have been declared "security zones" and are essentially off-limits to civilians.

There have been reports of Turkish shelling of rebel positions inside Iraq from time to time, and commandos are believed to periodically conduct so-called "hot pursuits" of guerrillas across the border.

Turkey also feels a special kinship for the ethnic Turkmen minority in northern Iraq, and Turkish military air ambulances on Sunday evacuated 21 people wounded in a devastating suicide attack in Armili, a town north of Baghdad, for treatment in Turkish hospitals.

Turkey condemned the attack, but there was no indication that it gave impetus to calls for military intervention in the north to protect its ethnic brethren.

Turkey staged a series of major cross-border operations in the 1990s, involving tens of thousands of troops and jet fighters that attacked suspected rebels hideouts in the mountains.

Results were mixed, with rebels regrouping after the bulk of the Turkish forces had left, even though some military units stayed behind to monitor guerrilla activities.

This time, Turkish forces could face the possibility of a confrontation with Iraqi Kurds who are emboldened by newfound autonomy since the downfall of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Some U.S. forces are also in the area, with American warplanes known to fly close to the Iraqi-Turkish border.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, acknowledged that part of Turkey's goal was likely to draw increased U.S. attention to the issue, but said the Turks were likely to act if attacks continued.

Cagaptay said there are already Turkish forces in Iraq, operating about 10 to 15 miles beyond the border, where the steep mountains turn into hills that are more easily navigable.

He said monitoring this area was "the only way (Turkey) could control the border."

Cagaptay said Zebari's announcement that there are Turkish troops on the border was likely a sign that the Iraqi foreign minister takes the threat of further incursion seriously and is trying to draw international attention to the border games to eliminate the possibility that Turkey could execute raids under the radar.

Besides possible tension with the United States, another concern for Turkey is the impact that a military intervention might have on its troubled efforts to join the European Union.

Accusations of human rights abuses by Kurds could slow the process even further; the Turkish military has already expressed frustration with what it perceives as European leniency toward PKK sympathizers.

Sinan Ogan, head of the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis, said one option was a limited air force operation, which would help the government deal with domestic demand for action.

If ground forces do go in, he said, the military would want them to stay for at least six months to assess the impact of the mission.

"An operation before the elections will bring the ruling government more votes so they might be willing to allow such an operation," he said.

"A clash with several soldiers getting killed or a bombing at an important spot might be the spark for a military operation."

"Bush says no Iraq shift; criticism rises"

By DAVID ESPO, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:03 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush threatened to veto legislation setting a date for a troop withdrawal from Iraq on Tuesday despite growing bipartisan calls in Congress for an end to U.S. participation in the war and sharp criticism of the Iraqi government.

As the Senate opened a new debate on the conflict, one of the president's staunchest supporters bluntly said the administration had pursued the wrong policy for years after toppling Saddam Hussein.

"The strategy we had before was not the right strategy," said Christopher Bond, R-Mo.

"We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy."

Asked later who bore responsibility for the error, Bond said, "Ultimately, obviously, the president."

Democrats said Bush's newest strategy was hardly a success, either.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that since Bush ordered thousands more troops to Iraq last winter, "we've lost more than 600 troops, costing the American taxpayers more than $60 billion."

"The escalation has done nothing to bring the Iraqi government together."

"It's done absolutely nothing to lessen the violence in Iraq."

Two Democrats, Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, back legislation to require a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days, to be completed by the end of April 2008.

A vote is expected next week, and Reid said nearly all Democrats support the proposal.

Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon is a supporter, as well, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told reporters she may switch her position and vote for it, too.

The proposal appears to be short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.

Bush's veto threat applied to any legislation that sets an arbitrary date for withdrawal "without regard to conditions on the ground or the recommendations of commanders."

"Setting a date for withdrawal is equivalent to setting a date for failure," he said in a written statement that employed terms similar to those he used earlier in the year when he vetoed legislation that set a target date for a withdrawal.

Also expected to come to a vote in the next two weeks is a plan to place into law recommendations from last winter's report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

The group called for removing all combat brigades not needed for training, force protection and counterterrorism by March 31, 2008.

In an ominous sign for the White House, six Republicans have signaled support for the proposal, along with six Democrats.

Despite a steady procession of Republicans calling for a change in course, several GOP lawmakers warned against a precipitous withdrawal.

"I believe that our military in cooperation with our Iraqi security forces are making progress in a number of areas," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who recently returned from his sixth trip to the region.

The GOP presidential candidate said he noted a dramatic drop in attacks in Ramadi in the western Anbar province.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who accompanied McCain to Iraq, also cited progress since Gen. David Petraeus took command several months ago and the additional troops began arriving.

The Iraqis are "rejecting al-Qaida at every turn."

"I don't want the Congress to be the cavalry for al-Qaida," he said.

Graham was also part of a group of senators who met privately during the day with Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a top adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The senator said afterward the White House is looking at new ways to hasten progress in two primary areas: destroying al-Qaida in Iraq and forcing the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad to make political progress.

But he quoted Bush's aides as saying the administration would oppose calls for a troop withdrawal.

Bush, who was in Cleveland, said issues related to troop strength "will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C."

He added, "I call upon the United States Congress to give General David Petraeus a chance to come back and tell us whether his strategy is working, and then we can work together on a way forward."

Petraeus is expected to make his report in September, but Bush also must give Congress an evaluation by July 15 on the progress made by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in several areas of political and economic change.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to list any benchmarks that have been met.

But he conceded that the most prominent goals had not -- enactment of legislation to allocate oil and gas revenue among the Iraqis or a law to address consequences of the mass firings of Baath Party members.

The report is also expected to say that the Iraqi government has made progress in other areas, including tamping down violence in Anbar province.

Bush's allies made clear their unhappiness with the government in Iraq.

"The central government's dysfunction is real."

'I'm not here to say that it's not," said Graham.

"I am in many ways more depressed than I've ever been about political reconciliation in the short term."

McCain, Graham, Bond and others took turns on the Senate floor to warn of grave consequences if Democrats get their wish for a quick troop withdrawal.

At an afternoon news conference, Bond also brought up the question of overall strategy.

"Late last winter we confirmed General Petraeus unanimously to bring a new strategy."

"Republicans and Democrats said we needed a new strategy, and there's no question we did.

"The strategy we had before was not the right strategy."

"We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy."

"Unfortunately, General Garner lost that argument several years ago," he said a reference to the general who was installed as the first postwar governor of Iraq.

Garner arrived in Iraq in April 2003 and was replaced the following month.

Asked, in retrospect, how long the House and Senate should have permitted an inadequate strategy to continue, Bond replied, "Congress was not running the war."

"Base metals fall on housing outlooks"

By LAUREN VILLAGRAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:03 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2007

NEW YORK -- The industrial metals market slumped Tuesday under the weight of disappointing outlooks from major players in the U.S. housing sector -- a potential warning sign that demand for metals could wane.

Elsewhere in commodities, agriculture and energy futures rallied higher.

Home Depot Inc., the world's largest home improvement store chain, on Tuesday lowered its 2007 guidance sharply, raising traders' concerns that the U.S. housing market will remain sluggish this year.

Homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc. forecast an operating loss for its latest quarter as inventories of unsold homes continue to build.

The outlooks jogged fears that a rebound in the housing industry isn't near.

"Clearly it's causing some jitters," said UBS base metals strategist Robin Bhar.

"Even though copper is supported by its supply-demand fundamentals, it can't ignore some of the macroeconomic concerns."

Copper dipped despite dwindling inventories, while steel-coating metals nickel and zinc posted the sharpest drop on the London Metal Exchange.

Nickel's 5 percent drop helped drag down the rest of the industrial metals complex.

The metal tumbled to a six-month low as inventories of the metal keep swelling in the face of competition from a a cheaper, Chinese-made substitute.

Nickel -- used in airplane jet engines, power plant turbines and other industrial applications -- had a spectacular run-up in 2006 as development in China and elsewhere stoked demand, and prices tripled.

But high prices for refined nickel led Chinese stainless steel mills to shift to nickel pig iron, a cheaper alternative.

In New York, copper futures fell 1.95 cents to close at $3.61 a pound on the Nymex.

Meanwhile, the weaker-than-expected earnings forecasts from Home Depot, D.R. Horton and others pressured the U.S. dollar and helped hoist the euro to an all-time high about $1.37.

That boosted gold prices.

Gold -- which often moves inverse to the dollar as investors seek a safer haven -- added $1.90 an ounce to settle at $664.40 on the Nymex, and silver rallied with a 15.5-cent gain to end at $12.975 an ounce.

Higher energy prices also supported gold.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery tacked on 62 cents a barrel to settle at $72.81 amid reports of refinery glitches and, as a result, increasing prices for refined products.

Gasoline futures rose 2.48 cents to end at $2.3694 a gallon, while natural gas and heating oil prices also climbed.

"Refinery problems continue to weigh on the market," said Yasser Elguindi, senior managing director at Medley Global Advisors.

In Chicago, soybean prices turned sharply north after the Chicago Board of Trade's November contract broke through $9.03 a bushel -- a key price level that helped trigger additional investment and sent prices up to as high as $9.22, said DTN analyst Darin Newsom.

Many investment funds operate on the assumption that once a commodity hits a certain price level, the market will stretch the run higher.

A sharp drop in U.S. soybean acreage this year has left the market nervous about supply.

Analysts have said higher market prices for soybeans are need to spur Brazil and Argentina to plant a larger crop and make up for the decrease in soybean acreage here.

Also providing some lift to prices, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported late Monday that the condition of the nation's corn, soybean and wheat crops had weakened slightly from the previous week.

November soybeans surged 18.4 cents to settle at $9.204 a bushel, while wheat gained 2.2 cents to close at $6.016 a bushel.

December corn picked up 6.6 cents to close at $3.57 a bushel.

They had this Texas peckerwood Bush on FOX NEWS on the radio up here this morning, and to tell the truth, that peckerwood gets to yelling and yammering in his undecipherable peckerwood dialect and I haven't the slightest idea of what he is even on about ....

So I am glad we have this BLOG ....

Where we can at least read some printed version of what somebody else thought he said .....

And so ...

"Former Bush adviser to say no to Senate"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush's former political director says she intends to follow his directive and not answer questions about her role in the administration's firing of federal prosecutors — unless a court directs her to defy her former boss.

"While I may be unable to answer certain questions today, I will answer those questions if the courts rule that this committee's need for the information outweighs the president's assertion of executive privilege," Sara M. Taylor, who left her White House job two months ago, said in remarks prepared for presentation to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

"Thanks for understanding," she added in the statement, made available in advance of the midmorning hearing.

Democrats insist that there are plenty about the firings that Taylor can discuss — and is compelled to reveal under a subpoena — that are not covered by Bush's executive privilege claim.

Her lawyer was expected to advise her as the hearing progressed on which questions she could or could not answer under the president's directive.

The same goes for a second former Bush aide, one-time White House counsel Harriet Miers, Democrats say.

Miers, subpoenaed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, said through her lawyer this week that she "cannot provide the documents and testimony that the committee seeks."

"Ms. Miers is thus subject to conflicting commands, with Congress demanding the production of information that the counsel to the president has informed her she is prohibited from disclosing," Miers' lawyer, George Manning, wrote to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan and ranking Republican Lamar Smith of Texas.

The two former aides are now private citizens, and some congressional officials have argued that it is not clear Bush's executive privilege claim covers them even though White House Counsel Fred Fielding told lawyers for Miers and Taylor that the president was directing them not to answer questions or provide any information about the firings.

"Ms. Miers has no choice other than to comply with the direction given her by counsel to the president in his letters," Manning wrote.

Taylor's message was much the same.

"I intend to follow the president's instruction," she said in her statement.

A court fight could take years, dragging on even after Bush leaves office.

So opens the latest round in the dispute over the administration's firing last winter of eight federal prosecutors.

The congressional probe, now in its seventh month, has morphed into a broader standoff over what information the president may keep private and what details Congress is entitled to receive as part of its oversight of the executive branch.

The Taylor and Miers appearances this week are as much about Congress pushing back against Bush's executive privilege claim on subpoenaed documents and testimony as they are about the firings.

Claims for executive privilege are based upon the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution.

As a separate but equal branch of government, it is argued, the executive can resist efforts by the legislative and judicial branches to encroach on its authority.

Presidents have argued against releasing some documents to Congress and against forcing administration officials to testify about private discussions, contending that such disclosures could damage the executive branch's ability to function independently.

Most presidents have also added a practical argument: They say they won't be able to get unvarnished advice from advisers who worry that their words will be made public later.

Also looming over the proceedings is the fate of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats have widely called for his resignation and a few Republicans have joined them.

But Bush remains supportive of his longtime friend, and Gonzales shows no signs of stepping down.

Taylor and Miers were among Bush's closest aides during the period the firings were planned.

E-mails released by the Justice Department up to, including and in the aftermath of the firings show Taylor and Miers were participants in the exchanges.

At one point, the White House has said, Miers proposed firing all 93 of the nation's prosecutors, but Gonzales rejected that suggestion.

Democrats want to know if the prosecutors were fired at the White House's direction, perhaps to make room for Bush loyalists.

Bush and Gonzales have denied that there were improper political motives behind the firings.

The White House has pointed out that federal prosecutors are political appointees, and the president can hire and fire them for almost any reason.

And speaking about the Texas peckerwood's stooge Musharaff over there in Pakistan ....

"Pakistan troops comb mosque for holdouts"

By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

24 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani troops cornered the last remaining militants and combed the warren-like Red Mosque complex for booby traps Wednesday after assaulting the compound and killing its pro-Taliban cleric, the army spokesman said.

"The final phase is going on," Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad told the private Geo television network.

He said three of the remaining die-hard defenders had been killed overnight, and that troops were meeting resistance in just "one or two places" of the sprawling compound in the heart of the Pakistani capital.

More than 50 militants and nine soldiers were killed since the assault began in the early hours of Tuesday, including the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the army said.

Commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the mosque's militants to surrender to a weeklong siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes with armed supporters of the mosque on July 3.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

More than 80 people have been killed overall since the violence began.

At midmorning Wednesday, more than 30 hours after the assault began, intermittent explosions and gunfire were still heard from inside the complex.

An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to press, said troops were moving from room to room in basements of the compound, blowing up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

He said the three militants reported killed Tuesday night were trapped in foxholes by commandos.

The army asked reporters to prepare for a tour of the embattled site, indicating the operation was nearing its end.

No details of where exactly the press would be taken were provided.

Relatives of young women, men and children who had been inside waited behind army barricades around the mosque or inquired at morgues Wednesday.

Ghazi's body was found in the basement of a women's religious school after a fierce gunbattle involving militants, senior Interior Ministry official Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

Several security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to the press, said Ghazi was wounded by two bullets and gave no response when ordered to surrender.

Commandos then fired another volley and found him dead.

Arshad said Ghazi's body had been removed from the mosque and handed over to the Interior Ministry.

Elite troops stormed the sprawling compound after negotiations with the mosque's leaders failed.

Gunfire and explosions thundered over the city while "Operation Silence," as it was code-named, proceeded through the night and into Wednesday.

The military has not said who or how many people remain in the mosque.

The casualties at the Red Mosque could further turn public opinion against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who already faces a backlash for his bungled attempts to fire the country's chief justice.

Following several anti-government protests Tuesday, about 500 people chanting "Death to Musharraf" rallied for an hour in the northwest frontier city of Peshawar Wednesday.

"This (mosque attack) is part of our government's action against religious elements to please America," said Shabbir Khan, a lawmaker from an opposition Islamic party, at the demonstration.

In neighboring Afghanistan, a senior Taliban commander, Mansoor Dadullah, urged Muslims to launch suicide attacks on Pakistani security forces, calling the assault "a cruel act."

"I would have sent 10,000 mujahideen to support the (Red Mosque) students but we are busy in Afghanistan and Islamabad is far from Afghanistan."

"I wished to go myself to support them," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Several editorials in mainstream newspapers Wednesday said Musharraf had no choice but to confront the intransigent militants.

"The decision to launch the final assault was not an easy one, but given the circumstances there was nothing else that the government could really do," said the English-language The News.

But it questioned how the militants had managed to find a haven "inside the heart of Islamabad."

"Surely this is a disturbing indictment of the failure of the law enforcement agencies to keep track of the movement of such elements," it said.

Another English-language daily, Dawn, said that "no tears will be shed over the death of the well-armed militants," praising the government for exercising "utmost restraint" in the standoff.

The U.S. State Department endorsed the Musharraf government's decision to storm the mosque, saying that the militants had been given many warnings, and U.S. President George W. Bush reaffirmed his confidence in the Pakistani president in the fight against extremists.
____

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad, Sadaqat Jan and Stephen Graham contributed to this report.

end quotes

Well ....

There you have it, folks ....

Thanks to George W. Bush and his stooge Musharaff, prostitution is once again safe over there in Pakistan .....

And so ...

"GOP senators call for Iraq change now"

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

33 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Several Republican senators told President Bush's top national security aide privately Wednesday that they did not want Bush to wait until September to change course in Iraq.

The meeting that lawmakers had with national security adviser Stephen Hadley came as GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel announced they would back Democratic legislation ordering combat to end next spring.

Republican support for the war has steadily eroded in recent weeks as the White House prepared an interim progress report that found that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has made little progress in meeting major targets of reform.

Of the GOP lawmakers who say the U.S. should reduce its military role in Iraq, nearly all are up for re-election in 2008.

"I'm hopeful they (the White House) change their minds," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Domenici and at least five other Republicans support a bill by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., that would adopt as U.S. policy the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report.

The bipartisan panel, led by Republican James A. Baker III and Democrat Lee Hamilton, said the U.S. should hand off the combat mission to the Iraqis, bolster diplomatic efforts in the region and pave the way for a drawdown of troops by spring 2008.

Domenici, who is expected to face voters next year, said he and other co-sponsors told Hadley the president shouldn't wait until September to adopt the bipartisan policy.

"The only difference of opinion at the moment is, the president wants to deal with the Baker-Hamilton recommendations in September," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., one of the first GOP co-sponsors.

"I think he should do that today because it develops a long-term strategy for what happens in the surge," added Alexander, who also is up for re-election.

"It would put him and Congress on the same path, which is what we definitely need."

Members said Hadley did not indicate the White House would switch gears.

Bush this week said he will not reconsider the military strategy in Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander there, delivers his progress report in September.

"He was not in a position to do anything other than say 'I hear you,' " Domenici said of Hadley.

Other Republicans at the meeting did not call for immediate change, but offered tepid support for the current policy.

Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said he was seriously considering Salazar's legislation and remained gravely concerned about the lack of progress in Iraq.

"I'm still in the same place, and I don't think there were any hearts or minds changed in there," Coleman said upon leaving the meeting.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who also attended the meeting, is expected to call for a change in Iraq policy after Bush releases on Thursday that interim report on Baghdad's political progress.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a staunch supporter of Bush's Iraq policies, said he and many others would stick behind Bush.

But "obviously everyone was concerned, and we're trying to figure out what the answer is," he said.

GOP support has become crucial as the Senate opened debate on a $649 billion defense policy bill.

The Senate on Wednesday voted against advancing a measure that would have restricted combat deployments by requiring that troops spend as much time at home as in battle.

The 56-41 vote on the proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., fell four votes short of the 60 needed to cut off debate.

The Senate is expected to vote next week on an amendment by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that would order troop withdrawals to begin in 120 days and end all combat on April 30, 2008.

The House plans to take up a similar measure on Thursday.

Levin's amendment is not expected to survive and Bush has vowed to veto it if it does.

But in a signal of growing unease with the war, it has picked up at least one new vote from Snowe of Maine.

Snowe initially opposed setting a firm deadline, contending it would not make any sense to broadcast war plans to the enemy.

But the senator, who is not up for re-election next year but faces a strong anti-war constituency, said she decided to switch her position because the situation has grown too dire.

"Frankly, given the fact that the Iraqi government isn't prepared to change its own political direction, we should be prepared to change course with respect to our strategy," Snowe told reporters Tuesday.

Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., also signed on as co-sponsors of the bill; both voted for a similar measure earlier this year.

Hadley's visit to Capitol Hill came as the White House finalized a 23-page progress report on Iraq that concludes the government in Baghdad has made little progress in meeting reform goals laid down by Bush and Congress.

The administration is likely to argue that some progress has been made in reducing the level of sectarian violence and militia control.

Iraq also has established several, but not all, of the needed joint neighborhood security stations in Baghdad and has increased the number of capable Iraqi security units.

But the report also is expected to concede that several major goals have not been met, including agreement on new Iraqi laws to allocate oil and gas resources and revenue and to address amnesty for former Baath Party members.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the report will indicate whether there has been "progress at a satisfactory rate, or unsatisfactory rate, and in some cases, maybe mixed results on some of those benchmarks."

AND AS PRESIDENT OF ALL THERE IS FOR LIFE GEORGE W. BUSH CONTINUES WITH HIS EFFORTS TO KEEP PAKISTAN SAFE FOR PROSTITUTES ....

We have ...

"Al-Qaida: Wage holy war against Pakistan"

34 minutes ago

]CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 issued a new videotape on Wednesday calling for Pakistanis to join the jihad, or holy war, in revenge for the attack by Pakistan's army on a radical mosque.

Ayman al-Zawahri's 4-minute, 24-second address was entitled "The Aggression against Lal Masjid" and entirely focused on the recent clashes between Islamic students and Pakistan's army at the mosque.

The video was released by al-Qaida's multimedia branch, as-Sahab.

Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.

"Muslims of Pakistan: your salvation is only through Jihad," al-Zawahri said in the video, which was subtitled in English.

"Rigged elections will not save you, politics will not save you, and bargaining, bootlicking, negotiations with the criminals, and political maneuvers will not save you," a bespectacled and white-clad al-Zawahri said.

"Musharraf and his hunting dogs have rubbed your honor in the dirt in the service of the Crusaders and the Jews," he said, referring to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who has come under strong internal criticism for his handling of the clashes at the mosque.

Al-Qaida's new video came as Pakistani commandos cleared the warren-like Red Mosque complex of its last die-hard defenders Wednesday and the army said it counted the bodies of 73 suspected militants.

The commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the mosque's militants to surrender to a weeklong siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes in Islamabad with armed supporters of the mosque on July 3.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

Some 106 people have been killed overall since the violence began.

They include 10 soldiers, one police ranger and several civilians who died in the crossfire.

The dead included the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Al-Zawahri described the cleric's death as a "dirty, despicable crime committed by Pakistani military intelligence" at the orders of Musharraf.

"This crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood," said Osama bin Laden's deputy, who is believed to be hiding in the hinterland on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border along with al-Qaida's chief.

It was the second message by al-Zawahri this week, and his 10th this year, said Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors terrorism messages.

Venzke said al-Qaida's media wing, as-Sahab, was now releasing more than two messages a week on average.

"They just keep getting faster," he said on the telephone.

"Al-Qaida has apparently made the decision that it's important for them to respond to current events within a short news cycle," he said.

Venzke pointed out that al-Zawahri was reacting to events at the Red Mosque in Pakistan that were barely a week old.

As-Sahab issued a total of 58 messages for all of 2006.

But Wednesday's release was its 62nd so far for 2007, IntelCenter said.

"Republican unity fraying on Iraq war"

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A long-awaited progress report on Iraq is being issued Thursday, with unity within President Bush's Republican party fraying, not to mention civility.

"Wimps," House Republican leader John Boehner calls GOP defectors in the Senate — a growing breed as public opinion polls chart ever-deepening opposition to the war and a climbing U.S. casualty count 16 months before the 2008 elections.

With both houses of Congress debating war-related legislation, lawmakers awaited the Bush administration's assessment Thursday of political, economic and military progress made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

Administration officials said in advance the report concludes that the Iraqis have failed to pass long-promised laws that the administration has called key to national cohesion and economic recovery, such as legislation that would fairly divide Iraq's oil resources.

But officials said the report also would show progress in several areas, such as a drop in sectarian killings in Baghdad and opposition to al-Qaida terrorists by tribal sheiks in Anbar province.

Predictably, Democrats say the findings are proof the war effort is failing, while Republicans say the limited progress shows hope and that lawmakers should not lose faith.

Boehner, R-Ohio, made his "wimps" remark in a private meeting Wednesday with rank-and-file Republicans — ironically at nearly the same moment that several GOP senators beseeched the White House without apparent success for a quick change in course on Iraq.

"I'm hopeful they (White House officials) change their minds," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said after a meeting that President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, held with several Republicans in the Capitol.

Domenici and several other GOP members, including Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio, say they want Bush to begin reducing the military's role in Iraq.

In the meeting, Hadley said Bush wants to wait until September when Gen. David Petraeus, the Iraq war commander, will reassess military progress.

Emboldened by the Republican divide, Democrats called for a vote on legislation to end U.S. combat operations next year.

The House planned to vote first on Thursday.

Boehner spokesman Brian Kennedy said the lawmaker's comments "were intended to illustrate the fact that we just recently voted to give the troops our full support — including ample time for the Petraeus plan to work, and that too much is at stake for Congress to renege on its commitment now by approving what can only be described as another partisan stunt by Democrats."

A senior U.S. official familiar with the report's conclusions said it would assess Iraq's progress toward congressional benchmarks in three main categories: completed, partially completed and those that show limited or no progress.

Most of the bigger and more difficult issues, the ones that the Bush administration has said were key to Iraq's national cohesion and economic future, likely would fall into the partially completed category, the official said.

One major exception was the expectation that Iraq's government would pass a law redressing the effects of a policy to purge Baath Party members following Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ouster during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

There has been almost no progress on that goal.

The official said the Iraqi government would get a passing grade on a few of the military benchmarks that demonstrate its cooperation with Bush's troop buildup this spring.

"It's going to be a mixed picture," the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the report was not yet public.

___

Associated Press writers David Espo and Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

"Showdown looms over fired prosecutors"

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration says the president's immediate advisers are absolutely immune from having to appear before Congress, but legal scholars say the issue isn't that clear cut.

The question grew more pressing Wednesday as President Bush ordered former White House counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons in the controversy over the administration's dismissals of federal prosecutors.

The Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House judiciary committees have said they would consider introducing contempt of Congress citations against any subpoena recipients who resist.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., could begin that process as early as Thursday if Miers ignores her subpoena and skips his hearing, based upon the White House's assertion of executive privilege.

An argument that Miers has to testify "is certainly as tenable as that she doesn't," University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson says.

"If I were advising the congressional committees, what I would want to argue is that they have evidence that she was involved in what might have been criminal acts; that is, subordination of civil service hiring to unlawful considerations," Levinson said.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the White House "could not have picked worse ground" on which to fight executive privilege.

Many of the communications involve political operatives outside the White House; the White House already has offered to disclose the information and simply refused to do so under oath or with a transcript, and the issue is not in the sensitive areas of national security or diplomacy.

Legal scholars say it's unlikely the White House and Congress are bound for a head-on collision.

"We've been here many, many times before."

"This is not out of the ordinary," said Viet Dinh, the former assistant attorney general for legal policy during Bush's first term.

"For me, the only surprising thing is he's waited this long to finally exert executive privilege."

No president has gone as far as mounting a court fight to keep his aides from testifying on Capitol Hill, but court is just where the battle could end up absent the usual negotiated agreements of the past.

President Ford testified on Capitol Hill about his pardon of former President Nixon.

President Clinton's aides testified in the Whitewater investigations launched by congressional Republicans.

This dispute over Democratic claims that the firings were politically motivated has been simmering for months but the issue of executive privilege — how much information lawmakers can force presidents to disclose — is as old as the nation.

Ever since George Washington refused to release his War Department correspondence, the executive and legislative branches have tussled over their authority.

"Ms. Miers has absolute immunity from compelled congressional testimony as to matters occurring while she was a senior adviser to the president," White House Counsel Fred Fielding wrote in a letter to Miers' lawyer, George T. Manning.

On Wednesday, another former White House aide under subpoena, onetime political director Sara Taylor, tried to answer some questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush's claim of executive privilege.

Both Taylor and Miers still face possible contempt citations.

Fielding based his advice to Bush on a Justice Department memo this week that quoted former officials — from former Attorney General Janet Reno to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing as an assistant attorney general — as saying the president and his immediate advisers are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas.

The Democrats shot back that those documents referred only to White House advisers currently serving.

Miers and Taylor left the White House earlier this year.

Contempt citations are rare.

Since 1975, 10 senior administration officials have been cited but the disputes were all resolved before getting to court.

The political resolution of such disputes has sometimes favored the White House, such as when President Eisenhower kept officials from testifying at Sen. Joe McCarthy's hearings.

Other times, Congress wins, such when Nixon reluctantly let aides testify about the Watergate break-in.

Louis Fisher, a Library of Congress expert on presidential powers, has said the dispute over the fired prosecutors is not one that's likely bound for the federal courthouse.

The law is unsettled in the area.

A 1974 Supreme Court decision held the president could not withhold the Watergate tapes from federal prosecutors.

But the high court made it clear it wasn't getting into whether presidents may refuse demands from Congress.

Both sides benefit from such uncertainty because it forces political concessions.

"Ex-mayor in N.J. charged with corruption"

By JANET FRANKSTON LORIN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

NEWARK, N.J. - Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James was indicted Thursday on corruption charges involving land sales and allegations that he spent extravagantly on himself and several women using city-issued credit cards.

The federal grand jury's 33-count indictment charges James with fraud for allegedly facilitating and approving the cut-rate sales of city-owned land to a female companion.

It also charges James, 71, with using the city-issued credit cards on himself and eight women during trips to destinations including Rio de Janeiro, Puerto Rico and Martha's Vineyard, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and state Attorney General Anne Milgram announced.

"The allegations in this indictment are stark examples of the greed and arrogance of unchecked power," Christie said.

"When Sharpe James had a choice between enriching himself or helping the people of Newark, he chose self-enrichment."

James surrendered to the FBI shortly after the indictment was announced.

He later appeared in court and answered "Yes, yes," when asked whether he understood the charges he was facing; the judge set bail at $250,000.

The woman accused of buying the bargain-priced city land, Tamika Riley, also was charged with fraud and was to appear in court.

Riley, a 38-year-old publicist and former clothing store operator in Newark, allegedly made more than $500,000 from the land sales, authorities said.

Ethical questions have long surrounded James, who has a home on the Jersey shore, a yacht and a Rolls-Royce.

He has been a Democratic state senator since 1999, while also serving as Newark's mayor until last year, when he decided not to seek re-election after two decades in the job.

Tom Wilson, the state Republican Party chairman, blamed Democratic leaders for tolerating James' ethics lapses and called on James to resign from the Senate.

Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine and Senate President Richard J. Codey said the accusations were best addressed in court.

James has said little publicly since federal investigators notified him that he was the target of a corruption probe last month.

In a handwritten letter to The Associated Press, dated June 16, he said he never had the power to broker land deals or set prices by himself.

"No, no, no, the mayor is not a boss or a lord or can give away municipal land," he wrote.

The indictment charges that James improperly steered properties to Riley, and that she, with James's help, quickly resold at least seven properties at much higher prices.

Riley was able to buy the properties though she lacked real estate and construction experience and the financial ability to rehabilitate the properties, the indictments alleges.

Riley also raised and donated campaign funds for James and traveled internationally with him, enjoying vacations and meals partly paid for by the city credit cards, the indictment alleges.

In all, the credit card charges listed in the indictment total more than $58,000 between 2001 and 2006.

They include luxury hotel suites, expensive meals, airfare, car rentals including one for a Jaguar convertible, and a trip to Florida to test drive a Rolls-Royce the former mayor was considering purchasing, according to the indictment.

James' election in 1986 made him Newark's second black mayor.

He collects an annual pension of about $125,000 from Newark and earns $49,000 a year as a senator.

He announced in April that he also wouldn't seek another term in the Senate after his current term expires in January.

"Iraqis criticize focus on benchmarks"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

25 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Iraq's shaky government will be hard-pressed to meet the 18 benchmarks even by the end of the year, and many Iraqis believe focusing on U.S.-mandated yardsticks has in effect set them up for failure.

Some of the benchmarks, including establishing a strong militia disarmament program, disregard the political realities in Iraq — where political power is wielded by those with guns.

Other benchmarks, including constitutional reform and returning former Saddam Hussein loyalists to government jobs, are "red line" issues that strike at the heart of the Iraq conflict.

Still others are so intertwined that meeting one is impossible without meeting another.

Further complicating the effort, sectarian and ethnic factions that dominate Iraqi politics are divided not only from each other but among themselves.

And then there is the violence.

Without security, compromise among the sectarian and ethnic groups is all but impossible.

But sectarian violence remains high despite the U.S.-led security crackdown that began Feb. 14.

The number of bodies reported found nationwide has been increasing each month, from an average per day of 23 in February to 28 in June, with an average of least 33 each day in the first 11 days of July, according to an Associated Press count.

The security crackdown was intended to tamp down the bloodshed so that the Iraqi government could make progress meeting the benchmarks.

A report issued by the Bush administration Thursday concluded that the Iraqi government has made only mixed progress toward fulfilling those benchmarks, inflaming debate in Congress over future U.S. war strategy.

However, the benchmark focus overlooks tangible gains that the Iraqis have managed to achieve, including a tectonic shift in Anbar province away from all-out support for the Sunni insurgency.

Iraqis are largely in control of the country's third-largest city, Mosul, with only one U.S. battalion stationed where a division was once based.

But the weak central government in Baghdad barely functions outside the Green Zone.

American military officers often fill the gap between the ministries and regional authorities, lobbying on behalf of local officials for money and other resources.

From Washington, the Iraqis appear to be stalling.

From Baghdad, the Americans seem to be setting the Iraqis up for failure, blaming them for not solving problems that U.S. decisions helped create.

"Neither side knows the problem of the other," said Kurdish elder statesman Mahmoud Othman.

"The Americans blame the Iraqis, and the Iraqis blame the Americans."

"The result is that neither the American people nor the Iraqis achieve anything."

The Bush administration began talking about benchmarks last year as a way to press the new government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to show tangible achievements.

That would deflect calls in Congress for setting a timetable to withdraw American forces.

Congress set 18 benchmarks and directed President Bush to provide progress reports in July and September as a condition for supporting the increasingly unpopular U.S. mission here.

Although both Bush and al-Maliki insist the benchmarks are Iraqi goals, they are widely seen here as an American agenda.

That bristled Iraqi pride.

Many Iraqi officials complain the timetable for enacting them is too short.

Dealing with so many big-ticket legislative projects is beyond the capabilities of Iraq's 275-member parliament, which is often challenged to drum up a quorum.

Many members spend much of their time in Jordan or Syria, fearing for their safety back home.

Political blocs lack the discipline and cohesion for their leaders to deliver their members on a vote without protracted negotiations.

Both the Sunnis and Shiites loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been boycotting sessions over differences with al-Maliki.

Although the pro-government Shiites and Kurds have the votes to push through legislation, laws enacted without broad approval would only fuel more sectarian hatred.

Consensus reached in endless meetings over gallons of sweet tea is the key to lasting deals.

"The Iraqi government has institutions that work slowly, and there are steps that have to be taken" to smooth legislative rails, Othman said.

Imposing so many benchmarks also set the stage for endless dealmaking as factions leverage their support for certain goals in exchange for concessions on others.

Each major group has its own priorities.

For Sunni Arabs, top priorities are constitutional reform, a share of the oil wealth and returning former Saddam loyalists to their jobs.

The Shiites want legislation on establishing autonomous regions.

And the Kurds are seeking to defend political gains they won in the 2005 constitution — which the Sunnis want reformed.

Over the last four years, pressing the Iraqis along U.S. politically driven timetables has often made things even worse.

One of the benchmarks calls for reviewing the constitution to meet Sunni aspirations.

That's the very constitution drafted in 2005 under enormous American pressure, even as Sunni representatives were complaining they were being rushed into accepting provisions that their constituents would never accept.

Overly optimistic assessments by the White House and Pentagon created expectations in the United States about Iraqi capabilities that were far from reality.

For example, U.S. soldiers are battling to regain control of Diyala province, which fell under the sway of al-Qaida-linked militants after the Americans withdrew most of their troops from there in 2005.

U.S. officials gave assurances at the time that the Iraqis could secure the province.

From their side, the Iraqis may have underestimated the pressure on the White House to show results or end the U.S. combat role.

Many Iraqi officials cannot conceive of the U.S. pulling out quickly, creating a power vacuum in a strategic Middle Eastern country.

"This issue cannot be decided without looking at realities on the ground," said Hassan al-Suneid, a top al-Maliki aide and lawmaker.

"U.S. troops are playing a vital role regarding maintaining security."

"They cannot leave all of a sudden because there will be a grave security vacuum."

The shock of a rapid American withdrawal could force the Iraqis to set aside parochial interests and reach agreements for the sake of the nation.

The risk is that a rapid U.S. departure would trigger more fighting until the rival tribes, sectarian communities and organized insurgent groups finally agree enough blood has been shed.
___

Robert H. Reid is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press and has covered Iraq frequently since 2003. AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.

"Pakistanis bury dead from battle for mosque"

By Augustine Anthony

Thu Jul 12, 8:17 AM ET

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Grieving relatives and villagers buried a rebel Pakistani cleric on Thursday, but almost 70 followers killed with him when troops stormed an Islamabad mosque were interred without ceremony in unmarked graves.

The burials took place a day after commandos killed the last few gunmen hiding in the ruins of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, complex, which President Pervez Musharraf ordered attacked after a week-long siege in the heart of the capital.

Anger at the government's action ran deep in tribal parts of northwest Pakistan, although sentiment in most of the country sided with Musharraf's decision to send in the army.

Journalists were shown a blackened room in the mosque's religious school where an army spokesman said a suicide bomber died along with a half-dozen victims whose bodies were so badly burned it was impossible to tell their age or gender.

Cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed on Tuesday along with a handful of hardcore militants he had gathered around him in his drive to impose strict Islamic rule on the capital.

His elder brother Abdul Aziz, caught fleeing disguised as a woman in the early stages of the siege, led the prayers before Ghazi's body was buried at their ancestral village in the eastern province of Punjab.

Mourners smashed the coffin's glass lid and tore a white cloth from the corpse's face to see if it was really that of the 43-year-old cleric.

There were chants of "al Jihad, al Jihad" as prayers were read for Ghazi.

Musharraf was due to address the nation later on Thursday, amid widespread shock at the bloodbath.

Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri, in an Internet video, called for revenge, stoking fears of a violent backlash from militants exporting the Taliban's hardline version of Islam from the tribal badlands to Pakistani cities.

"If you do not retaliate ... Musharraf will not spare you," said Zawahri, believed to be hiding on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where U.S. intelligence officials warned lawmakers in Washington overnight that al Qaeda had regrouped.

DNA TAKEN

In contrast to the graveside scenes in Punjab, the burials of scores of Ghazi's supporters took place before daybreak at a cemetery in Islamabad.

No relatives were present.

A cleric read verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, although full funeral rites were not observed, according to a Reuters photographer present.

There were no names on the coffins, only number codes.

"All the victims have been fingerprinted and photographed and their DNA test has been taken to help parents and relatives identity them, then the bodies will be handed over," said Rana Akbar Hayat, a senior city administrator supervising the burials.

Meanwhile, parents and relatives frantically searched hospitals, hoping to find missing children.

"I have searched almost every hospital in the city," sobbed Noor Mohammad from Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, whose 13-year-old son Mirza Alam was in the mosque.

Anti-government feelings intensified in large swathes of northwest Pakistan, particularly in tribal regions such as Waziristan, in the wake of the storming of the Red Mosque.

At least 20 people were killed in bomb attacks targeting security forces in the past week, three Chinese were shot on Sunday, and protesters ransacked offices of Western aid agencies working in a mountain town.

On Thursday, some 12,000 tribesmen in the Bajaur region attended the funerals of three students said to have been killed during the siege of Lal Masjid.

The previous evening, six soldiers were wounded in a gunbattle in Bajaur.

"SUICIDE BOMBER"

The Red Mosque radicals had turned their compound into a virtual fortress during a series of confrontations with the authorities over the last six months.

After clashes between militant students and paramilitary troops turned deadly on July 3, Musharraf ordered troops to lay siege.

Commandos stormed the mosque-madrasa complex on Tuesday.

It took more than 24 hours to eliminate the final pocket of resistance, and it was not until Wednesday evening that the last survivor, a wounded militant, was found in a basement washroom.

Military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said they had found 75 bodies, but the search was continuing.

Asked if any women or children were among the dead, he said nine bodies had been burned beyond recognition, most of them killed by a suicide bomber, whose skull was blown off and found on the floor of a small room in the girls' religious school.

A municipal official said the bodies of two children aged about 12 were among 69 corpses buried on Thursday.

Nine members of the security forces were killed and 29 wounded in the assault.

Arshad said 87 people had come out after the assault began, including women, children and some militants.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Matiullah Jan)

"House panel rejects Bush privilege claim"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - House Democrats on Thursday took the first step toward holding former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress after she defied a subpoena — at President Bush's order — and skipped a hearing on the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Over the strenuous objections of Republicans, a subcommittee cleared the way for contempt proceedings by voting 7-5 to reject Bush's claim of executive privilege.

He says his top advisers, whether current or former, cannot be summoned by Congress.

"Those claims are not legally valid," Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said of Bush's declaration.

"Ms. Miers is required pursuant to the subpoena to be here now."

Republicans complained that Democrats were choosing showy, televised proceedings and the threat of court action to force the testimony rather than agree to Bush's offer for private, off-the-record interviews.

In the absence of an agreement with the administration, House leaders and committee members were likely to pursue contempt proceedings against Miers but were still talking about when, according to some Democratic officials.

"We would not be discharging our responsibility today if we were to simply drop this," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said during the hearing.

The White House showed no sign of giving in.

"If the House Judiciary Committee wants to avoid confrontation, it should withdraw its subpoenas," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

"The committee is rejecting accommodation because they prefer just the kind of political spectacle they're engaged in now."

Miers' testimony emerged as the battleground for a broader scuffle between the White House and Congress over the limits of executive privilege.

Presidents since the nation's founding have sought to protect from the prying eyes of Congress the advice given them by advisers, while Congress has argued that it is charged by the Constitution with conducting oversight of the executive branch.

Bush's invocation of executive privilege comes during the Democrats' probe of whether the firings were really an effort by the White House to fire and replace federal prosecutors in ways that might help Republican candidates.

Democrats say testimony by numerous aides that Bush was not involved in deciding whom to fire undercuts his privilege claim.

Administration officials acknowledge that the firings were botched in their execution, but they insist there was no improper motive for them.

They point out that U.S. attorneys are political appointees and that the president can fire them for almost any reason.

The probe has prompted calls by Democrats and a few Republicans for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

With Bush's support behind him, Gonzales shows no sign of stepping down.

The dispute extended to Congress' request for information on other matters, including the FBI's abuses of civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act and Bush's secretive wiretapping program.

But it is a pair of congressional subpoenas for two women who once were Bush's top aides that has moved the disagreement to the brink of legal sanctions and perhaps a court battle.

Former White House political director Sara Taylor appeared Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee and in a tentative performance sought to answer some lawmakers' questions and remain mum on others, citing Bush's claim of privilege.

Senators didn't seem eager to cite her with contempt, but Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he had not yet made that decision.

Miers, in contrast, chose to skip the House hearing Thursday, citing White House Counsel Fred Fielding's letter to her lawyer conveying Bush's order not to show up.

In letters sent the night before to Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Sanchez, Bush and Fielding cited several legal opinions that they said indicated that the president's immediate advisers had absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas.

Incensed, Democrats held the hearing anyway.

Addressing an empty chair at the witness table with a nameplate reading "Ms. Miers," Sanchez and Conyers left little doubt that contempt proceedings by the full Judiciary Committee — and later the full House — would be the next step unless Miers and the administration change their positions.

"If we do not enforce this subpoena, no one will ever have to come before the Judiciary Committee again," Conyers, D-Mich., said.

"What we've got here is an empty chair."

"I mean, that is as contemptuous as anybody can be of the government," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.

"I resent the fact that this lady is not here."

Republicans accused Democrats of proceeding in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing by Miers or any White House officials.

Rep. Chris Cannon of Utah, the ranking Republican on Sanchez' subcommittee on commercial and administrative law, warned Democrats that a contempt citation would fail evidentiary standards in court.

"You can't go to the courts essentially and say, 'We don't know what we don't know, therefore give us a subpoena so we can find out,'" Cannon said.

"There is no proof whatsoever that Harriet Miers likely holds some smoking gun with respect to the U.S. attorney situation," added Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.

The citation would first be debated and voted upon by the full Judiciary Committee.

If approved, it then would go to the full House where it would be debated and require a majority for approval.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would then refer the matter to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action," according to the law.

The man who holds that job is Jeff Taylor, a Bush appointee.

Legal scholars said the issue of Miers' immunity is far from clear-cut.

No president has gone as far as mounting a court fight to keep his aides from testifying on Capitol Hill.
___

Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

"Rates rise on 30-year mortgages"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:43 p.m., Thursday, July 12, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rates on 30-year mortgages rose this week to the second-highest level of the year as financial markets reacted to stronger economic news.

Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.73 percent this week.

That was up from 6.63 percent last week and was very close to the high point of the year, which was 6.74 percent set the week of June 14.

In the following three weeks, rates had edged down slightly.

The increase this week reflected a series of reports showing strong economic growth including a solid employment report in which the jobless rate held steady at 4.5 percent in June.

"A favorable employment report for June and robust consumer credit growth for May pushed long-term mortgage rates higher in the past week, nearly eliminating the declines made in rates over the previous three weeks," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac.

Nothaft predicted that 30-year mortgages are likely to stay near the current level for the rest of the year.

At their last meeting, June 27-28, Federal Reserve policymakers decided to hold a key interest rate unchanged while noting that some readings on core inflation had improved.

Many economists believe the Fed, which last changed rates a year ago, will keep that rate on hold for the rest of this year and into 2008.

According to the Freddie Mac survey, rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, a popular choice for refinancing, rose to 6.39 percent this week, up from 6.30 percent last week.

Rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 6.35 percent this week, up from 6.29 percent last week.

Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages remained at 5.71 percent this week, unchanged from last week.

The mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points.

Both 30-year and 15-year mortgages carried a nationwide average fee of 0.4 point while five-year ARMs and one-year ARMs both carried an average fee of 0.5 point.

A year ago, rates on 30-year mortgages stood at 6.74 percent, 15-year mortgages were at 6.37 percent, five-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 6.33 percent and one-year ARMs were at 5.75 percent.

------

On the Net:

Freddie Mac: http://www.freddiemac.com

"Stores post modest sales in June"

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:53 p.m., Thursday, July 12, 2007

NEW YORK -- Consumers were eager to buy iPhones and flat-screen TVs in June, but their reluctance to purchase clothing and other non-essentials has retailers worried about the success of the back-to-school shopping season.

As merchants reported their generally modest sales gains Thursday, it was clear that consumers' uneasiness about higher good and gas prices and the weakening housing market was forcing many of them to think twice before spending.

The disappointments included department stores like Macy's Inc. as well as apparel chains such as AnnTaylor Stores Corp.

Discounters fared well, particularly Wal-Mart Stores Inc., whose renewed emphasis on low prices helped drive sales gains above analysts' expectations.

Sales were not as weak as some analysts feared, but the fact that June was nonetheless sluggish did not augur well for back-to-school shopping that begins this month.

June, the second most important month of the year, is a time when retailers clear out summer goods to make room for fall merchandise.

Most obvious for most consumers is how much they're paying for gasoline -- prices at the pump that fell after peaking in late May are again rising, and the national average price for a gallon of unleaded regular is above $3.

And although teens were spending again in June after a slower spring, analyst said it is still too early to tell how the season will fare.

The improvement was reflected in reports from retailers including Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Despite the concerns about back-to-school, J.C. Penney Co. said it saw a good response to its early fall merchandise.

"The picture for the consumer hasn't changed much," said John Morris, managing director at Wachovia Securities.

"The consumer is facing a lot of headwinds."

Morris noted that the spending outlook is also becoming more uncertain because an increasing number of schools are starting classes later.

Teens usually wait to do the bulk of their shopping until after school starts because they want to see what their friends are wearing.

The International Council of Shopping Centers-UBS sales tally of 50 stores rose 2.4 percent in June, compared to a 3.0 percent gain in the year-ago period.

The tally is based on same-store sales, which reflect business at stores open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.

June's results extended the slowing trend retailers have experienced since February.

For some stores, June results were depressed in part by a shift in the calender that moved the Memorial Day weekend business into May.

But retailers of what are known as discretionary merchandise such as apparel and home goods are also coming under increasing pressure as consumers are forced to pay more for food and gas.

The still-weakening housing market is also making shoppers shy about spending.

Meanwhile, apparel merchants have problems of their own, including a continuing absence of must-have fashions and competition from the latest electronic gadgets.

Craig R. Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultancy in New Canaan, Conn., said hot gadgets like Apple Inc.'s iPhone are keeping sales of consumer electronics strong.

"The fashion must-haves of the world are not apparel, but the iPhones of the world," said Johnson.

"They are wearing technology as fashion."

The fact that the labor market is healthy is lending support to overall consumer spending levels.

The Labor Department said Thursday the number of laid-off workers filing unemployment claims dropped to 308,000 last week, the lowest level in almost two months and a decline of 12,000 from the previous week.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had a 2.4 percent gain in same-store sales, beating the 0.8 percent predicted by analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

The company said its aggressive price reduction strategy helped boost results, and it promised more aggressive price cuts for the back-to-school season.

"Consumers continue to be challenged financially, with more pressure on discretionary spending," said Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart Stores U.S. president and chief executive officer, in a statement.

"Gas prices have moved to be their chief concern in our latest survey and they appreciate the opportunity to save on everything."

The company said grocery sales continue to be stronger than general merchandise.

One exception was the entertainment category; flat-panel televisions, MP3 players and video game hardware enjoyed stronger gains compared to a year ago.

Still, Wal-Mart continues to struggle with weak sales in its home and apparel areas.

Target Corp. had a 3.3 percent gain in same-store sales, in line with forecasts.

TJX Cos. had a 5 percent increase, exceeding the 3.3 percent estimate.

The company raised its second-quarter profit guidance.

Macy's suffered a 2.7 percent drop in same-stores sales, worse than the 0.8 percent decline expected.

Macy's lowered its second-quarter guidance due to lower-than-expected sales.

J.C. Penney had a 1.5 percent decline in same-store sales in its department store business, less than the 3.6 percent analysts expected.

The retailer said sales picked up toward the end of the month, reflecting a strong initial response to its back-to-school merchandise.

AnnTaylor suffered an 8.4 percent drop in same-store sales, dragged down by its lower-priced Loft division.

Analysts expected a 4.7 percent decline.

Gap Inc. suffered a 5 percent drop in same-store sales, though the decline was not as deep as the 4.6 percent expected.

Among teen retailers, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. posted a 4.5 percent same-store sales increase, better than the 3.2 percent estimate.

Abercrombie & Fitch had a 2 percent gain in same-store sales; analysts had expected a 2.8 percent decline.

On Wednesday, American Eagle Outfitters Inc. reported a hefty 8 percent same-store sales gain, beating the 4.4 percent estimate.

"First planet with water is spotted outside Solar System"

Wed Jul 11, 1:58 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers on Wednesday announced they had spotted the first planet beyond the Solar System that has water, the precious ingredient for life.

The watery world, though, is far beyond the reach of our puny chemically-powered rockets -- and in any case is quite uninhabitable.

It is made of gas rather than rock and its atmosphere reaches temperatures hot enough to melt steel, which means the water exists only as superheated steam.

The find, named HD189733b, is about 15 percent bigger than our Jupiter and orbits a star in the constellation of Vulpecula the Fox, according to a paper released by Nature, the weekly British science journal.

It was spotted by a team led by Giovanna Tinetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) and University College London.

As HD 189733b swung in front of its star, it absorbed part of the spectrum of starlight in a telltale way that can only be explained by the presence of water in its atmosphere, the discoverers say.

Extrasolar worlds -- also called exoplanets -- were first spotted in 1995.

So far, 245 of them have been spotted, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia ( http://exoplanet.eu/ ), and the tally is growing at the rate of three or four a month.

Virtually all of the discoveries have been made indirectly, mainly by a "wobble" in light, seen from Earth, when the planet swings around its star.

The change in light is a fingerprint that can yield many clues about the planet's size, orbit and atmosphere.

But this is the first time that astronomers have been able to confirm that water is present.

"Although HD 189733b is far from being habitable and actually provides a rather hostile environment, our discovery shows that water might be more common out there than previously thought," said Tinetti.

"Our method can be used in the future to study more 'life-friendly' environments."

The planet's star, HD 189733, is similar in size to our Sun, but a bit cooler.

But the planet itself would be hell for humans.

Orbiting cheek by jowel to the star, at a distance that is 30 times closer than that between the Earth and the Sun, parts of the planet's atmosphere reach 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,600 degrees Fahrenheit).

This seething temperature is reached on the side of the planet that always faces the star.

By comparison, the other side of the planet is relatively balmy, with a low of 500 C (932 F).

Tinetti's team used NASA's Spitzer orbiting telescope, using its infrared sensors to pick out the tiny signature that occurs when water vapour absorbs light from a star.

The big prize is to spot a rocky planet that lies in the so-called Goldilocks Zone, where the temperature is not so hot that water evaporates, nor so cold that it is perpetually frozen, but "just right", enabling water to exist in liquid form.

"The 'Holy Grail' for today's planet-hunters is to find an Earth-like planet that also has water in its atmosphere," explained Tinetti.

"When it happens, the discovery will provide real evidence that planets outside our Solar System might harbour life."

"Finding the existence of water on an extra-solar gas giant is a vital milestone along that road of discovery."

"Iraq war report implies longer US surge"

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

1 hour, 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - While many in Congress are pushing President Bush to alter course in Iraq by September if not sooner, his new status report on the war strongly implies that the administration believes its military strategy will take many more months to meet its goals.

The report cited no specific timeframe, but its language suggests what some U.S. commanders have hinted at recently: The troop reinforcements that Bush ordered in January may need to remain until spring 2008.

That's a military calculation at odds with an emerging political consensus in Washington on bringing the troops home soon.

The disconnect between the military and political views on the best way forward is a symptom of four-plus years of setbacks in Iraq — not only missteps by the U.S. government but also by Iraqi political leaders, who have fallen far short of their stated aim of creating a government of national unity.

In the view of some members of Congress — and not just Democrats — the time has long passed for the Iraqis to show that they can parlay U.S.-led military efforts into progress on the political front.

"That government is simply not providing leadership worthy of the considerable sacrifice of our forces, and this has to change immediately," Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said after the White House delivered its war report to Congress on Thursday.

Warner was the author of legislation requiring the report.

Hours after the report's release, the House, on a 223-201 vote, approved a Democratic measure requiring U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by spring.

House Democrats pursued the vote despite a veto threat from Bush.

The president apparently has made the calculation that he can ward off political pressure to change course before the next required progress report, set for mid-September.

That's when Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, plans to lay out his assessment of whether the counterinsurgency strategy he launched in February is working and recommends to Bush whether to stick with it into the coming year.

By extending troop deployments in Iraq from 12 months to 15 months, the Army has made it possible for Bush to maintain the troop buildup until about April 2008.

But if he wanted to go beyond that it would require some even more painful moves by the Army, at the risk of reaching a breaking point.

Although the war is increasingly unpopular, Bush does have support in some prominent quarters for continuing his current military strategy, not only for the remainder of this year but into 2008.

John Keane, a retired four-star Army general, said this week that security progress, though slow, is gaining momentum.

"The thought of pulling out now or in a couple of months makes no sense militarily," Keane said.

Between now and September the battle for Baghdad will intensify, likely costing hundreds of American troops' lives, and the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be pressured to do more to weed out sectarian influences in the Iraqi security forces and to pass legislation designed to promote reconciliation.

The U.S. casualty rate has increased in recent months, and total U.S. deaths in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 now exceed 3,600.

Petraeus hopes that by September the U.S.-led counteroffensive will have reduced the level of violence enough to create an atmosphere in which political progress can be made, while Iraqi security forces move measurably closer to the point where they can sustain the security gains made by U.S. forces.

"We should expect, however, that AQI will attempt to increase its tempo of attacks as September approaches in an effort to influence U.S domestic opinion about sustained U.S. engagement in Iraq," Bush's report said.

AQI is an acronym for the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq that U.S. officials say has a small number of fighters but an outsized ability to accelerate sectarian violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

At a White House news conference, Bush pleaded for patience, saying that as difficult and painful as the war has become, the consequences of giving up and withdrawing the troops now would be even worse.

His report to Congress acknowledged shortcomings while asserting that the "overall trajectory" of the military and political effort in Iraq "has begun to stabilize, compared to the deteriorating trajectory" in 2006.

Sprinkled through the report are phrases that make clear the administration believes its military strategy is the right one, that it should be given more time and that positive results are at least months away.

Some examples:

• There are encouraging signs that should, "over time," point the way to lower U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

• Meaningful and lasting progress on national reconciliation may require a "sustained period" of reduced violence.

• Pushing "too fast" for reforms to allow former Sunni Baathists to participate more fully in the government could make it harder to achieve reconciliation.

Likewise, it said the time is not right to establish amnesty for those insurgents who fought against the government since 2003, although amnesty is a key goal.

At the moment, the report said, "a general amnesty program would be counterproductive" because no major armed group has said it is willing to renounce violence and join the government.

• The report listed eight "core objectives" that will be the main focus "over 2007 and into 2008."

These included defeating al-Qaida and its supporters and helping Iraqis regain control of Baghdad.
___

On the Net:

Iraq report: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...7/20070712.html

"Iraqi leaders insist progress being made"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

13 July 2007

BAGHDAD - Iraqi leaders insisted they were making military and political progress, defending their efforts after the Bush administration gave the Baghdad government a spotty report card on a series of benchmarks aimed at bringing stability to the war-torn nation.

War critics in the U.S. Congress have seized on the assessment as proof that President Bush's strategy in Iraq is failing, and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted Thursday to withdraw U.S. troops by spring 2008 despite a veto threat from Bush.

A top adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rankled at the assessment, saying Bush supporters and opponents in Washington "will both blame Iraqis" for the shortcomings.

Sami al-Askari said the government was serious in passing a series of political reforms aimed at bringing national unity and drawing greater Sunni Arab support for the political process.

"From now until the end of the year, draft laws related to national reconciliation will be finished," al-Askari told U.S.-funded Alhurra television late Thursday.

But the reforms have been held up for months by political wrangling between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of al-Maliki's coalition.

Sunnis and Kurds have deep differences over a draft law to equitably share control of the oil industry and its profits — one of the centerpiece reforms — and no compromise is in sight.

The even tougher benchmark of amending the constitution — which many Sunni Arabs see as the most important of the reforms — remains on the back burner, relegated to a parliament committee.

Sunnis want to water down the constitution's provisions on federalism, but Kurds and Shiites want only limited changes.

At the same time, al-Maliki's administration has been severely weakened by a Sunni Arab boycott of his Cabinet and parliament over separate political disputes.

Talks to overcome the walkout — and negotiations over forming a new, more streamlined Cabinet — have so far brought no results.

President Jalal Talabani said there were "positive developments on the political level," particularly in the effort to reshape the Cabinet to establish "a front of moderate forces committed to the political process and democracy in Iraq."

He also said the military offensives being waged by U.S. troops in and around Baghdad were making progress.

"A successful campaign is on to eliminate terrorists and so far large areas of Diyala and Anbar have been cleared," Talabani said Thursday evening, referring to provinces north and west of the capital.

The U.S. offensives have brought a relative easing in attacks in the capital in recent weeks — though it remains far from calm, with occasional car bombs and police still reporting 20 to 30 bodies a day found dumped in the city, apparent victims of sectarian slayings.

On Friday, a volley of at least four mortars were fired from the city's dangerous southern districts at the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district where al-Maliki's offices and the U.S. Embassy are located.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

U.S. troops on Thursday battled with Shiite militants in an eastern neighborhood of the city after capturing two extremists in a raid before dawn.

The U.S. military said Friday that nine insurgents and two civilians — two Iraqi employees of the London-based Reuters news agency — were killed in the fighting.

Iraqi police and hospital officials put the toll at 19, including at least one woman and two children.

The U.S. military on Friday said the fighting in the Amin district took place when troops on the initial raid came under attack from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, prompting the American forces to return fire and call in aviation reinforcement.

Thirteen insurgents were detained, it said.

During the fighting, a U.S. helicopter struck targets on the ground as gunmen exchanged mortar and small arms fire with the Americans, said an Iraqi police official who was at the scene.

Explosions hit several residential buildings, said the official, though he could not say which side caused the blasts.

AP Television News footage showed buildings riddled with holes from heavy machine gun and rocket fire, and a minibus with its front seat blasted away.

Officials from the three hospitals where the victims were taken put the toll at 19 dead and 20 wounded.

The hospital and police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to reporters.

The discrepancy with the American count could not be immediately explained.

The military expressed regrets for the two civilians it said died.

"There is no question that Coalition Forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a military spokesman.

Angry residents — many of them Shiites who fled to Baghdad from Baqouba, where U.S. troops are waging an offensive against insurgents — blamed the Americans for the destruction.

"We are refugees, we were displaced from our homes by militant attacks," said one woman, who like others had come to the neighborhood from Baqouba.

"And now we have to deal with attacks from Americans."

"They hit the building and destroyed it completely."

"My mother is dead, my sister is dead."

"I don't know where my father is," said the woman, who refused to identify herself, speaking in front of a residential building where the ground floor of shops was gutted.

U.S. strikes in Shiite districts are highly sensitive for al-Maliki, whose bedrock support is from the majority Shiite community.

Shiites have complained of casualties in U.S. hunting for militants — often Shiite — firing mortars at the Green Zone.

The U.S. military says it tries to avoid civilian casualties but that militants hide in populated areas, and al-Maliki has also accused insurgents of using civilians as shields.

"U.S. forces kill 6 Iraqi police"

Associated Press

Last updated: 7:02 a.m., Friday, July 13, 2007

BAGHDAD -- U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid to capture an Iraqi police lieutenant accused of leading a cell of Shiite militiamen, the military said.

Seven gunmen also died in the fight.

The U.S. troops captured the lieutenant in a pre-dawn raid in Baghdad, but the soldiers came under "heavy and accurate fire" from a nearby Iraqi police checkpoint, as well as intense firing from rooftops and a church, the military said in a statement.

During the battle, U.S. warplanes struck in front of the police position, without hitting it directly, "to prevent further escalation" of the battle, it said.

There were no casualties among the U.S. troops, but seven gunmen and six of the policemen firing on the Americans were killed, the statement said.

The captured lieutenant was a "high-ranking" leader of a cell suspected of helping coordinate Iranian support for Shiite extremists in Iraq as well as carrying out roadside bombings and mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, the military said.

The lieutenant is believed to be linked to the Quds Force, a branch of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, it said.

Iraqi police officials had no immediate comment on the clash.

The U.S. military accuses the Quds Force of organizing Shiite militants into so-called "special groups" and arming them with weapons and explosives -- including a particularly deadly form of roadside bombs called explosively formed penetrators.

Tehran denies the claims.

The Iraqi police are believed to be widely infiltrated by Shiite militiamen blamed for sectarian killings, creating a deep mistrust of the force among the Sunni Arab minority.

Purging the force of a militia presence is one of the political benchmarks sought by Washington, though the Bush administration said in its assessment released Thursday that progress on purging the security forces is "unsatisfactory."

IRAQINAM is Viet Nam all over again, but worse ....

This commander-in-chief is a complete doofus ....

And there is where the difference lies between the two conflicts ....

And so ...

"New GOP bill challenges Bush Iraq policy"

By ANNE FLAHERTY and PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writers

13 July 2007

WASHINGTON - Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush by mid-October to come up with a plan to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops.

"Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq's factions, the optimal outcome in Iraq of a unified, pluralist, democratic government that is able to police itself, protect its borders, and achieve economic development is not likely to be achieved in the near future," the Warner-Lugar proposal said.

Bush has asked Congress to hold off on demanding a change in the course of the war until September, when the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, delivers a fresh assessment of its progress.

Warner, R-Va., and Lugar, R-Ind., are well regarded within Congress on defense issues.

Warner was the longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee before stepping down last year, while Lugar is the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The Warner-Lugar proposal states that "American military and diplomatic strategy in Iraq must adjust to the reality that sectarian factionalism is not likely to abate anytime soon and probably cannot be controlled from the top."

Accordingly, Warner and Lugar say Bush must draft a plan for U.S. troops that would keep them from "policing the civil strife or sectarian violence in Iraq" and focus them instead on protecting Iraq's borders, targeting terrorists and defending U.S. assets.

At the Pentagon, meanwhile, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the number of battle-ready Iraqi battalions able to fight on their own has dropped to a half-dozen from 10 in recent months despite heightened American training efforts.

Without providing numbers, the White House had acknowledged in its report to Congress Thursday that not enough progress was being made in training Iraqi security forces — an issue that determines to a large extent when the United States may be able to reduce its forces there.

Pace, however, also said the readiness of the Iraqi fighting units was not an issue to be "overly concerned" about because the problem is partly attributable to the fact that the Iraq units are out operating in the field.

Appearing at a news conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Pace said that "as units operate in the field, they have casualties, they consume vehicles and equipment."

The Warner-Lugar proposal is the first major legislative challenge to Bush's Iraq policy endorsed by the two senators — and lent a more bipartisan imprint to congressional dissatisfaction with the war now in its fifth year.

Earlier this year, both Lugar and Warner expressed grave doubts about Bush's decision to send 30,000 extra troops to Iraq.

But both have been reluctant to back binding legislation that would force the president's hand.

The legislation the pair is working on would direct Bush to present the new strategy to Congress by Oct. 16 and begin implementing it by Dec. 31.

The proposal also would seek to make Bush renew the authorization for war that Congress gave him in 2002.

Many members contend that authorization — which led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 — was limited to approval of deposing dictator Saddam Hussein and searching for weapons of mass destruction.

In still another development, Bush's top spokesman publicly expressed concern Friday about the pace at which the Iraqi parliament is finishing work on legislation aimed at bringing about changes considered indispensable to its transition from the Saddam era.

"My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds," press secretary Tony Snow said.

The fast-moving developments capped another stressful week for Bush and administration figures who have been resisting attempts by majority Democrats in Congress to force a U.S. troop withdrawal.

The administration sent to the Hill an interim progress report Thursday which said that only about half of some 18 congressionally-mandated benchmarks for improvements in the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have been accomplished.

Earlier Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice exhorted congressional critics to give the administration and the fledgling government until September to "make a coherent judgment of where we are."

On the morning after the House voted 223-201 for a Democratic proposal to force a U.S. troop withdrawal by next spring, she acknowledged that al-Maliki's government hasn't achieved "as much progress as we would like."

"But we shouldn't just dismiss as inconsequential the progress that they have made."

And Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, a top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in a separate news conference via video linkup from Iraq that "there will be consequences" if U.S. troops withdraw too soon.

Mixon spoke of a troop drawdown that would be smaller and slower than Democrats envision.

"It needs to be well thought out," he said of any plans to drawn down forces.

"It cannot be a strategy that is based on 'Well, we need to leave.'"

"That's not a strategy, that's a withdrawal."

Congressional Democrats, who have said the war was draining U.S. assets from the fight against al-Qaida, moved earlier Friday to highlight what they see as a major failure in Bush's war on terror: the inability to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.

The Senate voted 87-1 in favor of doubling the reward to $50 million for information leading to his capture.

The bill also would require regular classified reports from the administration explaining what steps it's taking to find bin Laden.

end quotes

Asking George W. Bush for a rational, coherent strategy for dealing with the situation in IRAQINAM is like asking a donkey to solve a major problem in quantum dynamics or astrophysics ....

And so ...

"Al-Qaida ops show leadership in control"

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

13 July 2007

When Islamic radicals killed 52 people in London two years ago, it took nearly a month for Osama bin Laden's top deputy to blame Britain itself for the carnage.

But this week, when the No. 2 man in al-Qaida decided to weigh in on Pakistan's bloody crackdown on a radical mosque, he was able to get his violent message onto hard-line Islamic Web sites in a matter of days.

Analysts and intelligence experts say the speed and frequency with which Ayman al-Zawahri has been issuing statements recently does not reflect the actions of a man cowering in a remote cave, cut off from the outside world and unable to direct terror operations.

If anything, the video and audio tapes offer chilling evidence that al-Qaida's leaders are in greater command than previously feared.

"The notion of them hiding in a deep, dark primitive cave isolated from electricity and all communication with the outside is strongly misguided," said Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors terrorism messages.

"The speed which they have demonstrated (getting messages out) shows that they are far from cut off."

Venzke said the surge in al-Qaida propaganda messages began in 2006, and the terror network has doubled the pace this year.

The group's media wing, al-Sahab, released 58 audio and video messages last year; this year's tally is already 62.

U.S. counterterrorism analysts said this week that al-Qaida has restored its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

And while the intelligence does not point to a specific threat, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said this week that he has a "gut feeling" the United States faces a heightened risk of attack this summer.

Al-Zawahri is certainly acting like a man with renewed confidence.

Since January, he has issued at least 10 audio and video tapes on a host of developments, from America's security crackdown in Iraq, to Britain's decision to grant a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, to the Palestinian group Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Two of the messages came just this week.

The videos are getting more and more sophisticated, and include news footage taken from Arab and Western broadcasters.

At times al-Zawahri analyzes what the news commentators are saying, meaning he has seen the broadcasts.

In several cases, the turnaround time for al-Zawahri's messages has been breathtakingly swift.

It took only 11 days for the Egyptian surgeon-turned-terrorist to issue an audio taped homage to a slain Taliban commander in May, and the same amount of time for him to congratulate Hamas on its power grab in the Gaza Strip the next month.

Congressional Democrats in the United States passed a bill tying funding for the war in Iraq to a timetable for withdrawal of American troops, and al-Zawahri responded in a mocking videotape just nine days later.

The May 5 video did not mention that President Bush vetoed the bill, leading to speculation it was recorded between the bill's passage on April 26 passage and the May 1 veto.

Al-Zawahri's reaction to the siege of the Red Mosque in Pakistan was even more remarkable.

The July 11 audio message, released with a video showing a still image of the al-Qaida leader, came out eight days after the siege began in Islamabad.

In the tape, al-Zawahri refers to the standoff as a "dirty, despicable crime," making it likely he made the recording several days into the siege, which culminated in a deadly army assault the day before the al-Qaida leader's statement appeared.

The absence of bin Laden from recent al-Qaida messages may be a reflection of a long-held belief that the two men are no longer in hiding together, according to a senior Pakistani intelligence agent.

Bin Laden was last heard from in a July 1, 2006 audio tape in which he voiced support for the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and warned nations not to send troops to fight a hard-line Islamic regime that had seized power in Somalia.

"There is no indication that they (bin Laden and al-Zawahri) are together, and it is understandable because they must be hiding in separate places for strategic reasons," the agent said.

Rohan Gunaratna, an analyst who heads the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said bin Laden's silence is an indication that al-Zawahri has supplanted him as al-Qaida's supreme commander.

"Ayman al-Zawahri has emerged as the leader of the global jihad movement."

"He's not only speaking on behalf of al-Qaida, but as the leader of the al-Qaida organization and its associated homegrown groups," he said.

That assessment was disputed by Venzke, who said it is impossible to draw any conclusions from bin Laden's silence.

He noted the terror chief has remained off the airwaves before, only to return with a flurry of statements.

The Pakistani intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his work, said he was not surprised by al-Zawahri's swift statement about the army raid on the Red Mosque, saying it was a clear indication al-Zawahri or people close to him have access to the Internet and sophisticated communications equipment.

That theory was bolstered by a comment from al-Zawahri, who claimed in a Tuesday audio message to have read an article on the Internet by a slain Hamas leader.

Ahmed Rashid, the author of several books on Islamic extremism in South and Central Asia, said it is a mistake to think of al-Qaida leaders holed up in the mountains.

"They have studio facilities, they have access to all sorts of communications and news and all the rest of it, so they are not hiding out in some cave," he said.

"They are very well settled somewhere."

Still, Rashid said the men are likely to be hiding on the remote Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, rather than in a city like Karachi where they and their men would have difficulty staying out of sight.

Several top al-Qaida operatives have been nabbed in Pakistani cities in recent years, most notably Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

While the border is barren and lawless, some of the mud-brick compounds of wealthy tribal elders have the latest in modern amenities and technology.

Pakistani forces hold little sway in the region, making the area an ideal refuge.

Regardless of where al-Zawahri and bin Laden are holed up, Venzke said the volume of video and audio messages belies the notion — perpetuated by the Bush administration — that al-Qaida's leaders are so busy trying not to get caught that their ability to direct operatives has been substantially degraded.

"The operational risks of releasing a video from a covert point to a public point are much greater than communicating from one covert point to another covert point," said Venzke.

"If they have the ability to publicly release videos, then they certainly have retained the ability to communicate with their cells and affiliates around the world."
___

Associated Press writer Paul Haven has been covering terrorism for the AP since 2001 and is now based in Madrid, Spain. AP writers Munir Ahmed and Stephen Graham in Islamabad and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

"US eyes Iraqi parliamentary schedule"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

13 July 2007

WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday appeared resigned to the fact that the Iraqi parliament is going to take August off, even though it has just eight weeks to show progress on military, political and economic benchmarks prescribed by the United States.

"My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

"You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August," he said, sympathetically.

Snow was reminded that U.S. troops will be continuing to fight throughout August in the heat.

"You know, that's a good point," Snow said.

"And it's 130 degrees for the Iraqi military."

The White House and other top officials previously had worked to persuade the parliament to remain at work, saying it would send a bad signal if the Iraqi lawmakers went on vacation while U.S. troops were fighting and dying.

Snow said that a scheduled Sept. 15 progress report on by Gen. David Petraeus was important, yet said he also said that was not a deadline.

He said progress can be made even if the parliament is not in session.

"You're assuming that nothing is going on," Snow said.

"Let's also see what happens because quite often when parliaments do not meet, they are also continuing meetings on the side."

"And there will be progress, I'm sure on a number of fronts," the spokesman said.

The Iraqi parliament's vacation plans have been repeatedly criticized by U.S. lawmakers.

But the U.S. Congress will be on vacation from Aug. 3 to Sept. 4, if it sticks to current plans.

The Congress itself has been criticized for how little it works.

On Thursday, the White House gave Congress a progress report that showed the Iraqi government was making unsatisfactory progress on many political and military milestones.

At a news conference, President Bush defended the buildup of U.S. troops as well as his decisions on troop numbers earlier in the conflict.

Bush said that when he asked Gen. Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief during the initial invasion in March 2003, whether he had enough troops, he told him he did.

Bush said he recalled sitting in a meeting downstairs at the White House asking each commander responsible for different aspects of the operations that led to toppling Saddam Hussein.

"I said to each one of them `Do you have what it takes?'"

"' Are you satisfied with the strategy?'"

"And the answer was `Yes,' " Bush said.

Asked whether Bush was trying to blame Franks for the bad course of the war, Snow rose to defend Franks and said historians would have to judge the correctness of U.S. strategic military decisions.

"I think Gen. Franks did a superb job," Snow said.

end quotes

This BUSHCO MOUTHRUNNER Anthony "TONY" Snow sounds like one of the biggest jerks on the face of the planet in all of its long history ....

Which is likely why they have him as SPOKESBOY and CHIEF PROPAGANDIST for the doofus Texas peckerwood, George W. Bush, who has to be one of the absolute worst commanders-in-chief on the face of the earth in its long history ....

And so ...

OUR America is ruled by a donkey with a jackass as his chief spokesperson ....

And so ...

Iraq PM confident in forces without U.S."

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer

14 July 2007

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.

The embattled prime minister sought to show confidence at a time when pressure in the U.S. Congress is growing for a withdrawal and the Bush administration reported little progress had been made on the most vital of a series of political reforms it wants al-Maliki to carry out.

Moreover, the Pentagon on Friday conceded that the Iraqi army has become more reliant on the U.S. military.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said the number of Iraqi battalions able to operate on their own without U.S. support has dropped in recent months from 10 to six, though he said the fall was in part due to attrition from stepped-up offensives.

In new violence in Baghdad on Saturday, a car bomb leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station in new attacks in Baghdad that killed at least eight people.

Al-Maliki made his first public comments on Thursday's White House report on the reforms, saying his government needed time to enact the political
benchmarks that Washington seeks.

He insisted it was "fairly natural" that progress would be difficult considering the violence in Iraq and the deep divisions among its leaders.

"We need time and effort, particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference," he told reporters at a Baghdad news conference, without giving a timeframe.

"These difficulties can be read as a big success, not negative points, when they are viewed under the shadow of the big challenges."

"That is what should be understood in the White House report," al-Maliki said.

The report fueled calls among congressional critics of the Iraqi policy for a change in strategy, including a withdrawal of American forces.

The White House insists it is too early to call its strategy a failure.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned earlier this week of the collapse of the government if the Americans leave.

But al-Maliki told reporters Saturday, "We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want."

But he added that Iraqi forces are "still in need of more weapons and rehabilitation" to be ready in the case of a withdrawal.

In the White House strategy, beefed-up American forces have been waging intensified security crackdowns in Baghdad and areas to the north and south for nearly a month.

The goal is to bring quiet to the capital while al-Maliki enacts the political reforms, intended to give Sunni Arabs a greater role in the government and political process, lessening support for the insurgency.

But the benchmarks have been blocked by divisions among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds within al-Maliki's Cabinet.

In August, the parliament is taking a one month vacation — a shorter break than the usual two months, but still enough to anger some in Congress who say lawmakers should push through reforms.

The divisions within al-Maliki's coalition are not only over the substance of the reforms, but also over separate disputes that have stalled even debate over such legislation as a draft bill to fairly distribute control over and profits from the vital oil sector.

Al-Maliki said some members of his coalition have not formed a "positive partnership" with the others.

Al-Maliki has been talking for months of a Cabinet reshuffle that would shed Sunni and Shiite parties seen as obstructionist to form a "coalition of moderates" — though there's been no sign a change was imminent.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military said it captured an alleged high-level al-Qaida in Iraq cell leader at Baghdad's international airport.

The suspect, believed to have organized mortar and roadside bomb attacks in the capital and nearby area, surrendered "without a struggle," the military said in a statement.

It did not give details on the suspect or say whether he was traveling in or out of the country when seized.

In the latest violence, a suicide bomber hit cars lined up at a gas station in the southeastern district of Rashin Camp around 11:30 a.m., setting seven vehicles on fire and damaging nearby shops, a police official said.

The blast killed seven civilians and wounded 15 others, the official said.

Shortages force Iraqis to stay in line for hours to fill their vehicles or buy fuel for generators they rely on for power amid the capital's frequent electricity outages.

Hours earlier, a parked car bomb detonated in the western neighborhood of Amil, reducing one apartment building to rubble and heavily damaging a second, another police official said.

The 7:30 a.m. blast killed at least one person and wounded five others, and authorities were searching the wreckage for more victims, the official said.

After the blast, several nearby cars were left damaged, and a metal crutch lay in the street next to a pool of blood, according to AP Television news footage of the scene.

Both police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorize to release details of the attacks.

An adviser to al-Maliki said a fierce gunbattle on Friday between U.S. troops and Iraqi police that killed six policemen was the result of a misunderstanding.

U.S. troops had seized a police lieutenant accused of links to Iranian-backed Shiite militants when it came under fire.

Hassan al-Suneid, a legislator close to the prime minister, said American troops did not know a police checkpoint was nearby and "thought they were terrorists."

He said Iraqi soldiers with the Americans also fired on the police.

The U.S. military said Friday that it was the police at the checkpoint who opened fire on the Americans first, along with gunmen on nearby rooftops and at a church.

U.S. troops called in warplanes for ground strikes, and six policemen and seven gunmen were killed.

The raid captured the lieutenant, who the military said was helping Iran organize Shiite militants and led a cell involved in bomb and mortar attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The military did not specify that the police who fired on the Americans were linked to militias as well but said the police maintained "heavy and accurate fire" on the U.S. troops.

The battle underscored the deep infiltration of Shiite militiamen in the police force.

Purging the force is one of the benchmarks, and Thursday's report acknowledged progress in it has been "unsatisfactory."

"Pakistani troops sent to dissuade jihad"

14 July 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Thousands of troops were deployed to Pakistan's northwestern frontier to try to dissuade outlawed Islamic militants from launching a holy war against the government for its bloody attack on a radical mosque, military officials said Saturday.

As the troop movements proceeded in at least five areas of the North West Frontier Province, a suicide bomber struck in another region of the border, his explosives-laden vehicle killing at least eight soldiers in a military convoy, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arhad said.

Local security officials said as many as 12 soldiers died and another 20 were wounded in the attack, while nearby two rockets believed to have been fired by militants landed near a military check point.

Elsewhere in the northwest, suspected militants detonated a bomb that struck a vehicle carrying soldiers in the town of Bannu, injuring two of them, said Mohammed Khan, an area police official.

The region along the Afghanistan border has seen increased activity by both local militants, the Taliban and, according to a recent U.S. assessment, the al-Qaida terror network.

"With help from local tribal elders, we are trying to ensure that militants lay down their arms, and stop issuing calls for jihad against the government," said a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said there were no immediate plans for combat operations against Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has pressed for the imposition of Taliban-style rule in Pakistan, much like the leaders of the Red Mosque.

Pakistan troops overran the Islamabad mosque Wednesday following an eight-day siege with a hard-line cleric and his militant supporters that left more than 100 dead.

Fazlullah, who has close links to the outlawed Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, told supporters to prepare for jihad, or holy war, against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for the assault, the official said.

The local Dawn newspaper quoted Interior Ministry secretary Syed Kamal Shah as saying Friday some women and children may have been among the 75 killed in the raid.

Earlier the government said the only casualties were among the defending militants and attacking troops.

After nearly two weeks of tension and violence, life was returning to normal in Islamabad with authorities lifting a curfew imposed on areas near the Red Mosque.

Anti-Musharraf protests had erupted across Pakistan on Friday.

One of the largest was in the eastern city of Lahore, where some 10,000 offered prayers for Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a radical cleric killed at the mosque.

But the rallies were smaller than expected, and there was no violent backlash from militant groups.

In the northwest, an army brigade was heading up the Swat Valley, 75 miles northeast of Peshawar, where a suicide car bomber killed three policeman at a checkpoint Thursday, said Mohammed Javed, the valley's top administrator.

Television footage showed army trucks, some pulling heavy artillery, lined up on a road in the area.

Asif Iqbal Daudzai, spokesman for the provincial government, said Fazlullah had broken an agreement to stop using FM radio broadcasts for anti-government agitation.

If he does so again, security forces "will react," Daudzai told Dawn News television.

Troops also were sent to Dera Ismail Khan, a town near the tribally governed Waziristan border region, a Taliban stronghold where Washington says al-Qaida is regrouping.

Police said they raided a house in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday, arresting three suspected suicide bombers and seizing five explosives vests.

The military said it also deployed soldiers near Battagram, a northern town badly affected by a 2005 earthquake.

According to aid workers and media reports, mobs broke off from a Thursday protest against the Red Mosque raid to loot and set fire to the offices of several international aid groups.

No fresh troops have been sent to North Waziristan, but a spokesman for militants demanded the existing military remove all checkpoints from the region by Sunday.

Abdullah Farhad, who claims to speak for pro-Taliban militants, told The Associated Press the checkpoints violated a 2005 peace accord between the government and tribal elders.

Although the peace deal is still in effect, militants have again started attacking government forces in the region, while the government has targeted some militant hideouts.

The Saturday suicide attack occurred along a road near Daznaray, a village about 30 miles north of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad.

Two local security officials said the attack had killed 12 soldiers, with another 20 troops wounded.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of their jobs, did not provide further details, saying authorities were investigating the incident.
___

Associated Press Writer Bashirullah Khan in Miran Shah contributed to this report.

"White House spurns Republican Iraq proposal"

By Randall Mikkelsen

Sun Jul 15, 12:35 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House rejected on Sunday a proposal by two influential Republican senators that would require President George W. Bush to plan for a possible troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said it was too early to change Iraq strategy.

Any consideration must await a progress report due in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Hadley also played down comments by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that Iraq would be ready to take over security from U.S. forces "any time" they withdrew.

Hadley said that is a shared goal but more equipment and training are needed.

Under the proposal this week by Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Richard Lugar of Indiana, Bush would have to plan for a troop drawdown or redeployment that could begin after December 31.

It does not mandate deadlines for action but says the plan should be ready by October 16.

Hadley was asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether the administration could live with the plan.

"No," he said.

"Hearing from our commanders on the ground in September is the first step."

An interim report last week said Iraq had made only limited progress in meeting goals for political reconciliation and security.

Lugar said on ABC's "This Week" that Bush could already begin work on a post-September strategy shift by planning with Petraeus and laying the diplomatic groundwork.

"We don't have to wait until the 15th of September and Gen. Petraeus' report," he said.

Warner and Lugar are two of the leading Senate voices in Bush's Republican Party on military and foreign-policy issues, and their proposal comes as a growing number of Republicans are joining Democrats in challenging the president's war policy.

Hadley noted that Warner and Lugar did not call for a withdrawal deadline or schedule -- unlike some Democratic plans -- and they envisioned a U.S. involvement in Iraq for a "considerable period of time."

"All they're simply saying is we need to think about now how we can transition to a new phase in Iraq when U.S. forces may have a different role," he said.

Maliki said on Saturday that Iraqi forces were ready to take over security from the U.S. international force.

U.S. commanders have warned it could take months before Iraqi security forces could take over in violent parts of the country and that the Iraqi army had been diminished by war fatigue.

Hadley said "we all share the objective" of handing over security responsibility to Iraqis.

But Maliki "also said yesterday they need additional equipment and they need additional training."

"Truce over, Pakistan militants kill 70"

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer

15 July 2007

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Militants in northwest Pakistan disavowed a peace pact with the government and launched two days of suicide attacks and bombings that killed at least 70 people, dramatically escalating the violence in the al-Qaida infiltrated region.

The attacks Sunday and Saturday followed strident calls by extremists to avenge the government's bloody storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque and a declaration of jihad, or holy war, by at least one pro-Taliban cleric.

Termination of the peace treaty, the hopeful handiwork of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, puts even greater pressure on the military leader as he struggles with both Islamic extremists and a gathering pro-democracy movement.

There is concern in Pakistan that the gathering sense of crisis could prompt Musharraf to cancel elections later this year and declare a state of emergency — despite his repeated denials.

However, Musharraf can also use the turbulence to convince Washington, his key backer, that he remains a vital bulwark against extremists in the Islamic world's only declared nuclear state.

The U.S. national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, expressed concern Sunday about the threat from militants in Pakistan, but supported Musharraf's recent responses.

"He has a safe haven problem in an area of his country where Pakistan's central government has really not been present for decades or even generations."

"It is a problem for him," Hadley told CNN's "Late Edition."

But in a separate interview on Fox News Sunday, Hadley acknowledged that the United States was dissatisfied with Musharraf's policies.

"The action has at this point not been adequate, not effective," Hadley said.

"He's doing more."

"We are urging him to do more, and we're providing our full support to what he's contemplating."

Abdullah Farhad, a militant spokesman, said the 10-month-old cease-fire was being terminated in North Waziristan, a remote area on the Afghan border where the U.S. worries that al-Qaida has regrouped.

He said Taliban leaders made the decision after the government failed to abide by their demand to withdraw troops from checkpoints by Sunday afternoon.

He also accused authorities of launching attacks and failing to compensate those harmed.

"The peace agreement has ended," Farhad told reporters in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

The government deployed thousands of troops to restive areas of the province in recent days in hopes of stemming a backlash to the storming of the radical Red Mosque.

But they failed to protect themselves Sunday against suicide attacks and a roadside bomb which together killed 44 people and wounded more than 100.

Two suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck a military convoy in Swat, a mountainous area northeast of Peshawar, killing 18 people and wounding 47, a government official said, citing an official report being sent to Islamabad.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said two explosive-laden vans driven rammed the convoy near the town of Matta.

He said seven civilians also died.

Bodies and the wounded were pulled from the shattered military vehicles.

Helmets, an engine, and pieces of twisted metal were strewn over a wide area, some of it stained with blood.

Television footage showed about half a dozen roadside houses also destroyed by the blasts.

People dug four corpses out of the rubble, among them a young girl.

In the day's second attack, a suicide bomber targeted scores of people taking medical and written exams for recruitment to the police force in the city of Dera Ismail Khan.

The blast killed 26 people and wounded 35, said police officer Habibur Rahman.

More than 150 people were on the grounds of the police headquarters when the bomber struck.

Police said the bomber's head and suicide vest were found.

On Saturday, at least 26 soldiers were killed and 54 wounded in a suicide car bombing north of Miran Shah, North Waziristan's main town, the army said.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the government was investigating whether the attacks were related to the Red Mosque operation.

Speaking on Pakistan's Geo television, he said militants had violated the Waziristan deal by attacking government targets.

Authorities would hold tribal leaders responsible, he said.

Tensions are high in Pakistan after the mosque raid, which ended an eight-day siege with a hard-line cleric and his militant supporters.

More than 100 died during the standoff.

The region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has seen increased activity by local militants, the Taliban, and — according to a recent U.S. assessment — al-Qaida.

One of the army's apparent targets is Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has pressed for Taliban-style rule in Pakistan — much like the leaders of the Red Mosque.

Fazlullah was accused of telling supporters to prepare for jihad, or holy war, to avenge the mosque assault.

Intelligence officials in Swat say Fazlullah announced on an FM radio station Saturday night that he was fleeing to avoid arrest.

A document announcing the end of the peace pact in North Waziristan was passed around in the bazaar in Miran Shah.

The signatories referred to themselves as the Taliban, a term commonly used by militants in northwest Pakistan, though their links with the Taliban fighting in neighboring Afghanistan are murky.

Under the Sept. 5, 2006, truce, the Pakistan army pulled back to barracks tens of thousands of troops that had been involved in bloody operations against suspected Taliban and al-Qaida hideouts, and militants agreed to halt attacks in Pakistan and over the border against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Tribal elders were supposed to police the deal.

Musharraf had clung to the agreement and similar pacts in neighboring areas, arguing that, by empowering tribal leaders to police their own fiefdoms in return for development aid, they offered the only chance of bringing long-term stability.

However, critics have argued that Musharraf's decision to cut a deal effectively handed the Taliban and al-Qaida a safe haven from which to plot attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in the West.
____

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Bashirullah Khan in Miran Shah and Ishtiaq Mahsun in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.

"Bernanke to stress price worries before Congress"

By Mark Felsenthal

Sun Jul 15, 11:53 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to tell Congress this week the central bank is more worried U.S. inflation will flare than it is that housing market turbulence will seriously damage the economy.

Bernanke looks set to emphasize that the Fed's main concern remains the risk that inflation fails to moderate as it expects when he appears before the House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT. (1400 GMT).

He will deliver similar testimony the next day before the Senate Banking Committee.

The two days of testimony are part of a twice-yearly ritual in which the Fed chairman presents the central bank's monetary policy report.

The report will contain updated forecasts for growth, inflation and unemployment.

While price rises have moderated when volatile food and energy costs are stripped out, Bernanke is expected to stress that core inflation -- which dipped for the third straight month in May to 1.9 percent -- needs to drift a bit lower and stay there for a while before the Fed is satisfied.

"Fed officials believe that holding down inflation is the principal challenge over the next several years, and they are not inclined to tolerate much backsliding after the hard-won improvement in core inflation over the past 12 months," said Roger Kubarych, an economist for UniCredit/Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank in New York.

INFLATION-WARINESS

Bernanke's testimony will be the first time he has expanded on the terse assessment the Fed offered after its last meeting in June.

In a brief statement, it noted improved readings on core inflation, but said sustained moderation in price pressures had yet to be convincingly demonstrated.

Since then, comments from other Fed officials have underscored the central bank's continued inflation-wariness.

San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen said on Thursday that recent core inflation readings, while "heartening," could bounce higher.

The Fed's tilt toward guarding against inflation rather than bracing for economic weakness is the appropriate policy stance for now, she said.

Fed officials have said that with the unemployment rate hovering around an historically low 4.5 percent, a tight labor market contributes to risks inflation may rekindle.

They have held overnight interest rates at 5.25 percent for more than a year in the hope price pressures would fade amid somewhat sluggish growth, but financial markets see some chance they could lower borrowing costs by year end.

In spite of the Fed's emphasis on core price measures in its policy pronouncements, Bernanke is likely to acknowledge that the economic stress lofty gasoline and food prices have put on Americans is a concern for the Fed.

"We've always thought about food and energy prices."

"I don't see that as particularly changing," Yellen said.

While Bernanke may nod to the Fed's congressional mandate to maintain stability for overall prices, he and other Fed policy-makers are unlikely to deviate from their view that core price shifts strip away distracting swings and give the Fed a clearer view of where inflation is heading.

REBOUND IN ECONOMIC GROWTH

Bernanke is also expected to tell lawmakers that in spite of uncertainty about when the struggling U.S. housing market will begin to recover, the economy is on track for modest growth this year and can look forward to a better performance in 2008.

Fed speakers have foreshadowed the view that while housing woes have held back growth, the drag they exert on the economy will wane as the year progresses.

"The consequences of the decline in housing activity and house prices, in my view, have so far not derailed the prospect that economic growth will return toward trend at the end of 2007 and in 2008," Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said on Wednesday.

Economists and Fed officials believe weak growth at the start of the year, exacerbated by a surge in imports and a sell-off in inventories, gave way to a nice rebound in the second quarter.

Bernanke is expected to say the economy is set to settle into a more-moderate pace over the rest of the year.

The Fed forecast in February that the economy would expand between 2.5 percent and 3 percent this year, with growth next year in the 2.75 percent to 3 percent range.

Bernanke is also likely to face a grilling from lawmakers upset that the Fed did not do more to prevent lending practices that have led to soaring foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market, which caters to borrowers with shaky credit.

"Twin car bombings in Iraqi city kill 71"

By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer

16 July 2007

KIRKUK, Iraq - Twin suicide car bombings exploded within 20 minutes of each other in the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing at least 71 people and wounding around 150 in attacks targeting a Kurdish political office and ripping through an outdoor market, police said.

The attacks began around noon when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle near the concrete blast walls of the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Soon after, the second bomber attacked the Haseer market, 700 yards away, destroying stalls and cars, said Kirkuk police Brig. Sarhat Qadir.

The outdoor Haseer market — with stalls of vegetable and fruit sellers — is frequented by Kurds in Kirkuk, a city where tensions are high between the Kurdish and Arab populations.

At least 71 people were killed and around 150 wounded, said police Brig. Burhan Tayeb Taha.

In Baghdad, a string of attacks Monday morning killed at least nine people.

In the deadliest, a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed in the Boub al-Sham area on the city's northeast outskirts, killing five soldiers and wounding nine others, an army officer said.

U.S. troops launched a new offensive south of Baghdad against insurgents Monday, aiming to cut off another staging ground for attacks on the capital.

For the past month, U.S. and Iraqi forces have been waging offensives in the region southeast of Baghdad and in the city of Baqouba, 35 miles to the northeast.

At the same time, the U.S. military has been carrying out a stepped-up security sweep in Baghdad, hoping to bring calm to the capital and boost the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The U.S military said in a statement that the new sweep, code-named Marne Avalanche, was "aimed at preventing the movement of weapons, munitions and insurgents into Baghdad."

It did not give an exact location of the offensive, but in recent days U.S. commanders have said they plan new operations to cut off an insurgent supply route southwest of the city, running from western Anbar province.

Violence appears to have eased in Baghdad in recent weeks — but attacks, including deadly car bombs, remain a daily occurrence.

For the second day in a row, a car bomb hit the central district of Karradah on Monday, exploding near Masbah Square, killing one person, wounding three others and leaving nearby shops burned, a police official said.

On Sunday, a car bomb went off about a half-mile away, killing 10 people.

Also, mortar shells hit a residential area in Abu Dhsir, a south Baghdad Shiite enclave surrounded by Sunni neighborhood.

The attack killed three civilians and wounded six others, said another police official.

On Sunday, 22 bullet-riddled bodies were found dumped in various locations of Baghdad, apparently the latest victims of sectarian violence, police said.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the reports.

Meanwhile, with parliament scheduled to convene Monday, Iraqi politicians were trying to end a pair of boycotts of the legislature that are holding up work on crucial reforms sought by Washington.

The top Sunni party, the Iraqi Accordance Party has refused to attend parliament to protest the removal of the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

The Shiite-dominated parliament voted June 11 to remove al-Mashhadani because of erratic behavior and comments that frequently embarrassed al-Maliki's government.

Sunnis also want the government to set aside an arrest warrant against the Sunni culture minister, accused of ordering an assassination attempt against a fellow Sunni legislator.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, the Accordance Front leader, met Sunday with al-Maliki to discuss the Sunni boycott.

After the meeting, al-Dulaimi's spokesman, Muhannad al-Issawi, said that the boycott would continue and if the speaker were replaced, the decision should be made by the Sunnis and "not imposed" by Shiites and Kurds.

But al-Dulaimi was more optimistic about a settlement that would allow the Sunnis to return.

"Things are, God willing, on their way to be resolved," al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"The pending issue of al-Mashhadani and that of the minister of culture will be solved by the end of the week, and things will go back to their normal course."

Hassan al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, also said a deal was near under which al-Mashhadani could return to his post briefly, then permitted to retire.

Meanwhile, a member of the Shiite Sadr bloc said his faction would meet Monday with parliament leaders to discuss their own boycott, launched to protest delays in rebuilding a Shiite shrine in Samarra that was damaged by a bomb in February 2006.

"We will end our boycott when our conditions are accepted," lawmaker Naser al-Saidi told the U.S.-funded Alhurra television.

Those conditions include a plan to rebuild the shrine and secure the road from Baghdad to Samarra, which passes through Sunni insurgent areas.

The absence of the two major blocs has delayed work on such key benchmark legislation as the oil bill, constitutional reform, scheduling local elections and restoring many former Saddam Hussein loyalists to government jobs.

Those are among the 18 benchmarks that Washington uses to measure progress toward national reconciliation.

A White House report last week found that Iraqis had made only limited progress, fueling calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal.
___

Associated Press Writer Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

"73 dead in northwest Pakistan attacks"

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer

16 July 2007

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Authorities on Monday probed suspected links between radicals from the captured Red Mosque and militants in Pakistan's northwest frontier, where 73 people died in weekend suicide attacks and bombings.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the government was investigating whether the dramatic escalation of violence in the northwest was related to the Islamabad mosque.

Sherpao, speaking to Geo television news, did not elaborate.

However, officials have suggested that the mosque's radical clerics had connections with militants in the North Waziristan region, a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold on the Afghan border.

Officials also have said that several foreign militants were among more than 100 killed during an eight-day army siege of the mosque, but have provided no evidence to support that.

The attacks on Saturday and Sunday followed strident calls by extremists to avenge the government's bloody storming of the mosque and a declaration of jihad, or holy war, by at least one pro-Taliban cleric.

Militants in North Waziristan also tore up a peace treaty.

Termination of the pact, the hopeful handiwork of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, puts even greater pressure on the military leader as he struggles with both Islamic extremists and a gathering pro-democracy movement.

The U.S. national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, expressed support but also voiced some criticism of Musharraf's performance against militants.

"The action has at this point not been adequate, not effective," Hadley said.

"He's doing more."

"We are urging him to do more, and we're providing our full support to what he's contemplating," Hadley told Fox News.

The United States said in March it would give Pakistan $750 million in economic development aid aimed at undercutting support for extremists in the northwest.

However, it is unclear how the funds, which are to be released over five years, will be spent in a region where the government has little control.

Abdullah Farhad, a militant spokesman who announced the termination of the 10-month-old cease-fire, said Taliban leaders made the decision after the government failed to withdraw troops from checkpoints in North Waziristan.

He also accused authorities of launching attacks and failing to compensate those harmed.

The government deployed thousands of troops to restive areas of North West Frontier Province in recent days in hopes of stemming the backlash from the Red Mosque.

But they failed to prevent weekend suicide attacks and bombings that killed a total of 73 people.

On Sunday, two suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck a military convoy near Swat, while a suicide bomber targeted scores of people taking exams for recruitment to the police in the city of Dera Ismail Khan.

Dera Ismail Khan was put on high alert Monday, with police checking vehicles leaving and entering the city, said Gul Afzal Afridi, a senior police officer.

Since the mosque siege began July 3, 105 people have died in militant attacks, almost all of them in the northwest, according to an Associated Press count compiled from official sources.

Among them were 72 members of the security forces.

"5 killed, over 500 hurt in Japan quake"

By KOJI SASAHARA, Associated Press Writer

16 July 2007

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan - A strong earthquake struck northwestern Japan on Monday, destroying hundreds of homes, buckling roads and bridges and causing a fire at a nuclear power plant.

At least five people were killed and hundreds were injured.

The quake hit the region shortly after 10 a.m. local time and was centered off the coast of Niigata state.

Buildings swayed 160 miles away in Tokyo.

The hardest-hit area appeared to be Kashiwazaki, a city of about 90,000 in Niigata.

Japan's Meteorological Agency measured the quake at a 6.8 magnitude.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors quakes around the world, said it registered 6.7.

"I was so scared — the violent shaking went on for 20 seconds," Ritei Wakatsuki, who was on her job in a convenience store in Kashiwazaki.

"I almost fainted by the fear of shaking."

Flames and billows of black smoke poured from the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant, which automatically shut down during the quake.

The fire, in an electrical transformer, was put out about two hours later and there was no release of radioactivity or damage to the reactors, said Motoyasu Tamaki, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. official.

Tsunami warnings were issued along the coast of Niigata but later lifted.

A series of smaller aftershocks rattled the area, including one with a 5.8 magnitude.

The Meteorological Agency warned that the aftershocks could continue for a week.

The quake hit on Marine Day, a national holiday in Japan, when most people would have been at home.

Five people in their 70s and 80s — four women and one man — died after buildings collapsed on them, said Takashi Morita, a spokesman for the National Police Agency in Tokyo.

National broadcaster NHK reported more than 700 people were hurt, with injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises.

Nearly 300 homes in Kashiwazaki — a city known mainly for its fishing industry — were destroyed and some 2,000 people evacuated, officials said.

The quake buckled seaside roads and bridges, and left fissures three feet wide in the ground along the coast.

A ceiling collapsed in a gym in Kashiwazaki where about 200 people had gathered for a badminton tournament, and one person was hurt, Kyodo reported.

The quake also knocked a train car off the rails while it was stopped at a station.

No one was injured

Several bullet train services linking Tokyo to northern and northwestern Japan were suspended.

More than 60,000 homes were without water and 34,000 without gas as of late Monday.

More than 25,000 households in the zone were without power.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, campaigning in southern Japan for parliamentary elections later this month, was to return to Tokyo to deal with the quake, and the government had set up a task force, reports said.

"We want to do all we can to ensure safety ... and to quell everyone's concerns," he said.

Niigata Airport, which had suspended flights shortly after the quake, resumed services after finding no damage.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

The last major quake to hit the capital, Tokyo, killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90 percent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.

In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes.

It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe.
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Associated Press writers Kozo Mizoguchi and Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo contributed to this report.

"Meteorite impact debris found in Minn."

Sun Jul 15, 4:22 PM ET

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. - A forest fire has led to a chance discovery of debris from the impact of a meteorite 1.85 billion years ago, more than 450 miles away at Sudbury, Ontario.

Geologists had scheduled a field trip in May along the Gunflint Trail in northeastern Minnesota, but most areas they wanted to explore were closed because of a wildfire that charred more than 118 square miles.

Geologist Mark Jirsa of the Minnesota Geological Survey went up the trail to scout new locations and, in a spot he had never visited before, stumbled across debris now linked to the Sudbury impact.

That impact created a crater more than 150 miles across, scattering rock and dust over nearly a million square miles.

"It's fairly dark rock," Jirsa said.

"They look like concrete, but in this concrete you would throw pieces of rock of all sizes and shapes and in all possible orientations."

Previously, material thrown out by the impact had been found as far from Sudbury as Hibbing, about 125 miles farther to the southwest from Grand Marais.

However, the tiny fragments at Hibbing were found in core samples from 800 to 1,000 feet below the surface, while the rock layer containing larger chunks at the Gunflint site lies exposed.

"I think the excitement for the people of Minnesota is that we are one place in the world where you can see evidence of an ancient meteorite impact," said University of Minnesota geology professor emeritus Paul Weiblen, who is studying the debris.

"This is the second-oldest and second-largest impact crater in the world."

"Al Qaeda ramps up its propaganda"

By Dan Murphy and Jill Carroll

Mon Jul 16, 5:00 AM ET

Jerusalem and Cairo - A new video from Al Qaeda's media arm, with previously unseen and undated footage of Osama bin Laden praising the group's "martyrs," underscores the extent to which the group's propaganda campaign has improved in both production quality and volume over the past year.

Experts on the group say that nothing in the video indicates that Al Qaeda is, or is not, planning a major strike on Western targets, despite comments from US Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff last week saying that he has a "gut feeling" that Al Qaeda may stage a spectacular attack this summer.

But there is no question that Al Qaeda propaganda outlets have been working at a high rate over the past year, with frequent and timely broadcasts from the group's No. 2, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, who, like Mr. bin Laden, is believed to live in either Afghanistan or the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan.

"It's a drumbeat."

"If they disappear for a while people say, 'Oh, they're dead or they're gone.'"

"So they want to keep up with the drumbeat," says Evan Kohlmann, an author who closely tracks the propaganda efforts of Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups.

Mr. Kohlmann attributes the increased media output to three causes: better technology, a more secure position, and competition from other jihadi groups.

When the Al Qaeda media wing, known as As Sahab, became active at the end of 2005, it might have been worried that producing too many videos would lead to capture.

But when that didn't happen, he says, they were encouraged to produce more of them, in addition to outsourcing the distribution and improving their technological savvy.

Sahab has released at least 63 audio and video messages so far this year, compared with 58 in 2006, according to the Associated Press.

In many of those, Mr. Zawahiri has been able to respond to the news events within days, getting his group's perspective on radical Islamic websites.

Zawahiri has issued at least 10 messages since January on events such as Hamas's takeover of Gaza to the recent siege on a Pakistani mosque.

Some analysts say that this new technological prowess by Al Qaeda indicates that its leadership has recaptured the reins and it is far from being cut off and on the run.

This assessment is bolstered by a report from the US intelligence establishment that Al Qaeda has been gaining strength in many areas.

Last week, AP reported a leak of a US intelligence summary titled "Al Qaeda better positioned to strike the West."

That summary effectively declared that US operations against Al Qaeda since 9/11 have been a failure.

It says the organization has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001," that it has established effective havens in Pakistan for training and operational planning and that it has improved its ability to infiltrate operatives into Europe.

This newest video has attracted a fair degree of interest because of the footage of bin Laden.

According to a translation by CNN, bin Laden asked in the video, "What is this status that the best of mankind wished for himself?"

"He wished to be a martyr."

"He himself said: 'By Him in whose hands my life is!'"

"'I would love to attack and be martyred.' "

But experts say there's nothing up-to-date in his brief and vague comments incorporated there and that his contribution could be months, if not years, old.

"If you look at the video, a lot of it looks rehashed, looks like it's from the archive."

"There's nothing in the video so new and unusual," says Kohlmann.

"I don't really understand what it is about this video [that's attracting attention] other than it's coming in a week when Michael Chertoff said he had a 'gut feeling' Al Qaeda will attack again."

He said there have been other videos released in the past year with short clips of bin Laden taken from around the same period as the latest clip, which he suspects is pre-9/11.

Rita Katz, who runs the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) institute, the world's most active tracker of jihadi propaganda, agrees that the latest video is no departure from the norm.

"The phones have been ringing off the hook [but] there's nothing in this video."

"It's just another propaganda video."

"The video of bin Laden is old."

The only point of interest in the latest tape, from Ms. Katz's perspective, is its focus on "martyrs" from Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda's media arm has put out similarly slick montages of men who have died in Iraq and other locations in the past, but she said as far as she knows this is the first one focusing on Afghanistan.

The 40-minute video, dedicated to Muslims who have left their homes to fight, included a series of animated scenes showing green fields overlaid with Arabic names written in gold, representing Arab fighters who had died in Afghanistan.

Following one such sequence, the self-proclaimed leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan appeared, praising his fellow fighters.

"Your hero sons, courageous knights have left to the land of Afghanistan ... the land of jihad and martyrdom, answering the call for the sake of God to kick out the occupier who has desecrated the pure soil of Afghanistan," said Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed.

The Islamic hadith, or sayings attributed to the prophet Muhammad, make a number of references of praise for those who fight and die for God and Islam, promising them paradise.

Where the debate arises for Muslims is in the matter of what causes are merited, and whether the killing of civilians is allowed, whether the cause is just or not.

Most mainstream Muslims believe that acceptable jihads are defensive ones.

Al Qaeda has, in turn, created a narrative in which all of Islam is under constant attack by the US and the "West" and, therefore, almost any act that they interpret as hurting the US or its allies is, in their view, allowed.

"Bombings kill more than 80 in Iraq"

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

16 July 2007

BAGHDAD - A triple bombing, including a massive suicide truck blast, killed more than 80 people Monday in Kirkuk, the deadliest attack yet in the oil-rich northern city.

The bloodshed reinforced concern that extremists are heading north as U.S.-led forces step up pressure around Baghdad.

The vast majority of the casualties came in the truck bombing, which blasted a 30-foot-deep crater and damaged part of the roof of the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of President Jalal Talabani.

The explosion took place in a crowded commercial area and appeared aimed at causing as many civilian deaths as possible.

Saman Ahmed, 35, said he was driving along the street when the blast "pushed other vehicles toward my car along with fire and shrapnel like a flood."

"The glass from my car and the other cars went into my face," he said from his hospital bed.

"Now I cannot hear well because of the sound of the explosion."

"I saw tens of dead bodies lying on the ground."

Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, is a center of tensions among Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds, who want to include the area in the autonomous Kurdish region of the north.

Voters in the city are to decide whether to join the Kurdish self-ruled region in a referendum by year's end.

With three ethnic groups competing for control, violence in Kirkuk has been frequent.

But Monday's blasts were on a far bigger scale than most attacks.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said Sunni Arab insurgents are moving farther north to carry out attacks, fleeing U.S. offensives in and around Baghdad, including in the city of Baqouba, a stronghold of extremists on the capital's northwestern doorstep.

Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, the Kirkuk police chief, said he believed that U.S.-led military operations around Baqouba pushed al-Qaida in Iraq's elements to flee to the nearest cities.

"Some of them came to Kirkuk because they have loyalists here and they started to carry out terrorist acts," he told The Associated Press.

After the truck bombing, rescuers scrambled through the smoke and the debris lifting bloodied and broken bodies onto stretchers.

The force of the blast ripped clothing off some victims.

At least 10 shops were damaged, as was part of the fence at nearby Kirkuk Castle, a historic fortress that is one of the city's most prominent landmarks.

The street was strewn with blackened husks of two dozen cars.

The blast killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 183, according to police Brig. Burhan Tayeb Taha.

At least 10 of the victims were incinerated inside a bus that was engulfed by a ball of fire.

Twenty minutes later, a car bomb exploded about 700 yards away in the Haseer outdoor market, frequented by Kurds, Tahir said.

The market was largely empty after the first attack, and the explosion caused several injuries.

Hours later, a car bomb exploded in the Domiz region of southern Kirkuk, killing a police officer and wounding six other policemen, according to Tahir.

Monday's explosions occurred just over a week after one of the Iraq conflict's deadliest suicide attacks hit a Turkomen Shiite village about 50 miles south of Kirkuk, killing more than 160 people.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the Kirkuk blasts as a "cowardly act" by "terrorists" who intentionally targeted "innocent people."

"It is another evidence of their bankruptcy and failure in shredding the unity (of Iraq) and the despair that fills their sick souls," he said in a statement.

The U.S. military said an American soldier died from wounds suffered Sunday in a bombing in Ninevah province, northwest of Kirkuk.

Another soldier died Sunday of a non-battle-related cause in the southern city of Diwaniyah, the U.S. military said Monday.

At least 140 people were killed or found dead nationwide on Monday, according to police reports.

At least 44 of them were in Baghdad, including the bullet-riddled bodies of 25 people, apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

Eight of the Baghdad dead were killed in three separate car bombings, police said.

The deadliest was a suicide vehicle attack on an Interior Ministry checkpoint in west Baghdad that killed five people, including one civilian, police said.

Another car bomb exploded in the central district of Karradah, killing one person, wounding three and setting nearby shops ablaze, a police official said.

A third car bomb exploded in the garage of a man's home in eastern Baghdad, killing his two daughters.

The man told police he had been kidnapped Sunday night, but was released.

When he returned home, the car exploded, a police official said.

Investigators found a timer in the wreckage, the official said.

The police officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Nevertheless, the month-old security sweeps, fueled by 28,000 new U.S. troops sent to Iraq this year, have reduced the number of high-profile bombings in the capital as American troops push insurgents away from sanctuaries around the city.

U.S. troops launched a new offensive south of Baghdad on Monday, aimed at stopping weapons and fighters from moving into the capital, the military said.

It did not say where the new sweep, codenamed Marne Avalanche, was taking place.

In recent days, U.S. commanders have said they plan new operations to cut off an insurgent supply route southwest of the city, running from western Anbar province.

An offensive has been ongoing for the past month in a region southeast of Baghdad.

Al-Maliki said he hoped Iraqi forces would have enough training by the end of the year to take over security duties from the Americans — backing off comments Saturday insisting the Iraqi army and police were ready to do so at any time.

"I hope this here will be the end of the building of our forces so that we are prepared to take control of security."

"This needs the cooperation of everyone involved, both us and the coalition forces," he told NBC's "Today" show.

On Saturday, al-Maliki said Iraqi forces were ready to take over from the Americans "whenever they want" to withdraw — an apparent show of frustration with the turbulent debate in Washington over a pullout and criticism of his government.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, told NBC on Monday he's "extremely doubtful" that al-Maliki will be able to secure the country and allow American forces to leave any time soon.

"All of the support efforts, logistical and medical and so forth, they are not close to being able to meet," Hamilton said.
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Associated Press reporter Yahya Barzanji contributed from Kirkuk.