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Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Reuters - Democrats face summer of bitter infighting
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Democrats face summer of bitter infighting
Sunday, Mar 30, 2008 8:19PM UTC
By David Wiessler
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of Barack Obama backed away on Sunday from calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race as Democrats faced a long summer of bitter fighting to win the party's White House nomination.
In an interview published in The Washington Post, Clinton said she would fight all the way to the late August nominating convention, where a candidate will be chosen to face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November election.
"I think the race should continue," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former Democratic presidential candidate who supports Obama. "She has every right to stay in the race. She's run a very good campaign."
Some Obama backers have called on New York Sen. Clinton to give up, citing the Illinois senator's leads in the popular vote, states won and delegates to the convention to choose the nominee.
But Clinton has used those calls to rally her supporters, saying Washington insiders are trying to force her out before all Democrats have voted. She also stressed the need for new votes in Florida and Michigan, whose earlier primary votes were rejected because they violated party rules.
"I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan," Clinton said in the Post interview. "And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention."
CAMPUS RALLY
With the next big contest coming in Pennsylvania on April 22, Clinton and McCain took much of the day off, but Obama campaigned at Pennsylvania State University. Some 22,000 people came to listen to him speak at an open air rally, which aides said was one of the biggest events of the Democratic campaign.
"I believe that the Democrats will be unified as soon as this nomination is settled. We will be unified because we understand that we do not want to be clinging to the policies of the past. We are the party of the future," Obama said.
College students have been some of Obama's most active supporters and in Pennsylvania he must score big among them if he is to do well against Clinton.
"You will have a president who has taught the constitution and believes in the constitution and will obey the constitution of the United States of America," Obama told the crowd, making a comparison between himself and President George W. Bush.
Obama supporters hit the Sunday morning television talk shows to play down talk that Clinton should quit -- at least before the final nomination contests on June 3.
But after that, with neither Democratic contender likely to have captured the 2,024 delegates needed to face McCain, they wanted a quick resolution so the fight does not last all summer. The outcome will probably lie with several hundred "superdelegates" -- party leaders and elected officials free to vote for either candidate.
"After June 3, it's important that Democrats come together and not be so divided as we have been," Richardson said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "But I think it's important that, at the end of the June 3 date, we look at who has the most delegates, who has the most popular vote, who has the most states."
That would most likely favor Obama. But Clinton backers did not see the need to hurry.
"Neither Sen. Clinton nor Sen. Obama, based on what people say the math is, can get the required number of delegates. And so you have to play it out until the end," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Clinton backer, said on the CBS show.
Tennessee's Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen has proposed the superdelegates get together to make their choices after June 3 so the party can heal its wounds and go after the Republicans.
"You have to bring it to a closure sometime long before the end of August so that you can start that healing process and, you know, whoever wins can say their mea culpas about what they said, and bring the party back together," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, an Obama supporter who was the party's losing presidential nominee in 2004, said the superdelegates needed to make up their minds early so Democrats can organize to beat McCain.
"As a former nominee, I will tell you, this time right now is critical to us," he said on ABC's "This Week. "I think every day does give John McCain an ability to organize nationally."
(Additional reporting by Matt Bigg in Pennsylvania; writing by David Wiessler and Christopher Wilson; editing by Patricia Zengerle)
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
Reuters - Zimbabwe govt warns opposition over victory claims
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Zimbabwe govt warns opposition over victory claims
Sunday, Mar 30, 2008 2:12PM UTC
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition said on Sunday it had won the most crucial election since independence, but President Robert Mugabe's government warned premature victory claims would be seen as an attempted coup.
Tendai Biti, secretary general of the main MDC opposition party, told diplomats and observers overnight that early results showed it was victorious. "We have won this election," he said.
Officials said they would begin announcing results of the presidential, parliamentary and local polls on Sunday. Voting ended at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Saturday.
Biti said later the MDC was concerned at delays in announcing results, which traditionally begin emerging soon after polls close.
"We're aware the results are final in most constituencies but they are deliberately taking their time to announce. ... The whole idea of having an election is so you can have a result."
George Chiweshe, chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), had to be rescued by security men in a Harare hotel when he was confronted by journalists and opposition supporters demanding results be published.
Zimbabwe's security forces, which have thrown their backing firmly behind Mugabe, said before the election they would not allow a victory declaration before counting was complete.
Government spokesman George Charamba also warned the opposition against such claims. "It is called a coup d'etat and we all know how coups are handled," he told the state-owned Sunday Mail.
Residents in the eastern opposition stronghold of Manicaland said riot police stopped a victory demonstration by about 200 MDC supporters. There was no violence, they said.
"DISGRACE"
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, faced his most formidable challenge in the election against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and ruling ZANU-PF party defector Simba Makoni, who campaigned on the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy.
Although the odds seem stacked against Mugabe, 84, analysts believe he will be declared the winner and the opposition accused him of widespread vote-rigging.
Observers from the Pan-African parliament told the electoral commission they had found more than 8,000 non-existent voters registered on empty land in a Harare constituency.
The United States said it was worried by the conduct of the election and the absence of most international observers.
"The Mugabe regime is a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and a disgrace to southern Africa and to the continent of Africa as a whole," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters during a visit to Jerusalem.
Mugabe, who accuses the West of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy, expressed confidence on Saturday he would be returned to office. "We will succeed. We will conquer," he said.
He rejected vote-rigging allegations.
Once-prosperous Zimbabwe is suffering from the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent, chronic shortages of food and fuel, and an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
Biti said early results, based on 12 percent of the vote, showed Tsvangirai was projected to win 67 percent nationally.
He said Tsvangirai had made significant inroads in Mugabe's rural strongholds by leading in the southern province of Masvingo and Mashonaland Central Province, north of Harare, where the MDC has not won a parliamentary seat since 2000.
If no candidate wins more than 51 percent of the vote, the election will go into a second round.
(Additional reporting by Cris Chinaka, Stella Mapenzauswa, Nelson Banya and Muchena Zigomo)
(Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Mary Gabriel)
CNN - Al-Sadr calls off fighting amid airstrikes, crackdown
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Al-Sadr calls off fighting amid airstrikes, crackdown
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told his followers to stop fighting and cooperate with Iraqi security forces Sunday, as U.S. and Iraqi forces targeted his Mehdi Army in Basra and Baghdad.
In the nine-point statement -- which was issued by his headquarters in Najaf and came a day after al-Sadr told his fighters not to surrender their weapons -- the cleric demanded that the government give his supporters amnesty and release any of his followers that are being held.
"We announce our disavowal from anyone who carries weapons and targets government institutions, charities and political party offices," said the statement that was distributed across the country and posted on Web sites linked to his movement.
The Mehdi Army entered negotiations with the Iraqi government Saturday night, said Sheikh Salah al-Obaidi, a top aide to al-Sadr. The meeting in Najaf marked the first talks between the two sides since the Iraqi government announced a crackdown on "outlaws" in Basra, al-Obaidi said.
U.S. forces targeted the cleric's Shiite militia in Baghdad as well, launching airstrikes that killed 15 people Sunday in neighborhoods known to be Mehdi Army strongholds, an Interior Ministry official said.
Two airstrikes in the Sadr City neighborhood killed nine people and wounded 14 others, and another strike in the al-Zuhor neighborhood, in northeastern Baghdad, killed six people and wounded 14 others, an Interior Ministry official said.
The U.S. military said it killed 11 militants in those same areas Saturday.
The Baghdad bombings came as Iraqi authorities extended indefinitely a strict curfew on the capital and as fighting between government troops and Shiite militants stretched into its sixth day, leaving about 400 people dead, according to reports from U.S. and Iraqi officials.
In Basra, part of southern Iraq's Shiite heartland, at least 200 people have been killed and 500 wounded in battles since Tuesday, a high-ranking security official said.
Authorities there extended a ban on pedestrian and vehicle traffic just hours before the curfew was to expire Sunday morning.
Al-Maliki compared the outlaws, on whom the government is cracking down, to al Qaeda and said troops would not leave Basra "until security is restored."
"We will continue to stand up to these gangs in every inch of Iraq," he said. "It is unfortunate that we used to use say these very words about al Qaeda, when all the while, there were people among us who are worse than al Qaeda."
Al-Maliki met Saturday in Basra with area tribal leaders and other prominent figures, who expressed support for the government's effort to "save Basra from criminal gangs," according to a statement from the prime minister's office.
The prime minister further said that militants had until April 8 to surrender their weapons in a guns-for-cash program.
On Saturday, supporters of al-Sadr said they were being unfairly singled out in the crackdown, and the cleric told his followers not to hand over their arms "except to a state that can throw out the occupation," al-Obaidi said.
Other developments
? The U.S. military said Sunday it found a mass grave with 14 bodies near Muqdadiya. The bodies, which showed signs of torture, appeared to have been in the grave for two to six months. They were found just 100 yards from where 37 bodies were found buried Thursday, the military said.
? The International Zone -- where where many Iraqi government buildings and embassies are located -- was targeted Sunday by rockets or mortars, a U.S. Embassy official said, but no injuries or damage were immediately reported.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Reuters - Charges of fraud in Zimbabwe vote
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Charges of fraud in Zimbabwe vote
Saturday, Mar 29, 2008 11:3PM UTC
By Nelson Banya
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition accused President Robert Mugabe of rigging the country's election to stay in power despite economic disaster and African observers also said they had detected fraud.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, faced his strongest challenge in Saturday's election, with veteran opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and ruling ZANU-PF party defector Simba Makoni exploiting widespread misery caused by the wrecked economy.
As polls closed, Tsvangirai's MDC party said their voters and officials had been turned away from polling stations and erasable voting ink was used to enable fraud by government supporters.
Combined with inflated voter rolls and the printing of 3 million surplus ballot papers, this "ensures that there will be multiple voting," said MDC secretary-general Tendai Biti.
Observers from the Pan-African parliament said in a letter to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission that they had found more than 8,000 non-existent people registered on a piece of empty land in a Harare constituency.
Biti said the MDC had also found "ghost voters" in Harare.
Many Zimbabweans were desperate for change to end the country's economic misery.
The once-prosperous nation is suffering the world's highest inflation rate at more than 100,000 percent, chronic shortages of food and fuel and a rampant HIV/AIDS epidemic that has contributed to a steep decline in life expectancy.
Mugabe blames the collapse on Western sanctions.
CHANGE
"I am voting for change. I am praying for a free and fair election. It is the only way this country can move forward," said Richard Mutedzi, 25, a mechanic who voted in Chitungwiza, 30 km (20 miles) south of Harare.
Mother of three Gertrude Muzanenhamo, 36, voted early in the poor township of Warren Park, telling reporters: "People are dying in hospitals and funeral expenses are very high. How do you expect us to survive? Shop shelves are empty."
Final results are not expected for several days from the presidential, parliamentary and local polls.
The local election observer group ZESN said turnout looked low and some voters were turned away in opposition strongholds.
A local journalist who asked not to be named said thousands of voters had turned out in Mugabe's southern stronghold of Masvingo province. He said village heads appeared to have instructed them to vote for the president.
Most international observers were banned and a team from the regional grouping SADC did not comment on Saturday. Critics say SADC, which has tried to mediate an end to Zimbabwe's crisis, is too soft on Mugabe.
Mugabe displayed his usual confidence when he voted in Harare. "We will succeed. We will conquer," he said.
"Why should I cheat? The people are there supporting us. The moment the people stop supporting you, then that's the moment you should quit politics," Mugabe told reporters.
Despite the fraud allegations, Tsvangirai said he would win. "We are absolutely confident that the outcome will be in the favor of the people," he said as he voted in Harare.
Sagodolu Sikhosana, a villager in the opposition stronghold of Matabeleland said after voting: "Things have been too hard for too long. I think now there needs to be a change and they need to take us more seriously."
The powerful security forces have backed Mugabe, stoking accusations that he will use his incumbent power to rig victory.
If no candidate wins more than 51 percent of the vote the election will go into a second round in three weeks, when the two opposition parties would likely unite.
Mugabe said a second round was unlikely.
"We are not used to boxing matches where we go from round one to round two. We just knock each other out," he said.
(Additional reporting by Cris Chinaka, Stella Mapenzauswa, MacDonald Dzirutwe and Muchena Zigomo)
(Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Giles Elgood)
CNN - Clinton rejects calls to quit Democratic race
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Clinton rejects calls to quit Democratic race
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Saturday rejected calls by supporters of rival candidate Barack Obama to quit the Democratic presidential race, and Obama said Clinton should remain in race "as long as she wants."
"The more people get a chance to vote, the better it is for our democracy," the New York senator and former first lady told supporters at a rally in Indiana, which holds a May 6 primary.
"There are some folks saying we ought to stop these elections," she said.
"I didn't think we believed that in America. I thought we of all people knew how important it was to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted."
Clinton has won primaries in the biggest states so far, but Obama has won more total contests and leads her in the race for delegates to the party's August convention in Denver -- where the Democratic nominee will be formally ratified.
Two of Obama's leading supporters, Sens. Christopher Dodd and Patrick Leahy, said Friday that Clinton should rethink her chances of overcoming that deficit and consider folding her campaign.
Leahy, of Vermont, said Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to."
Speaking in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Obama said he did not discuss Leahy's call for Clinton to drop out with the Vermont senator, who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"My attitude is that Sen. Clinton can run as long as she wants," the Illinois senator said.
"She is a fierce and formidable competitor, and she obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president. I think that she should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able."
Pennsylvania is the scene of the next Democratic primary, on April 22, and is the largest state that hasn't weighed in on the party's presidential race.
Obama called fears that the Democratic Party would be damaged by a long campaign "somewhat overstated." But he added that both he and Clinton should avoid campaign attacks "that could be used as ammunition for the Republicans" in November.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Thursday suggests that the bickering between Clinton and Obama could affect Democratic turnout in November.
One in six Clinton supporters said they would not be likely to vote in November if Obama gets the nomination; an equal number of Obama's supporters said the same about Clinton.
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that he would like the fight wrapped up before the Denver convention, and said party leaders have had "extensive discussions" with the Clinton and Obama campaigns about cooling down their rhetoric.
"I don't think the party is going to implode," he said. But he added that personal attacks "demoralize the base" and that campaigns should focus on issues like the economy and Iraq.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Reuters - North Korea raises tensions with missile launch
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North Korea raises tensions with missile launch
Friday, Mar 28, 2008 3:35PM UTC
By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea test-fired a battery of short-range missiles on Friday in what analysts saw as a show of the reclusive state's anger at Washington and the new conservative government in Seoul.
The launch comes a day after the North expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex north of the border, after Seoul told its destitute neighbor to clean up its human rights and stop dragging its feet in nuclear disarmament talks if it wants to receive aid to keep its economy afloat.
A South Korean presidential spokesman told a news briefing that the North had fired short-range missiles as a part of a military exercise. Local news reports said the three were ship-to-ship missiles launched into the sea off the west coast.
"We believe the North does not want a deterioration of relations between the South and the North," spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters.
In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe called for an end to the missile testing, which he said was "not constructive."
"North Korea should focus on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs, and nuclear proliferation activities and to complete the agreed disablement," Johndroe said.
New South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has said he wants to end the free ride given to North Korea under 10 years of left-leaning presidents who gave billions in aid while asking for little in return, seeing it as the price to pay for stability.
Lee's government has said it is ready to invest heavily, provided the North meets conditions such as scrapping its nuclear arms program or returning the more than 1,000 South Koreans it kidnapped or kept in the country after the 1950-53 Korean War.
DUAL MESSAGE FROM NORTH
Pyongyang was basically sending two messages with the launch, Keio University Korea expert Masao Okonogi said in Tokyo.
One was aimed at the United States after talks in Geneva, showing the North's dissatisfaction with Washington's pressure to come clean on uranium enrichment and ties with Syria, he said. The other was a riposte to the Lee government's shift in stance.
"They are warning Seoul not to go back on things agreed between the North and the South," Okonogi said.
North Korea has more than 1,000 missiles, at least 800 of them ballistic, that can hit all of South Korea and most parts of Japan, experts have said. Its launches are often timed to coincide with periods of political tension.
At about the same time as the launch, North Korea's official media fired a rhetorical volley at the United States, blaming it for pushing into deadlock six-country talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear arms plans.
"If the United States continues to delay the resolution of the nuclear problem by insisting on something that doesn't exist, it could have a grave impact on the disablement of the nuclear facility that has been sought so far," the North's KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
Pyongyang began disabling its Soviet-era nuclear plant at the end of last year, as its side of a deal with regional powers in return for aid and an end to international isolation.
The process has reached a stage where it would likely take North Korea at least a year to get its Yongbyon nuclear plant running again, according to South Korean officials.
U.S. and South Korean officials said most of the work to disable the reactor, a plant that makes nuclear fuel and another that turns spent fuel into arms-grade plutonium is complete, but a few elements have been delayed due to technical reasons.
The agreement calls for the North to make a complete declaration of its nuclear weapons arsenal and answer U.S. suspicions of proliferating nuclear technology and having a clandestine program to enrich uranium for weapons.
"To make it clear, we have not enriched uranium or cooperated with any other country on nuclear projects. We have not even dreamed about it," the North's spokesman was quoted as saying.
North and South Korea held separate talks on Friday without incident on energy and economic aid the communist state receives in return for complying with the nuclear deal.
(Additional reporting by Rhee So-eui, Lee Jiyeon and Jack Kim in Seoul, Linda Sieg in Tokyo and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Alex Richardson)
CNN - Baghdad on lockdown as rockets, bombs fly
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Baghdad on lockdown as rockets, bombs fly
Baghdad was on virtual lockdown Friday as a tough new curfew ordered everyone off the streets of the Iraqi capital and five other cities until 5 p.m. Sunday.
That restriction didn't stop someone from firing rockets and mortar rounds into the capital's heavily fortified International Zone, commonly known as the Green Zone. One slammed into the office of one of Iraq's vice presidents, Tareq al-Hashemi, killing two guards.
An American government worker also was killed in rocket and mortar attacks Thursday in the International Zone.
U.S. warplanes pounded Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood Friday, killing six people and wounding 10.
Other U.S. planes bombed Shiite militia positions overnight in the southern city of Basra, a British military spokesman said.
The British military said the firings were the first by coalition forces since the Iraqi army launched an operation Tuesday in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
At least 120 militia fighters have been killed and 240 wounded in Basra since the military operation started, said an Iraqi Defense Ministry official on condition of anonymity.
Iraq's parliament called a special session for Friday to address the crisis. The Interior Ministry on Thursday imposed a curfew through the weekend in Baghdad, Hilla, Kut, Diwaniya, Simawa and Basra. Officials banned pedestrian, motorcycle and vehicular traffic through 5 a.m. Sunday (10 p.m. ET Saturday.)
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government on Friday offered cash to people who surrender medium and heavy weapons by April 8.
New clashes erupted Friday in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, a stronghold of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least four people, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Thousands of al-Sadr's supporters took to the streets in Sadr City and another Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad to protest the crackdown launched by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Basra this week. The protesters called al-Maliki the country's "new dictator" and demanded his dismissal.
The fighting threatens to end al-Sadr's seven-month-long suspension of his Mehdi Army militia, regarded as a key factor in Iraq's dramatic drop in violence in recent months. The cleric, whose militia launched two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, has kept his cease-fire edict in place for now, but his supporters accuse the government of singling them out for raids by security forces in recent weeks.
In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy warned employees to remain indoors until there's an end to the rocket and mortar fire.
U.S. State Department official Richard Schmierer said the rocket attacks appeared to be coming from fighters affiliated with al-Sadr who were "trying to make a statement" about the government offensive in Basra. He blamed the violence on "marginal extremist elements" who have associated themselves with the Sadrist movement.
In Friday's special session, lawmakers were to discuss the security situation around the country, specifically in Basra, where al-Maliki was leading operations against what government officials called "rogue" or "outlaw" militia elements.
President Bush on Friday praised the Iraqi government's military push into Basra as "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," saying the regime is fighting criminals.
"It was just a matter of time before the government was going to have to deal with it," he said, emphasizing that the decision to mount the offensive was al-Maliki's.
The operation is an effort to restore order amid disputes among the Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Fadhila Party. The fighting has been concentrated in areas controlled by al-Sadr's supporters and has spread north to Baghdad and other cities.
Al-Maliki's guns-for-cash program was an attempt to stem the violence.
"We call on all those who hold medium and heavy weapons to surrender their weapons to the security forces in exchange for cash award starting from March 28th until April 8, 2008," al-Maliki said in a statement.
It follows a call by al-Sadr to end the fighting.
"Muqtada al-Sadr calls on all groups to adopt a political situation and peaceful protest and to stop shedding Iraqi blood," senior aide Hazem al-Araji said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers killed eight militants after an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint Thursday in northern Baghdad, a military statement said. One Iraqi soldier died and seven were wounded.
The militants hit the checkpoint with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, according to the military, and coalition forces responded with an airstrike that killed the eight.
American military operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq killed eight suspected terrorists in northern Iraq on Thursday and led to the detention of 17 people, the U.S. military said.
The operations focused on al Qaeda in Iraq's "propaganda network" in the Tuz, Samarra and Mosul areas, the military said.
Reuters - U.S. forces drawn deeper into Iraq crackdown
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U.S. forces drawn deeper into Iraq crackdown
Friday, Mar 28, 2008 1:32PM UTC
By Peter Graff
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces were drawn deeper into Iraq's four day-old crackdown on Shi'ite militants on Friday, launching air strikes in Basra for the first time and battling militants in Baghdad.
The fighting has exposed a rift within the majority Shi'ite community and put pressure on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose forces have failed to drive fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr off the streets of Iraq's second-largest city.
Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassim acknowledged at a news conference in Basra that Iraqi security forces had been caught off-guard by the strength of the opposition.
"We supposed that this operation would be a normal operation, but we were surprised by this resistance and have been obliged to change our plans and our tactics," he said.
Journalists attending the conference had to be escorted by Iraqi military vehicles. When the briefing was over they were unable to leave because of clashes taking place in the vicinity.
Lawmakers, including Sadr loyalists, were due to meet in an emergency session of parliament to seek an end to the impasse.
Iraqi authorities shut down Baghdad with a strict curfew on Friday but there was little let-up in the rocket and mortar barrages that have wreaked havoc in the capital this week.
The U.S. embassy ordered its staff in the "Green Zone" diplomatic and government compound to stay under cover when possible and wear body armor and helmets when in the open. A salvo of missiles exploded in the zone at 2.30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT).
The Green Zone office of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, was hit in a missile attack but he was not there at the time. One security guard was killed, an official in his office said.
The government says it is fighting "outlaws", but Sadr's followers say political parties in Maliki's Shi'ite-led government are using military force to marginalize their rivals ahead of local elections due by October.
The Iraqi ground commander in Basra, Major-General Ali Zaidan, told Reuters his forces had killed 120 "enemy" fighters and wounded around 450 since the campaign began on Tuesday.
But Reuters television footage from Basra showed masked gunmen from Sadr's Mehdi Army still in control of the streets, openly carrying rocket launchers and machine guns.
A British Ministry of Defense spokesman said U.S. warplanes had opened fire in Basra for the first time, dropping bombs in support of Iraqi units on the ground.
British ground troops which patrolled Basra until December have so far remained on a base outside the city, but British or U.S. controllers would have been needed to call the air strikes.
The fighting has trapped many Basra residents in their homes, raising fears of a humanitarian emergency. The United Nations said its aid agencies were standing by with supplies including blood bags, trauma kits, 200 metric tons of emergency food and 39 million water purification tablets.
GUNMEN SEIZE NASSIRIYA
Sadr, who helped install Maliki in power after an election in 2005 but later broke with him, has called for talks with the government. But Maliki has vowed to battle what he calls criminal gangs in Basra "to the end".
The clashes have all but wrecked a truce Sadr declared last year, which Washington had said helped curb violence.
A Reuters witness said Mehdi Army gunmen had seized control of Nassiriya, capital of the southerly Dhi Qar province. Mehdi Army fighters have held territory or fought with authorities in Kut, Hilla, Amara, Kerbala, Diwaniya and other towns throughout the Shi'ite south over the past several days.
In Baghdad there have been clashes in at least 13 mainly Shi'ite neighborhoods, especially Sadr City, the vast slum which is named after the cleric's slain father and where his followers maintain their power base.
"There have been engagements going on in and around Sadr City. We've engaged the enemy with artillery, we've engaged the enemy with aircraft, we've engaged the enemy with direct fire," said Major Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.
In one strike before dawn, a U.S. helicopter fired a hellfire missile at gunmen firing from the roof of a building, killing four of them, Cheadle said. A Reuters photographer there filmed windows blown out of cars and walls pocked with shrapnel.
Later in the day cars were engulfed in flames after an apparent air strike on a Sadr City parking lot.
U.S. forces said they killed 27 fighters in operations in the capital on Thursday.
In Nassiriya, a Reuters reporter said he could see groups of fighters with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The sound of sporadic gunfire echoed through the streets. Police appeared to be staying in their stations.
Militants have also taken control of the town of Shatra, 40 km to the north, he said, citing witnesses.
On Wednesday Maliki gave militants in Basra 72 hours to surrender. With that deadline looming, he said on Friday they would now be given until April 8 to hand over weapons for cash.
Oil exports from Basra of more than 1.5 million barrels a day provide 80 percent of Iraq's government revenue. An explosion at a pipeline damaged exports on Thursday, but they were back to normal on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Randy Fabi and Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad and Aref Mohammed in Basra; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Reuters - Senator Casey endorses Obama
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Senator Casey endorses Obama
Friday, Mar 28, 2008 11:43AM UTC
By Matthew Bigg
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania endorsed on Friday Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in a boost for the Illinois senator.
Obama aides said Casey would appear later at an Obama campaign event in Pennsylvania, where the candidate is vying with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton for support in the April 22 primary election.
Casey also would join part of Obama's six-day bus tour across the state, due to start in Pittsburgh, they said.
Endorsements by politicians state can bolster a candidate's credibility in a state with a specific section of the electorate, although their precise impact on voters is often unclear.
"The endorsement comes as something of a surprise," Dan Pfeiffer, Obama deputy communications director, said in a statement. "Casey ... had been adamant about remaining neutral until after the April 22 primary. He said he wanted to help unify the party."
"Obama strategists hope Casey can help their candidate make inroads with the white working-class men who are often referred to as 'Casey Democrats,'" Pfeiffer said, adding that the group is liberal on economic issues, supportive of gun rights and opposed to abortion.
Obama's campaign has spent $1.6 million in television advertising in the state in the past week, the statement said.
Clinton leads in polls in Pennsylvania and has the endorsement of the state's governor, Ed Rendell, and other prominent Democrats.
Obama leads Clinton by more than 100 in the count of pledged delegates won in the state-by-state voting since January. Neither candidate is on track to win the 2,024 delegates needed to clinch the nomination, which could result in an intra-party fight at the Democrats' convention in August.
The Democratic nominee likely will face Republican John McCain in November's general election to succeed President George W. Bush.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Reuters - Obama weathers Wright storm as new details emerge
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Obama weathers Wright storm as new details emerge
Thursday, Mar 27, 2008 9:36PM UTC
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's former pastor has not hurt Obama, a new poll found on Thursday, even as more potential trouble surfaced involving his church.
A poll by the Pew Research Center said videos of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama's subsequent speech on race in America last week have attracted more public attention than any events thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign.
The March 19-22 survey of 1,503 American adults found that despite the flap, Illinois Sen. Obama had maintained a 49 percent to 39 percent advantage over New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
While he seemed to have weathered the storm so far, the poll said most voters aware of the sermons were offended by them.
Wright argued from the pulpit that the September 11 attacks were payback for U.S. foreign policy and expressed anger over what he called racist America.
The new survey was released as new information came to light about Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which Obama attended for two decades.
A Christian publication called Baptist Messenger reported that the church published a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel opinion article in a church bulletin in July.
It said the church republished the article from The Los Angeles Times. In the article, an official from the Palestinian group Hamas defended the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.
Baptist Messenger said the column was posted on Wright's "Pastor's Page."
In addition, Trumpet Newsmagazine, of which Wright is the chief executive officer, published an article written by Wright in which he described the crucifixion of Jesus as "public lynching Italian style."
"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue, according to CNSNews.com. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."
Obama was asked about the latest information about Wright during a CNBC interview.
"I've, I think, talked thoroughly about, you know, the issue with Rev. Wright. And, you know, everybody, I think, who examines the church that I attend knows that it is a very traditional, conventional church," he said.
He said Wright had made some "troubling statements and some appalling statements that I have condemned."
CNN - Dozens killed as Iraq fighting rages
Sent from Bombastic4000@gmail.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.
Dozens killed as Iraq fighting rages
Forty-two people were killed Thursday in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq's Interior Ministry said, the latest casualties in three days of clashes between militias and Iraqi security forces.
Iraq's offensive against what it characterizes as "outlaws" of hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia began Tuesday in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in southern Iraq, has given militants an ultimatum to surrender their weapons by Saturday.
The fighting, which also saw Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone -- home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government -- come under fire, has threatened to unravel a delicate al-Sadr cease-fire credited with reducing bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites.
Since Tuesday, clashes in Basra and throughout Iraq's Shiite heartland have left more than 100 dead and many wounded in Basra, Baghdad, Hilla, Kut, Karbala and Diwaniya.
Also Thursday, a U.S. government official was killed when militants fired rockets into the Green Zone, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said.
Casualty figures from Basra weren't available Thursday, but the number of deaths is expected to rise from the 40 to 50 that had been reported Wednesday.
In Baghdad on Thursday, dozens of gunmen kidnapped the spokesman of the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly. Three of his guards were killed and his house burned in the attack, which an Interior Ministry official said was carried out by "outlaws," a reference to al-Sadr's militia.
Also Thursday, a car bomb explosion killed three people and wounded five others near a police patrol in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. There are no apparent links to the violence in the Shiite regions.
Witnesses in Basra report smoke rising and gunfire and explosions ringing out across the city, where Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. and British troops, have been taking on fighters using grenades, mortar rounds and machine guns.
There was fighting Thursday in Jamhouriya, one of five neighborhoods the Mehdi Army controls, and Muqal, according to an official from Basra province and witnesses.
Speaking on a condition of anonymity, the provincial official said weapons such as machine guns and grenades were stolen from a military post in the Muqal area.
Al-Maliki briefed city and provincial officials Wednesday about the offensive and vowed to finish the job, even if it takes a month.
Provincial officials expressed reservations about the operation, saying Basra will fall into the hands of "outlaws" if al-Maliki fails to restore order.
Since the fighting started, Sadrists and government officials have spoken by phone in efforts to quell the violence, but no face-to-face talks have been scheduled. The Sadrists, who say security forces have unfairly targeted them in recent weeks, have been urging their followers to stage protests against the government. But so far, the cease-fire has not been rescinded.
Basra has been relatively quiet during the war, but the southern city has seethed with intra-Shiite tensions as Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Fadhila party have jockeyed for power.
Much of the fighting in the Shiite heartland involves followers of al-Sadr and security forces aligned with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq's militia, the Badr Brigade.
The council dominates the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, but the Sadrist movement left the government last year after al-Maliki refused to demand a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Both groups have strong contingents in the Iraqi parliament. Read how the conflict could doom Iraq's future
A provincial council official also said insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline Thursday in Zubeir, a town near Basra. The attack sparked a large fire on the pipeline, which transfers crude oil to tanks in the city.
Meanwhile, the FBI identified the remains of two U.S. contractors who had been missing in Iraq for more than a year, a bureau spokesman said Thursday.
Minnesotan Paul Johnson-Reuben, 41, and Californian Joshua Munns, 25, were among four men kidnapped in November 2006 during an ambush in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan. All four worked for the Crescent Security Group, a Kuwaiti-based firm that escorts convoys.
The other two men -- Jonathon Cote, 25, and Bert Nussbaumer, 26 -- are still listed as missing. The FBI has the remains of one more body, which the bureau is trying to identify.
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