Tuesday, May 3, 2011

TUESDAY is NEWSDAY: "World Mag News" 03 May 11

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Congress may cut $1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

53brennanCongress may consider cutting the almost $1.3 billion in annual aid to Pakistan if it turns out the Islamabad government knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she wants more details from CIA director Leon Panetta and others about the Pakistani government’s role. Feinstein spoke to reporters about the raid that killed bin Laden early Monday and the questions raised by his hiding place deep inside Pakistan.

The No. 2 House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said if Pakistan doesn’t ease doubts about its dedication to fighting terrorists, Congress should explore whether it makes sense to reduce U.S. aid to that country.

The al-Qaeda terrorist leader behind the Sept. 11 attacks lived and died in a massive, fortified compound built in 2005 and located on the outskirts of Abbottabad, just miles from the capital of Islamabad. It stood just a half-mile from the Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, and close to various army regiments.

Amid the high praise for the successful U.S. military operation, congressional Republicans and Democrats questioned whether bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, with Pakistani military and intelligence operatives either totally unaware of his location or willfully ignoring his presence to protect him.

Bin Laden’s death and questions about Pakistan’s eagerness in the fight against terrorism come as the tenuous U.S.-Pakistan relationship seems even more fragile.

Pakistan officials were upset that they were not informed about the U.S. raid to get bin Laden, calling it an “unauthorized unilateral action” that “cannot be taken as a rule.” Unaware and unnerved Pakistanis scrambled their aircraft in the wake of the U.S. military intervention.

John Brennan, White House counterterrorism adviser, said the administration was looking at whether bin Laden had a support system in Pakistan that allowed him to remain in the country.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cautioned against pushing Pakistan away. Pakistan’s nuclear arms would be a direct threat to U.S. national security, he said, if those weapons fell into the wrong hands.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Conservatives win majority in Canadian Parliament

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

53canadaConservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his coveted majority government in an election Monday that changed Canada’s political landscape, with the opposition Liberals and Quebec separatists suffering a shattering defeat.

Harper, who took office in 2006, has won two elections but until Monday’s vote had never held a majority of Parliament’s 308 seats, forcing him to rely on the opposition to pass legislation. Harper now has an opportunity to pass any legislation he wants with his new majority.

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff announced Tuesday he will step down from the post after the party suffered its worst defeat in Canadian history. Ignatieff even lost his own seat in a Toronto suburb.

While Harper’s hold on Parliament has been tenuous during his five-year tenure, he has managed to nudge an instinctively center-left country to the right. He has gradually lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoided climate change legislation that would harm Alberta’s oil sands sector, promoted Arctic sovereignty, upped military spending, and extended Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. He has also staunchly backed Israel’s right-wing government.

Elections Canada reported results on its website, giving the Conservatives 167 seats, which will give Harper four years of uninterrupted government.

The Liberals dropped to 34 seats from 77—finishing third for the first time in Canadian history.

The leftist New Democratic Party became the main opposition party, with 102 seats, tripling their support in a stunning setback for the Liberals who have always been either in power or leading the opposition.

Harper was helped by the NDP surge, which split the left-of-center vote in many districts, handing victory to Conservative candidates, especially in Ontario.

The New Democrats’ gains are being attributed to leader Jack Layton’s strong performance in the debates, an upbeat message, and a desire by the French-speakers in Quebec, the second most populous province, for a new face and a federalist option after two decades of supporting a separatist party.

Voters indicated they had grown weary with the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which had a shocking drop to four seats from 47 in the last Parliament.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Louisiana Scouts rescued from Arkansas wilderness

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

53scoutsA National Guard helicopter plucked six stranded Louisiana Boy Scouts from a southwest Arkansas forest Tuesday morning and delivered them safely to nervous parents waiting at a camp supply store nearby.

The boys and two adult leaders had been missing since Sunday, when rising water cut off their exit from the Albert Pike Recreation Area. Twenty people died in flash floods here last June 11, and the boys’ parents had prayed and paced since arriving in the area Monday.

The helicopter crew spotted a campfire and some of the Scouts overnight Monday, then headed out again at first light.

The parents waited Monday night at a local church, in a scene eerily similar to one nearly a year before. Families, miles away from home, waited with pastor Graig Cowart for news on whether their loved ones had survived the rising water.

Until Tuesday morning, no one had heard from the Scouts or their leaders from Troop 162 in Lafayette, La., since Thursday, when they arrived in Arkansas’ Ouachita Mountains. The search began Monday morning, after the group didn’t show up back in Louisiana as expected.

Authorities scaled back search efforts after nightfall Monday, with strong winds and low clouds forcing a state police helicopter to turn back before the boys could be found. The National Guard sent a helicopter overnight as the weather began to clear.

The Scouts were experienced backpackers for their age—14 on average—and had previously camped in the recreation area. They knew that cellphone service there is shaky at best, so the group left behind detailed plans, said Art Hawkins, executive director of the Scouts’ Evangeline Area Council in Lafayette. One concern was how much food the group had left.

Creeks and streams rose quickly Saturday and Sunday after nearly 8 inches of rain fell. The Little Missouri stood at less than 4 feet at the Albert Pike campground when the Scouts arrived, but had reached 8 feet by Sunday morning and 11 feet early Monday, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey. It was still running high Tuesday morning.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

River levels fall in Illinois town after levee blast

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

53leveeA few momentary blasts, flashes of orange light, and the Mississippi River began pouring through a wide hole in a Missouri levee, intentionally blown open by the Army Corps of Engineers in the hope of saving a small Illinois town.

Even as the corps’ carried out its bid to protect Cairo, Ill., floodwaters were rising downriver, including in Memphis, Tenn. And the breach in the Birds Point levee wasn’t expected to ease those flooding concerns.

The Army Corps exploded the Birds Point levee after nightfall Monday, sacrificing 130,000 acres of rich farmland and about 100 homes in Missouri to spare the Illinois town of 2,800 residents that is at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Two subsequent blasts further south on the levee, both scheduled for Tuesday morning, were aimed at allowing some of that water to escape back into the Mississippi.

The National Weather Service said the initial blast had a dramatic effect on the water level in Cairo. Before the breach, the river was at 61.72 feet and rising. As of Tuesday morning, the river was at 60.62 feet and was expected to fall to 59.4 feet by Saturday, it said on its website.

Corps officials have said the breach should reduce water levels at Cairo and another threatened levee in northern Kentucky by up to 4 feet by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Flooding concerns also are widespread in western Tennessee, where tributaries have been backed up due to heavy rains and the bulging Mississippi River.

Corps Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh has said he might also make use of other downstream “floodways”—basins surrounded by levees that can be blown open to divert floodwaters.

Walsh, who made the decision to blast the levee, said that with the Ohio River now expected to reach 63 feet in Cairo—just a foot under the top of the floodwall—he had no choice.

Missouri officials fought hard to stop the plan, filing court actions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S. officials weigh release of bin Laden photos

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

53osamaAs fresh details emerged Tuesday of an audacious American raid that netted potentially crucial al-Qaeda records as well as the body of Osama bin Laden, .U.S. officials weighed the pros and cons of releasing secret video and photos of the global terrorist leader, killed with a precision shot above his left eye.

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said the United States already was scouring items seized in the raid—said to include hard drives, DVDs, documents, and more that might tip U.S. intelligence to al-Qaeda’s operational details and perhaps lead to the whereabouts of the presumed next-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri.

As for publicly releasing photos and video, Brennan said careful consideration should be given to what kind of reaction the images might provoke.

At issue were photos of bin Laden’s corpse and video of his swift burial in North Arabian Sea. Officials were reluctant to inflame Islamic sentiment by showing graphic images of the body. But they were also eager to address the mythology already building in Pakistan and beyond that bin Laden was somehow still alive.

President Barack Obama, who approved the extraordinarily risky operation by Navy SEALs against bin Laden’s Pakistan compound and witnessed its progression from the White House Situation Room, reaped accolades from world leaders he’d kept in the dark as well as from political opponents at home.

The episode was an embarrassment, at best, for Pakistani authorities as bin Laden’s presence was revealed in their midst. The stealth U.S. operation played out in a city with a strong Pakistani military presence and without notice from Washington. Questions persisted in the administration about whether some elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus might have been in collusion with al-Qaeda in letting bin Laden hide in Abbottabad.

As Americans rejoiced, they worried, too, that terrorists would be newly motivated to lash out. In their wounded rage, al-Qaeda ideologues fed that concern. “By God, we will avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam,” one prominent al-Qaeda commentator vowed. “Those who wish that jihad has ended or weakened, I tell them: Let us wait a little bit.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mourners demand revenge after NATO strike

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

52libyaLibyans shouting for revenge buried Muammar Qaddafi’s second youngest son Monday, as South Africa warned that the NATO bombing that killed him would only bring more violence.

Libya’s leader did not attend the funeral of 29-year-old Seif al-Arab, but older brothers Seif al-Islam and Mohammed paid their respects, thronged by a crowd of several thousand. From several positions near the cemetery, sustained anti-aircraft fire erupted for several minutes.

Three of Qaddafi’s grandchildren, an infant and two toddlers, also died in Saturday’s attack, which NATO says targeted one of the regime’s command and control centers. Qaddafi and his wife were in the compound at the time, but escaped unharmed, Libyan officials said, accusing the alliance of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader.

NATO officials have denied they are hunting Qaddafi to break the battlefield stalemate between Qaddafi’s troops and rebels. Rebels largely control eastern Libya, while Qaddafi has clung to much of the west, including the capital, Tripoli. Fierce battles have raged in Misrata, a besieged rebel-held city in western Libya, which has been shelled by Libyan forces every day in recent weeks.

Although rebels have repeatedly called on NATO to use more firepower against Libyan troops, NATO’s role under a UN mandate is to protect Libyan civilians, but the international community has increasingly disagreed about what that entails. Western political leaders have called for Qaddafi’s ouster, prompting warnings from Russia, China, and others that regime change must not be the objective of NATO’S bombing campaign, now in its second month.

Responding to the attack on Qaddafi compound, South Africa said Monday that “attacks on leaders and officials can only result in the escalation of tensions and conflicts on all sides and make future reconciliation difficult.”

The bombing has not deterred Qaddafi from keeping up his attacks on Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city with 300,000 people. On Monday, regime forces deployed on the outskirts of the city shelled Misrata, including its port, for several hours, and doctors said 12 people were wounded.

In recent days, Qaddafi’s forces have tried to close access to the port, the city’s only lifeline.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Did we want bin Laden dead or alive?

Written by MINDY BELZ

Mindy0503b. . . In the 24 hours after Osama bin Laden’s May 1 death, Americans took not to TV monitors but to their laptops to debate the wisdom—and morality—of President Barack Obama’s shoot-to-kill order. Some wanted him alive, or his body, as proof of his capture, while others questioned whether taking his life really meant, as the president said, “Justice has been done.” Some Christians also said they were troubled by overnight street celebrations outside the White House, in New York City, and elsewhere, citing Proverbs 24:17: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” And Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle cited Matthew 5:44 (“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”) and said, “While celebrating may feel like the right thing to do, as Christians we should consider how we relate to the death of evildoers. . . . Christians do well to realize we are more murderous and hateful like Osama than we are perfect and holy like God.” . . .  MORE >>

Read Mindy Belz’s complete Web Extra report.

Whirled Views 05.03

Written by ANGELA LU

Good morning!

Random question fo the day: What do you think is the correct response to Osama bin Ladin’s death?

This is our daily (except for Sundays) open thread, where you can 1) answer my question, 2) talk about something else, or 3) say something truly encouraging to the commenter before you.

Roman Catholics thankful for John Paul beatification

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

52popeFor the second straight day, Roman Catholic faithful filled St. Peter’s Square on Monday in an outpouring of thanks for the fast beatification of John Paul II, a joyous celebration of the much-loved late pontiff.

“We thank the Lord for having given us a saint like himself,” said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s No. 2, to a cheering crowd estimated by the Vatican at 60,000, more than half of them from John Paul’s native Poland.

The beatification Sunday, the fastest in modern history, came six years after John Paul’s 2005 funeral drew calls of “Santo Subito!” or “Sainthood Immediately!” It drew 1.5 million people from across the globe, one of the largest Vatican celebrations ever.

The Mass on Monday began with a procession in St. Peter’s Square of bishops and cardinals in gold and white vestments. They walked beneath a large colorful photo of a youthful John Paul that was unveiled in an emotional moment during the beatification and now hangs from the loggia of the basilica.

One cleric carried aloft a relic, a vial of blood taken from John Paul for medical tests shortly before his death. A key feature of beatification ceremonies, the relic will be available for the faithful to venerate.

In his homily, Bertone recalled how John Paul, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, served as a model of saintly life when he lost “his physical strength, his expressiveness, the ability to move, even his speech.”

After Monday’s Mass, the basilica opened again to allow the faithful to file past John Paul’s simple wooden coffin, which was placed in front of the main altar and flanked by four Swiss Guards.

The Vatican said more than 250,000 people paid their respects between Sunday’s beatification Mass and 3 a.m. Monday, when the basilica was closed. The pope had been buried in the grottoes underneath the church, but his closed casket was brought to the church’s center aisle ahead of the beatification.

On Monday evening, in a private ceremony, the late pope’s remains were moved to a new resting place under the altar of St. Sebastian’s chapel in the basilica, the Vatican said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Court to hear U.S. passport dispute over Jerusalem

Written by EDITORIAL STAFF

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear an appeal from an American born in Jerusalem over whether he can have Israel listed as his birthplace on his passport even though U.S. policy does not recognize the once-divided city as belonging to Israel.

The justices will review an appeals court ruling against Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky and his parents, U.S.-born Jews who moved to Israel in 2000. They filed a lawsuit after State Department officials refused to list Israel as Menachem’s birthplace.

The boy was born in a Jerusalem hospital in October 2002, shortly after Congress directed, in a federal law, that Americans born in Jerusalem may have Israel listed as their place of birth. But the Bush administration said Congress may not tell the president what to do regarding this aspect of foreign relations. The Obama administration agrees with its predecessor.

When the high court hears arguments in the fall, the issue will be whether the congressional directive impermissibly interferes with the president’s power.

The State Department’s longstanding policy has been to refrain from expressing a view about Jerusalem’s status, despite the congressional action as well as Israel’s assertion of sovereignty over all of Jerusalem and declaration of the city as its capital. Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War brought the entire city under Israeli control.

The United States, which keeps its embassy in Tel Aviv, and most nations do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital and say the city’s status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel’s supporters in Congress have long objected to the official position on Jerusalem. In 1995, Congress essentially adopted the Israeli position, saying the United States should recognize a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Then in 2002, lawmakers passed new provisions urging the president to take steps to move the embassy to Jerusalem and allowing Americans born in Jerusalem to have their place of birth listed as Israel.

The measures were part of a large foreign affairs bill that President George W. Bush signed into law. But even as he did so, Bush issued a signing statement in which he said that “U.S. policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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