U.S.-Chinese tensions visible as Obama, Hu meet

NEW YORK— U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday he believes China’s emergence as a major power was good for the United States economically, but revealed Washington’s doubts about the long-term political goals of the world’s most populous country, which remains under Communist party rule.

“We welcome China’s rise,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Washington with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“We just want to make sure that that rise is done in a way that reinforces international norms and international rules, and enhances security and peace — as opposed to it being a source of conflict within in the region around the world.”

The comment reflected difficulties Washington has had in convincing China to be in sync with Washington on a series of international issues, not least with efforts to contain the threats posed by the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.

Still, China’s influence has surged to the extent that its relationship with the United States is now widely recognized as an indispensable bilateral partnership for both countries.

Based on the general nature of Mr. Hu’s statements at the news conference, there was little evidence he had given ground to gain any favour with Washington.

But Mr. Obama hinted at the price his administration is willing to pay to advance America’s links with China when Western reporters focused on the issue of China’s poor human-rights record.

Mr. Obama said he had been“very candid” in private with Hu about China’s shortfall in protecting individual rights — but added the two leaders’ differences would not “prevent us from co-operating” with Beijing on other issues.

“We believe part of justice and part of human rights is people being able to make a living and ... the development of China has brought unprecedented economic growth to more people more quickly than just about any time in history,” Mr. Obama said, using language that was far less forthright thanhe had used earlier in the day about the importance for any government to protect human rights.

The question-and-answer news conference was a rarity for Mr. Hu, whose public appearances are almost always scripted. But while the White House had insisted the two leaders appear together before the media, the event was encumbered by a lack of simultaneous translation— which Mr. Hu in turn blamed as he explained he had not answered a particular question on human rights because he had not heard it.

When it was put to him a second time, Mr. Hu acknowledged that“a lot still needs to be done” in his country regarding human rights, but signalled that the issue could not be rushed.

“China has made enormous progress (that is) recognized widely in the world,” Mr. Hu said.

“China recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights. And at the same time, we do believe we also need to take into account the different and national circumstances when it comes to the universal value of human rights.”

Mr. Hu highlighted the fact that China was a hugely populated, developing country at a“crucial” stage of reform. But while he claimed that the long-term goal was to “promote democracy and the rule of law” in China, he said Beijing expected the United States not to push the matter for the moment.

“There are disagreements between China and the United States on the issue of human rights,” he said.

“China is willing to engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.”

China’s now decades-old move toward a market-oriented mixed economy under one-party rule has helped lift millions among its 1.3 billion population out of poverty.

But deadly crackdowns on antigovernment riots in Chinese-controlled Tibet and the western Chinese Xinjiang region are among Beijing’s policies and actions that have come under increasing international scrutiny in recent years. China also holds an undetermined number of political prisoners, including 2010 Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11-year sentence the authorities imposed after he called for political reformsand an end the Communist party’s hegemony.

Mr. Obama had been more direct on the issue when he welcomed Hu to the White House early Wednesday— the Chinese president’s first full day of his three-day state visit.

Mr. Obama couched his admonishment in a declaration that played on China’s tendency to use the word “harmony” to describe social stability amid prosperity.

“History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are more successful and the world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld,” Mr. Obama said.

At the news conference, the two leaders also acknowledged differences over questions of trade and currency, with Obama saying several times that China’s yuan is undervalued, and that trade must take place on a “level playing field.”

Indeed, much of the relationship with China appeared to be based upon the promise of what it might bring, economically and strategically, rather than what exists.

“We want to sell you all kinds of stuff,” Mr. Obama said. He added China would “potentially” be good for the world “to the extent that China is functioning as a responsible actor on the world stage.”

Hu arrived Tuesday, and dined privately with Mr. Obama that night. Following the welcoming ceremony Wednesday, he met in the Oval Office with Mr. Obama, before joining a group of corporate executives to discuss the more than $400-billion trade relationship between the two countries. During the day, the White House announced China’s agreement to export deals worth $45-billion.

Mr. Obama was set to host Mr. Hu Wednesday night at a state dinner— the most lavish diplomatic party official Washington offers a visiting head of state.

Mr. Hu will visit the U.S. Congress on Thursday before flying to Chicago, where he will visit a Chinese spare-car-parts factory and a Chinese-language school. He returns to China on Friday.

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Canadians hoping for quiet spring before Kandahar pullout

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan— It’s a crucial question with no clear answer: will the Taliban return in strength to Kandahar when the traditional fighting season resumes after the annual opium harvest ends this spring?

It’s a question of immense interest to Canada’s battle group, which will continue to patrol one of the three districts in Kandahar, where the insurgency has always been strongest, until its combat mission ends this July.

With no firm evidence yet one way or the other, but armed with knowledge of the Taliban’s usual fighting calendar and their long history of resilience, Canada’s Task Force Kandahar — now led by a battle group in Panjwaii built around a Royal 22nd Regiment battalion — has had to prepare as if the enemy will be back again in April. With that possibility in mind, the Canadians have been trying to consolidate territorial gains made last year by maintaining a high operational tempo to create an environment stable enough to allow the Afghan government to begin offering services to the local population.

Postmedia News, along with some British and American journalists, have been reporting for several months now that the Taliban were dealt a devastating blow by coalition forces in Kandahar after a huge surge of U.S. troops last spring and summer.

The most obvious evidence that the Taliban may have abandoned Panjwaii is the greatly reduced number of violent confrontations there recently. Only three Canadians have died in Kandahar during the past 6 1/2 months and only a handful of significant incidents have been reported so far this year.

Although these numbers have not yet gained much traction in the Canadian media, as Canada’s mission focus narrowed to Panjwaii because of the U.S. surge, year-on-year casualties for Task Force Kandahar for the last half of 2010 dropped an astonishing 83%. The number of Canadians wounded in 2010 was down, too, although by a slightly lower figure when compared with 2009.

U.S. casualty figures for Afghanistan and for the south jumped about 60% last year. But that spike came before and during the surge. The recent death toll is similar to the same period 12 months earlier, although the number of U.S. forces has at least tripled since the end of 2009.

Parsing U.S. casualty figures for Kandahar is difficult, because of the way they are often broken down, but it appears 19 Americans have been killed in the province during the past three months. This is three fewer deaths than during the same period one year ago.

Nevertheless, there is no simple formula for gauging the actual success of the surge or for figuring out the Taliban’s intentions. Anecdotal reports from civilians in Kandahar suggest that the Taliban were vanquished in Panjwaii and two other districts to the northwest and west of the provincial capital that have always been most dear to them. It is also believed that the survivors had mostly fled to Pakistan while the others were lying low. Civilians figured the Taliban would decide not to return in great numbers in the spring because there was now such a dense presence of NATO and Afghan forces in the area.

Even the often troublesome Horn of Panjwaii, which Canada took responsibility for two months ago, appears to now be almost entirely free of Taliban. However, some insurgents continue to cause considerable trouble for U.S. forces a little to the north of the Horn in neighbouring Zhari and in Arghandab, which is closer to Kandahar City.

The general consensus among Afghans is that rather than fight against overwhelming odds in Kandahar, the Taliban would accelerate their intimidation campaign by trying to murder more provincial government officials, regrouping in their safe havens in Pakistan and shifting their fight to faraway areas where the coalition, until now, has had little presence. There was already considerable evidence that this had begun to happen last summer and fall, especially near the Uzbek and Tajik borders in the north.

If such trends continue, they will present NATO and Afghan forces with fresh challenges. But viewed through the Canadian federal government’s parochial prism, with Panjwaii quiet at the moment and Canada’s combat mission entering its final phase, the war in Afghanistan may be considerably less harrowing for its troops this year than it was from 2006 until last summer.

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Danish cartoonist says he escaped‘certain death’

AARHUS, Denmark - A cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Mohammed told a Danish court Thursday he narrowly escaped“certain death” when an axe-wielding Somali attacker broke into his home last year.

“He was chopping so violently with his axe on the bathroom door that it began to vibrate... I thought I was going to die,” Kurt Westergaard, 75, testified on the second day of the trial of his attacker, Mohamed Geele, in a court in Aarhus, central Denmark.

“It would have been certain death if he had managed to break it (the door) down,” he said, rejecting the 29-year-old Somali’s testimony on Wednesday that he had only wanted to “frighten” the cartoonist.

On the night of January 1, 2010, Mr. Geele had broken into Westergaard’s home in Visby, near Aarhus, screaming, according to the cartoonist’s testimony: “You must die! You are going to Hell!”

Mr. Westergaard, who was at home with the five-year-old daughter of a friend, rushed into a bathroom-turned-panic-room and called police.

When officers arrived, Mr. Geele, who is suspected of having links to the Somali Islamist movement Al-Shebab, came out wielding his axe and a knife. He was shot twice and placed under arrest.

Mr. Westergaard described his attacker as a“terrorist,” a “young, crazy religious man,” and a “soldier of the holy war.”

His attacker could face life in prison if found guilty on all of the numerous charges against him, which include attempted terrorism and attempted murder.

Mr. Geele had said he simply“wanted to frighten him but not to kill” Mr. Westergaard, adding he merely wanted the cartoonist to stop “dirtying” the prophet and Muslims like himself.

Mr. Westergaard -- the subject of numerous death threats since his drawing of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse was published -- rejected his attacker’s explanation.

“He just wanted to frighten me?” he said. “That is as believable as a child’s practical joke.”

Police officer Christian Worner, who had shot Mr. Geele, also took the stand and said the attacker’s attitude led him to think he was prepared to die at the scene.

“He chose confrontation with police instead of running away,” said the policeman, adding that once Mr. Geele was on the ground, he told the officer he was “an idiot who couldn’t aim” and yelled “Allah Akbar” (God is great.)

Prosecutor Kristen Dryman had hinted Wednesday that Mr. Geele performed a“ritual” often carried out by those who want to die as martyrs before travelling to Westergaard’s house.

Mr. Geele had rejected that hypothesis, insisting that if“I put on perfume and shave parts of my body, it is for hygienic reasons in line with Islam.”

He added the theory he wanted to die as a martyr at the hands of police made“no sense.”

Five-year-old Stephanie, the daughter of Mr. Westergaard’s friend who was with the caricaturist when he was attacked, also testified via video on Thursday.

Mr. Geele“looked at me and did not do anything to me. He was very angry against the old man. He left when he heard the police sirens,” she said.

Mr. Westergaard had left Stephanie in the living room when he darted into the bathroom-turned-panic-room, explaining on Thursday he knew the attacker was angry only with him.

The caricaturist has faced numerous death threats since the publication of his drawing, the most controversial of the 12 cartoons of Mohammed which appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005.

The drawings sparked angry and even deadly protests across the Islamic world in early 2006.

Mr. Geele’s trial is set to last for nine days and the verdict is expected around the first week of February.

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Wrong men convicted in Daniel Pearl murder: probe

WASHINGTON— The wrong men were convicted of murdering U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan in 2002, and U.S. officials stood in the way of the real murdered being brought to justice for the grisly crime, a report released Thursday says.

British-Pakistani Omar Sheikh and three other men who were convicted of killing Pearl were not even present when the Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered, says the Pearl Project report, which was led by Pearl’s friend and former colleague, Asra Nomani.

Meanwhile, the man fingered in the report as Pearl’s killer, Al-Qaeda strategist and suspected mastermind of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is unlikely ever to be brought to justice for the journalist’s brutal slaying.

The report says Mohammed told U.S. investigators at Guantanamo Bay prison that he slit Pearl’s throat and severed his head, and a technique called vein-matching has shown that his hand matches the “beefy right hand” captured in a video of Pearl’s murder.

But U.S. officials opted not to charge Mohammed with Pearl’s murder, fearing doing so would unravel their strategy for trying him along with four others for the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

“The Pearl Project reveals that justice was not served for Danny,” said Mr. Nomani, from whose home in Karachi Mr. Pearl set out on January 23, 2002, the day he was abducted.

Mr. Pearl thought he was heading to an interview with the alleged facilitator of shoe-bomber Richard Reid, the Briton who tried to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger jet over the Atlantic by igniting explosives packed into his footwear.

While the conspirators in Mr. Pearl’s abduction and slaying were “inept” and bungling, U.S. and Pakistani investigators who worked the case were not much better, the report says.

They began the case“chasing the wrong suspect, giving the killers time to slay Pearl and disappear.” They let a key informant go and failed to follow several potential leads.

The journalist’s killers bungled Mr. Pearl’s murder and had to restage it after “the cameraman failed to capture the original scene.”

The report was released after a three-year probe, almost nine years to the day of Mr. Pearl’s abduction on January 23, 2002.

Mr. Pearl’s body was found four months after he disappeared, cut into a dozen pieces, the head severed, the upper torso still clad “in the light blue track suit that Pearl’s kidnappers had him wear.”

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China does not pose a military threat, Hu says

NEW YORK— Chinese President Hu Jintao denied on Thursday that his country was interested in competing militarily with the United States — but warned against any foreign interference regarding Taiwan and Tibet.

Delivering his only speech during his four-day visit to the United States, Hu also made clear that China’s ruling Communist party remained committed to building a “socialist country” and that freedoms would be defined within the context of socialism.

“We will develop a socialist democracy, and build a socialist country under the rule of law,” Hu said in his speech, which he delivered to a mainly business audience in Washington.

“We will make continuous progress in our endeavour to build a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist country.”

The wording appeared to qualify references he made a day earlier on the question of democratizing China, during his news conference with U.S. President Barack Obama. Speaking from talking points rather than the unwavering script of a speech, Hu had surprised many China watchers by saying his government was working to“promote democracy and the rule of law” in the world’s fastest growing power.

Hu’s use of the word “harmonious” in his speech was also significant for China watchers. Chinese leaders frequently speak of seeking harmony within society, but their use of the word is often taken in the West to be a metaphor for social clampdown.

Hu additionally said in his speech that his government would“improve” rather than replace the “socialist market economy” — a reference to the system in which the Communist party tightly controls the free market reforms it began introducing a few decades ago.

Significantly, Hu’s remarks Wednesday about promoting democracy in China, and what he said about China having more to do to improve on its human rights record, were not even carried on China’s main television news bulletins.

On military policy, Hu told the business leaders that China did not seek dominance over other nations.

“We do not engage in arms races or pose a military threat to any country,” he said. “China will never seek hegemony or pursue an expansionist policy.”

China has 2.26 million military personnel on active duty, versus 1.58 million for the United States, whose overall population is less than a quarter of the size of China’s. But in comparison to the U.S., China is spending more than double the percentage of its national income on its armed forces, and it recently began test flying its first stealth fighter jet — a plane that would rival America’s F-22 Raptor.

Hu referred to Tibet and Taiwan as issues that“concern Chinese sovereignty and integrity” and so are out of bounds for foreign comment or action. “They touch on the national sentiment of 1.3 million Chinese,” he said, reflecting the Chinese view that its 1950 move into Tibet, and its call for re-absorbing Taiwan, do not constitute expansionism.

Hu met earlier Thursday with U.S. Congressional leaders, many of whom have been somewhat hostile in comments they’ve made about China regarding America’s numerous differences with that country over economic and security issues.

But his meetings with key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were reportedly somewhat more cordial than expected.

U.S. officials even warned reporters not to ask Hu questions as a security detail escorted him into the Capitol and ushered him into an elevator.

Some lawmakers at the House meeting griped that Hu took up much of the time by taking 20 minutes to answer questions from Republican House leader John Boehner on trade and the U.S. call for China to respect intellectual property rights.

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, who had last week called Hu“a dictator” before retracting the comment, said he was to focus on China’s currency policy and its poor human rights record.

Both Boehner and Reid boycotted the state dinner Obama hosted for Hu at the White House Wednesday night.

Postmedia News

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Giffords scrolling on iPad, standing

LOS ANGELES— Just 12 days after she was shot through the head at point blank range, Gabrielle Giffords is making “fantastic” progress, including scrolling through photos on an iPad and even standing with help, a doctor said Thursday. The husband of the Tucson, Ariz., representative added he was confidenthis wife would make a full recovery.

“I imagine the next step is here she’ll be walking, talking and in two months you’ll see her walking through the front door of this building,” Mark Kelly said at the University Medical Center (UMC) where she was taken after the shooting.

Her neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Lemole, also lauded Ms. Giffords’ progress, noting she was “beginning to stand with assistance.”

“She’s scrolling through an iPad. These are all fantastic advancements forward. They do indicate higher cognitive function,” he said.

“But, I do want to caution everyone that she has a long road ahead of her.”

Mr. Kelly, a space shuttle astronaut with the National Aeronautics& Space Administration, confirmed plans to move the 40-year-old to Houston, Tex., Friday so she would be nearer his work and his daughters.

The TIRR Memorial Hermann Institute for Rehabilitation& Research treats people for conditions ranging from brain and spinal cord injury to multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

“I’m extremely hopeful that Gabby’s going to make a full recovery,” Mr. Kelly said.

“I’ve told her that. She recognizes it. She’s a strong person, a fighter ... So I am extremely confident that she’s going to be back here and back at work soon.”

He added he believes his wife already has tried to speak but remains unable to do so because of the breathing tube inserted into her windpipe through her neck.

“She has a tracheostomy. Intellectually, she knows that’s there, she knows what that means. In my mind, she’s made some attempts.”

Mr. Kelly also said he and his spouse are tremendously thankful for the outpouring of support they have received, especially from Tucson

residents.

“One of the first things Gabby’s going to want to do as soon as she’s able is to start writing thank-you notes, and I’ve already reminded her

of that.”

Dr. Peter Rhee, the UMC’s trauma medical director, was vague when asked how much Ms. Giffords is believed to know about the circumstances of the shooting. He said she has not been told much about the attack and doctors are unsure what if anything she remembers of the incident.

© 2011 Thomson Reuters

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Terror accused likely to fight extradition to U.S., lawyer suggests

EDMONTON— A Canadian construction worker wanted in the United States on terror-related charges made a brief court appearance Thursday, marking the start of a months-long legal process as the U.S. seeks to have him extradited.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Sayfildin Tahir-Sharif said RCMP had given him limited access to his client, refusing to let the lawyer interrupt their interrogation following the terror suspect’s arrest in Edmonton on Wednesday.

A slight man with long black hair and a goatee, the 38-year-old Tahir-Sharif— who U.S. authorities allege is also known by several other names, including Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa — entered an Edmonton courtroom with his wrists shackled.

He did not address court during the proceeding, which lasted only for a few minutes. His case was adjourned for one week, when it will be back in a bail review court.

Outside the courthouse, lawyer Bob Aloneissi said his client, who was born in Iraq but is a Canadian citizen, has a home and a family, including children, in Edmonton.

Tahir-Sharif was“surprised” by the charges, he said.

“These are probably some of the most serious charges that an individual could face,” Aloneissi said.

Asked whether Tahir-Sharif would fight extradition, Aloneissi said,“I think any Canadian would want to stay to answer to these charges.”

Tahir-Sharif is accused of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and providing material support to terrorists, including Tunisian suicide bombers who killed American soldiers in Iraq.

“Faruq Khalil Muhammad Isa” is the name used by the U.S. government in its sworn statement seeking his extradition.

The man is also alleged to have sought permission to travel there to martyr himself, and to“obtain weapons and facilities from terrorist networks in Iraq to use in attacks in North America,” according to documents filed Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court in New York state.

Contacted by Global News, a woman living at the apartment identified as Tahir-Sharif’s home address suggested she had been misled by the man now standing accused of conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

“I don’t need anybody to ask me or question my life. I am questioning my life as it is, you know. I don’t need anybody else to come and question my life,” the woman said in a brief telephone interview.

“How can you even call him my husband? You know, the person I knew is not even the person I know. He’s like somebody else.”

Tahir-Sharif was arrested Wednesday morning in the area of 132nd Avenue and 82nd Street, provincial RCMP confirmed.

Court records list Tahir-Sharif’s address as an apartment building in the area. According to the records, he has lived there since at least May 2009.

The building’s site manager said he didn’t have much interaction with the man who lived in the apartment suite, but did say that he lived with a woman and a few young children.

The man’s lawyer said he only met with his client early Thursday morning, after receiving an initial phone call from him around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, shortly after Tahir-Sharif was taken into RCMP custody.

After that, he said, RCMP refused to let him speak to the accused that day, either over the phone or in person.

Aloneissi said he went to RCMP headquarters on Wednesday evening, but was not allowed to see Tahir-Sharif.

He said RCMP told him they did not want to interrupt their interrogation.

“I have concerns about that,” said Aloneissi. “That they would not even tell him I was there. I don’t think it helps when the RCMP separates you from your client.”

RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb said he could not comment on Aloneissi’s concerns about being denied access to his client during interrogation.

“I can’t speak to that at all. If he has a concern over it, he has to bring it up through the court system.”

Aloneissi said both U.S. and Canadian authorities have 60 days to fulfil requirements for the extradition process. It could then take up to six months before an extradition hearing is set.

An Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench judge will decide whether Tahir-Sharif should be extradited, Aloneissi said. The consent to extradition must then be given by the federal justice minister.

Aloneissi described his client as an ethnic Kurd who moved to this country from Iraq in 1993.

The lawyer said Tahir-Sharif moved to Edmonton from Toronto. He has a family and was working in Edmonton as a construction worker, applying stucco, the lawyer said.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb confirmed there are no Canadian charges against the suspect, and that none are expected.

Tahir-Sharif is being held in segregation at the Edmonton Remand Centre, pending his bail hearing.

“His English is OK, but he prefers to speak in Arabic, his mother tongue,” Aloneissi said.

He said it’s important for the community to understand that despite the nature of the allegations, his client is entitled to a proper defence.

“Every person has a right to counsel, and a right to be guided through the legal system fairly.”

Postmedia News

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British PM's communications chief resigns amid phone hacking scandal

LONDON— The British prime minister’s communications chief Andy Coulson resigned on Friday, as prosecutors stepped up their inquiries into illegal phone tapping at a tabloid newspaper when he was editor.

The resignation of Mr. Coulson, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s inner circle, is likely to embarrass Mr. Cameron and call into question his judgement in appointing the editor of a newspaper embroiled in police investigations.

“We confirm Andy Coulson has resigned,” a spokesman for Mr. Cameron’s office said.

Mr. Coulson was appointed as Mr. Cameron’s media chief after he quit as editor of the News of the World tabloid in 2007 when one of the paper’s reporters was jailed for secretly listening to phone messages of royal household staff.

Mr. Coulson denies being aware of any wrongdoing at the paper, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media group, and police said last month that there was not enough evidence to charge him with any crime.

British prosecutors said last week they would re-examine all material police held on alleged phone tapping.

The row comes at a sensitive time for News Corp which is waiting to hear if the British government will clear its planned $12 billion buyout of pay TV operator BSkyB or refer the deal to competition authorities for further investigation.

Mr. Cameron has repeatedly defended Mr. Coulson, and a Mr. Cameron spokeswoman had earlier on Friday said that Mr. Cameron had full confidence in Mr. Coulson and continued to do so.

© Thomson Reuters 2010

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U.K.'s first female Muslim Minister calls for discrimination to stop

LONDON• The first Muslim woman to sit in the British Cabinet warned Thursday that discrimination against Muslims in Britain has become socially acceptable and must be tackled.

“It has seeped into our society in a way where it is acceptable around dinner to have these conversations where anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry is quite openly discussed,” Sayeeda Warsi, minister without portfolio, told the BBC.

Ms. Warsi, a member of the unelected House of Lords and co-chair of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party, will also make her argument in a speech at the University of Leicester.

According to extracts in The Daily Telegraph, Ms. Warsi, who is of Pakistani origin, will blame the media for fuelling misunderstanding with labels such as“moderate” or

“extremist.” She will also call on Muslim communities to speak up more against Islamic extremism, an issue that has preoccupied British governments since four home-grown suicide bombers attacked London in 2005, killing 52 people.

In her speech, Ms. Warsi will say those engaged in terrorism must face the law but also“social rejection and alienation across society, and their acts must not be used as an opportunity to tar all Muslims.”

A spokesman for Mr. Cameron said Ms. Warsi“is expressing her view. He agrees that this is an important

debate.”

This year, Mr. Cameron said Britons must ask“how we are allowing the radicalization and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity.”

Research published this month by the U.S.-based Pew Forum on Religion& Public Life found the Muslim population of Britain was now 2.9 million, or 4.6% of the population, up from 1.6 million in 2001.

Ms. Warsi will say in her speech prejudice has grown with the numbers, and blame“the patronizing, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters, including the media.”

The notion all followers of Islam can be described as“moderate” or “extremist” can fuel misunderstanding and

intolerance.

“It’s not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of ‘moderate’ Muslims leads; in the factory, where they’ve just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: ‘Not to worry, he’s only fairly Muslim,’ ” she says.

“In the school, the kids say: ‘The family next door are Muslim but they’re not too bad.’

“And in the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burka, the passersby think: ‘That woman’s either oppressed or is making a political statement.’ ”

Defending her comments in a BBC television interview, she said her speech would place this criticism within historical context, citing how Britain had struggled to deal with its Roman Catholic and Jewish minorities.

She said it was up to society, religious leaders and the government to change things, adding,“We have faced these challenges before, we have worked through it and I’m confident that as a nation we can work through it again.”

However, Norman Tebbit, a Conservative peer, criticized her comments and suggested they should be directed at Muslim communities.

“I would have told her that the Muslim faith was not discussed over the dinner tables of England, nor in the saloon bars, before large numbers of Muslims came here to our country,” he wrote in a blog on the Telegraph website.

“Then I would have told her to go to our Christian churches and listen to what was said about her religion and those who practise it, then to the mosques to hear what is said in some of them about the Christian faith.”

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Diseased Canadian lobster causes scare in U.K.

The discovery of a disease-carrying Canadian lobster off the coast of southwest England has prompted warnings from a British fisheries agency that the creature could decimate that country’s own $50-million-a-year lobster industry.

The transatlantic visitor didn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean on its own. It’s suspected that the 30-centimetre-long Canadian crustacean — its claws held shut by elastic bands — was dropped overboard from a luxury yacht or otherwise escaped alive in the English Channel while being shipped overseas.

When the specimen was trapped recently along with several European lobsters, its presence along the shores of Devon triggered alarms from local fishermen because of the well-known risk of gaffkemia— a bacterial infection widespread among lobsters in North America — being spread to Britain’s disease-free population. The disease has no ill-effect on consumers eating lobster, but can severely reduce fishery productivity.

Tim Robbins, deputy chief of the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, told Postmedia News that while Canadian lobsters are often just carriers of the gaffkemia infection,“European lobsters have no immunity to it. It spreads through cuts and damage to the shell. And lobsters fight a lot, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to spread.”

The Canadian specimen was tested and determined to have gaffkemia, which can give infected lobsters pinkish tails and leave them unnaturally limp before death strikes.

Robbins said there have been five other documented cases of a Canadian lobster being found in British waters over the past year, each of which had the potential to send the infection raging through the unprotected native population. In one case, said Robbins, a seafood shop owner in the south Devon town of Salcombe was storing live, imported Canadian lobsters in a sea water holding area. Several escaped and were later captured in a trap set by local fishermen.

One trawler captain told the Daily Mail this week that when he discovered a Canadian lobster in his trap,“I knew it was trouble. It could, potentially, wipe out our native stocks.”

The Salcombe shop owner was unaware of regulations prohibiting the return of any impounded lobsters to the ocean, said Robbins. That incident and the other cases of alien lobsters being found among Britain’s native lobster population have led the Devon commission and other agencies to issue warnings about the need to keep Canadian and American lobsters out of European waters.

Robbins said the Canadian lobsters are distinguished from their European cousins by their slightly greenish hue.“Ours are a bit more of a blue colour,” he said.

He stressed that the known examples of foreign lobsters entering British waters have resulted from“ignorance” and were “not malicious.” Education, he added, should improve the situation. But he said it’s not clear whether the disease has been transmitted to local lobsters.

“Five cases in a year is not an epidemic,” he said. “But that’s just five that have been caught by our fishermen. I’m not that naive — there are probably more out there.”

Postmedia News

Source

Haiti's Duvalier hopes to run for presidency

PORT-AU-PRINCE— More than two decades after being ousted from power, ex-dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier aims to profit from Haiti’s turmoil to recapture the presidency, an aide said Wednesday.

The news came as Mr. Duvalier’s lawyer confirmed the former leader had returned from exile amid the political upheaval after disputed elections and planned to stay in the Caribbean nation which he once ruled with an iron fist.

“We need to shake everything up so that the elections are annulled and new elections are held in which Duvalier can run,” Henry Robert Sterlin, a former Haitian ambassador to France, told AFP.

“Then Bingo,” he would be re-elected, added Mr. Sterlin, who presented himself as the spokesman for Mr. Duvalier, once dubbed “president for life” until he was ousted by a popular uprising against his brutal rule in 1986.

Mr. Duvalier’s surprise return late Sunday has stoked further turmoil here, as Haiti struggles to recover from a devastating earthquake and resolve a political crisis triggered by tainted November presidential elections.

“He will stay in Haiti forever, it’s his country. And take part in politics. That’s his right. A politician never dies,” his lawyer Reynold Georges told AFP earlier Wednesday, adding that Mr. Duvalier was preparing to move back into his old house.

Memories of Mr. Duvalier’s repressive 1971-1986 regime remain strong, and human rights groups have accused him and his late father, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, of presiding over decades of unparalleled oppression and abuse.

On Tuesday, prosecutors charged him with corruption, embezzlement of millions of dollars from state funds, and criminal association.

And in a new legal challenge, four Haitians, including a prominent journalist, filed criminal suits against him Wednesday alleging crimes against humanity.

“We have lodged lawsuits for arbitrary detention, exile, destruction of private property, torture and moral violation of civil and political rights,” Michele Montas, former spokeswoman for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, told AFP.

Rights groups and opponents have long accused Mr. Duvalier of torture and killings, as well as plundering hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s coffers.

The dreaded Tonton Macoutes, a secret police force loyal to the Duvalier family, has been accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing up to 30,000 suspected opponents during the 1960s and 1970s.

But Mr. Georges protested against the legal moves, saying the statute of limitations had expired long ago.

“The law here in Haiti says you have 10 years to prosecute somebody if they accuse him of a crime and Mr. Duvalier was living in France for 25 years,” he told a group of journalists.

Mr. Duvalier, now 59, came to power in 1971 when he was just 19, succeeding his late father Francois“Papa Doc” Duvalier. He barred any opposition, clamped down on dissidents, and rubber-stamped his own laws.

But despite the past, he still enjoys some support.

“I think there is support for him, I don’t know how big it is,” Robert Fatton, a Haitian-born history professor at the University of Virginia, told AFP shortly after Mr. Duvalier’s return.

“You have to remember the Haitian population is very young. Something like half the population never experienced the viciousness of the dictatorship.”

Haiti’s political crisis deepened Wednesday when international monitors slammed the November 28 presidential vote as being riddled with irregularities and fraud.

A report released by the Organization of American States (OAS) recommended that President Rene Preval’s handpicked candidate, Jude Celestin, should be eliminated from the race.

Adjusting the results, the pan-regional OAS said Celestin should have been placed third in the first round vote with 21.9%-- thus barring him from a second round run-off.

Former first lady Mirlande Manigat won 31.6 percent and popular singer Michel“Sweet Micky” Martelly came second with 22.2% and should square off in the next round, the OAS recommended.

If the recommendations are implemented“the placement of the second and third candidates will be reversed,” the OAS report concluded.

But it remained unclear what steps Haitian officials would now take.

The Haiti election commission said late Tuesday that it would not necessarily be bound by the findings of the OAS mission, saying it would have to follow the correct legal procedures.

Source

Few reports from 7.2 Pakistan quake

ISLAMABAD— A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.2 shook southwestern Pakistan early on Wednesday, jolting residents of cities as far apart as Delhi and Dubai, but the epicentre was far from major population centres.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was more than 80 km (50 miles) underground, close to the town of Dalbandin in Baluchistan province, near the Afghan and Iranian frontiers.

Poor communications ensured there were few immediate reports from the vicinity of the quake, but despite the major strength of the shock, the great depth may have limited damage. The USGS had first said that the earthquake was very much shallower.

The USGS said the epicentre was 55 km (34 miles) west of Dalbandin, a town of about 15,000 people, and at a depth of 83 km (52 miles).

In Dalbandin, several people were injured when the roofs of their houses collapsed, provincial Transport Minister Amanullah Notizai told Reuters, but so far there were no reports of fatalities in the quake which hit at 1:23 a.m. (2023 GMT on Tuesday).

People in India’s border province of Rajasthan said cracks appeared in the walls of rural dwellings.

U.S. forces across the border in Afghanistan were unaffected by the quake, according to preliminary reports from the U.S. military.

As dawn breaks and officials reach the affected area, more damage and fatalities may be revealed in an area where traditional simple structures may have fared badly under the strains of the powerful tremor.

In Quetta, the largest city in Baluchistan and 331 km (205.7 miles) northeast of the epicentre, a woman died at a city hospital from a heart attack following the quake, hospital officials said.

And in the major Pakistani port of Karachi, 400 km (250 miles) away, people woke and rushed from their homes after the tremors. An official at Edhi Foundation, the biggest private ambulance and rescue service in Karachi, said there were no reports of any damage.

“I was sleeping when the quake struck and I felt like my bed was shaking. I got up and ran to check the children...and thankfully they were all okay,” said Masooma Rizvi, a housewife. “It was very scary. I have never felt anything like this before.”

The Pacific Tsunami Center said the onshore quake had not triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

A major quake of this magnitude, if at a shallow depth and close to population centres, is capable of causing widespread and heavy damage. Pakistan is still reeling from devastating floods last year that left more than 10 million people homeless.

In 2005, a 7.6 magnitude quake 95 km (60 miles) northeast of the Pakistani capital Islamabad killed over 70,000 people.

© 2011 Thomson Reuters

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David Cameron defends health-care overhaul

Evoking the memory of his late son, British Prime Minister David Cameron defended Monday his planned major overhaul of the National Health Service amid charges his reforms are“potentially disastrous.”

Cameron was speaking in advance of the tabling of legislation Wednesday intended to introduce greater private sector involvement as part of the most radical health care shakeup since the Second World War.

He painted a dismal picture of the NHS even though by international measures the system has performed well, particularly compared to Canada and especially the U.S.

And he said his motivation for pushing reforms in health care, education and other public services is driven by a“passion” that is both personal as well as political.

“The doctors who cared for my eldest son, the maternity nurses who welcomed my youngest daughter into the world, the teachers who are currently inspiring my children, all of them have touched my life, and the life of my family, in an extraordinary way, and I want to do right by them,” said Cameron, whose oldest son Ivan, who had both cerebral palsy and epilepsy, died in 2009 at age six.

He noted Monday that Britain has health outcomes that are“worse than many countries in Europe” in areas such as survival rates for victims of cancer and heart attacks.

“We face enormous pressures on demand – driven by an aging population, obesity and alcohol abuse and the rise of infectious diseases like TB,” he said.

“And at the same time, we have rising pressures on cost.”

But a coalition of health care unions, including the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing, said there’s clear evidence that price competition in health care is damaging.

“Furthermore the sheer scale of the ambitious and costly reform program, and the pace of change, whilst at the same time being tasked with making 20 billion pounds ($31 billion) of savings, is extremely risky and potentially disastrous,” they declared in a letter published in The Times newspaper.

The government announced last summer it will phase out England’s 150 primary care trusts and 10 strategic health authorities with approximately 500 general practitioner consortia.

Each will be GP-led and be responsible for purchasing care on behalf of patients, taking over about 80 per cent of the NHS’s annual budget of about $125 billion.

Allyson Pollock, a public health policy specialist at University College London, has argued the huge U.S. health management industry is now eyeing the British health system as an“unopened oyster” to be exploited.

The British health care system costs a little over $3,000 US per person in 2008, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared to about $4,000 in Canada and an eye-popping $7,500 in the U.S.

A poll last year of 19,700 people in 11 industrialized countries, including Canada, found that the NHS offers the only national system in which wealth doesn’t determine access to care.

Another 2010 Commonwealth Fund ranked the British system second of seven countries analyzed in terms of quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and healthy lives. On efficiency the UK was No. 1.

Canada ranked sixth overall in the survey, ahead only of the U.S. The Netherlands was the top-ranked country.

Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said there is no chance of Canada’s health system being dismantled.

“When people say in vague terms they want to change or dismantle the system, I think people don’t know specifically what it is they’re talking about in this case,”he told Postmedia News.

“The single most important thing the federal government can do is make sure the provinces have the funding they’ve been promised to run the health care system. We work co-operatively and we always work within the principle that we’re going to have the system of universal health care.”

The King’s Fund, an independent British think-tank, issued a report last year saying that “real strides” had been made over the past decade in improving the NHS.

“The King’s Fund supports the government’s aims but questions whether fundamental reforms are needed at this time,” concluded a King’s Fund analysis of Cameron’s reforms.

The report noted the considerable costs involved and disruption incurred in winding down the trusts at the same time as the system is being asked to cut billions in spending over the next four years.

“There are significant risks in making these changes.”

Postmedia News Europe Correspondent

Source

Exiled dictator‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier returns to Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Exiled former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude“Baby Doc” Duvalier returned unexpectedly to his Caribbean homeland on Sunday for the first time since he was forced out by a popular uprising and U.S. pressure in 1986.

Wearing a blue suit and tie, Mr. Duvalier, now 59, arrived at Port-au-Prince airport on an Air France flight from Paris, witnesses said.

Dozens of enthusiastic supporters greeted him, although the motive for his surprise return to the country was not immediately known.

Mr. Duvalier took the reins of power in Haiti in 1971, becoming president on the death of his father, the autocratic Francois“Papa Doc” Duvalier, who had ruled with a reign of terror. Jean-Claude, “Baby Doc,” was then the world’s youngest head of state at age 19.

Although he tried to improve Haiti’s image during his rule, he faced accusations of corruption, political repression and human rights abuses when he fled the country in 1986 during massive street protests and diplomatic pressure from Washington.

His unexpected return comes at a time when Haiti, still the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere, is facing political uncertainty following Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections whose preliminary results have triggered fraud allegations and street protests.

The chaotic elections went ahead during a cholera epidemic in the country, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake a year ago that killed more than 300,000 people.

Here are some facts about Mr. Duvalier:

* Mr. Duvalier, 59, is popularly known as“Baby Doc” and is the son of Haiti’s former authoritarian leader Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. He took power after his father’s death in 1971, becoming one of the world’s youngest heads-of-state at age 19.

*“Baby Doc” Duvalier ruled Haiti with an iron fist for 15 years, calling himself “president-for-life” before fleeing the country after an outbreak of popular protests. He lived in exile in France before his surprise return to Haiti.

* Together, the Duvaliers ruled Haiti for 28 years, using a sinister secret police force known as the Tonton Macoutes whose members wore dark sunglasses and carried pistols to suppress opposition. Critics accused the Duvaliers of living lavishly and doing little to alleviate poverty in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

* More than 100,000 Haitians fled the country under the younger Duvalier, many of them escaping on barely seaworthy rafts to seek asylum in the United States.

* Facing demonstrations that saw hundreds of thousands of Haitians take to the streets, Duvalier abandoned the presidency under pressure from the United States, handing over power to a six-man military and civilian commission in Haiti.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

Source

Tunisia tries to form coalition

TUNIS— Gunmen fired at random from cars in Tunis on Saturday and inmates staged a mass jailbreak while leaders tried to map out Tunisia’s political future after the president was swept from power.

The speaker of parliament, Fouad Mebazza, was sworn in as interim president. He asked Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi to form a coalition government and the constitutional authorities said a presidential election should be held within 60 days.

It was not clear who the assailants were but a senior military source told Reuters that people affiliated to former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali were behind the shootings.

Soldiers and tanks were stationed in the centre of Tunis to try to restore order in the aftermath of a night of looting that broke out when Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia following a month of violent anti-government protests that claimed dozens of lives.

A plume of black smoke billowed from a fire in a northern suburb of the Tunis and drifted across the skyline, leaving an acrid burning smell in the air several kms (miles) away.

As night fell, a Reuters reporter said suburban neighbourhoods were being guarded from looters by impromptu militias, made up of residents armed with clubs and knives. They blocked neighbourhoods and only allowed local people to pass.

For more Tunisia stories, click {ID:nLDE70A15X}

Instant view from commentators {ID:nLDE70E01R}

Analysis on Arab world impact {ID:nLDE70E04U}{ID:nLDE70E03N}

In a sign that Ben Ali’s rule was over, workers were taking down a portrait of the former president outside the headquarters of his RCD party on Mohamed V Avenue in the centre of Tunis.

“We are very happy to be free after 23 years of prison,” said Fahmi Bouraoui, drinking coffee in the Mozart cafe, one of a few businesses that reopened on Saturday morning.

But his optimism could be short-lived as parts of the country descended into chaos.

Tunisian analyst Taoufik Ayachi said of the drive-by shootings, about 10 km (6 miles) from the city centre on Saturday and in another suburb on Friday night:

“It is certain the presidential police are behind all this. They still hope to regain power.” {ID:nLDE70E062}

JAILBREAK

Dozens of inmates were killed when they broke out of Mahdia prison and the prison at Monastir, also south of the capital, was on fire after a separate escape attempt, witnesses said.

“They tried to escape and the police fired on them. Now there are tens of people dead and everybody has escaped,” said a local man, Imed, who lives 200 m (yards) from Mahdia jail.

Forty-two people died in the Monastir riot, the official news agency said.

In suburban Tunis, the big Geant shopping centre was on fire, witnesses said.

State television showed footage of dozens of people who had been arrested for looting and violence. They had knives and double-barrelled shotguns and a small lorry stocked with stolen shoes, electrical equipment and a display mannequin.

Ghannouchi earlier confirmed reports that members of Ben Ali’s family had been arrested, but did not say who.

Al Jazeera television also reported that Ben Ali’s head of presidential security had been arrested.

Protesters have threatened to continue their campaign.

“We will be back on the streets, in Martyrs Square, to continue this civil disobedience until ... the regime is gone. The street has spoken,” said Fadhel Bel Taher, whose brother was one of dozens of people killed in the protests.

The Eurasia Group consultancy said that without a definitive timetable for elections or a transitional government including opposition representatives, protests could continue:“Although the streets of Tunis are calmer than they have been in several days, Ben Ali’s departure is not likely to immediately defuse tension across the country.”

COALITION

The acting president on state television said he had asked the prime minister to form a coalition government.

“I have called on Mohamed Ghannouchi to form a new government of national unity,” he said in televised comments.

An opposition leader who held talks with the prime minister on Saturday said there would be more negotiations on Sunday.

“We discussed the idea of a coalition government and the prime minister accepted our request to have a coalition government,” Mustafa Ben Jaafar, leader of the Union of Freedom and Labour party, told Reuters.

“There will be another meeting with the aim of getting the country out of this situation and to have real reforms. The results of these discussions will be announced tomorrow.”

A representative in France of the PDP opposition party said it was impossible to organise elections within two months, as proposed by the Constitutional Council.

“We do not accept this deadline because at the time there is a revolution in Tunisia and they’re in the process of transforming it into a coup d’etat so that the party in power can keep its grip,” Iyed Dahmani told Reuters in Paris.

The ousting of Tunisia’s president after widespread protests could embolden Arab opposition movements and ordinary people to challenge entrenched governments across the Middle East.

“What is striking about Tunisia is how fast it happened — although there were decades of discontent behind it. That has to worry governments elsewhere,” Gala Riani, a Middle East Analyst with IHS Global Insight, said.

Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak has ruled for nearly 30 years, said it respected the choice of the Tunisian people. The Arab League called for calm and unity.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who refused permission for Ben Ali to enter the country, called for free elections as soon as possible and said it had taken steps to block suspicious movements of Tunisian assets in France.

“France is prepared to meet any request for help to ensure the democratic process takes place in indisputable fashion,” his office said in a statement after he met ministers.

Around 5,000 Tunisians and sympathisers marched through Paris on Saturday, one screaming:“It’s the end of 23 years of tyranny.” As many as 600,000 Tunisians live in France and about 25,000 French people live in the former colony.

Germany’s Angela Merkel urged Tunisia to introduce “a true democracy” and said the European Union would support it.

Hundreds of European tourists have been stranded by the unrest and were flown home on emergency flights. Tunisian air space, closed on Friday, was reopened and the official news agency said all airports were open.

Source

A day with Fox News

Shortly after Barack Obama delivered his address at the Arizona memorial service on Wednesday night, the cable-news pundits weighed in.

It was“remarkable and extremely effective,” one noted. “{The President} behaved,” another said, “with considerable dignity and grace.”

These plaudits were not exceptional on their own— Mr. Obama rarely gives a speech in which his oratorical skills are not saluted — but they were unusual because of where they occurred: Fox News Channel, where the panelists tend to range from conservative to stridently conservative.

On Thursday, the approving reviews kept coming. Morning show hosts played a clip of Mr. Obama’s closing remarks and one called it “an incredible moment.”

A Republican panelist said,“It was a brilliant speech and I commend him for it.” Bill O’Reilly, scourge of liberals everywhere, declared off the top of his show, “Most Americans recognize that President Obama gave an excellent speech last night.”

Even Glenn Beck called it a“tremendous speech,” although it is probably an indication of how little interest he had in praising the President that, after paying him a brief compliment, he changed the subject to what became an hour-long treatise on the propaganda techniques of the late Edward Bernays. (It’s possible thatthe lecture, which included props like bacon and cigarettes, eventually wound its way back to the Obama administration, but I bailed out at about the 45-minute mark.)

Had Fox News Channel gone soft? Or was all this cheerleading just a blip?

In the flurry of finger-pointing that began after the multiple homicides in Tuscon last weekend, Fox News was often singled out for criticism. It had raised the level of vitriol in political debate, critics charged. It had created a toxic atmosphere in which violence was ever more likely. As one Canadian columnist put it:“What Fox News has sown is now being reaped.”

These arguments have been derailed by the revelations the accused gunman was not likely to have been influenced by the news media: he didn’t consume it, friends said. But to watch Fox News this week was to see a network quite plainly aware of how it had become part of the story.

Canadians who have never tuned in to Fox News Channel could be forgiven for believing it solely broadcasts rank conservative partisanship: that’s certainly what its critics always say.

But for most of the on-air day, it’s much like the other news networks. There are serious stories about the news, but the anchors intersperse lighter fare. Thus, the item on Thursday about “extreme couponing,” featuring women who are devoted to saving money on household items. (“Most people think you can use only one couponper item. Not true,” one noted, sagely.)

There are interviews with politicians stumping for or against certain legislation, there are the video clips of weather disasters (floods, mudslides and volcanoes on Thursday alone) and there are uncomfortable segues between hard and soft news items.

Martha MacCallum, one of the hosts of America’s Newsroom, discussed how NFL quarterback Brett Favre’s sister had been charged this week in a meth bust. “In 1996 she was charged with unlawful use of a weapon in connection with a drive-by shooting. So, a lot of trouble going on there,” she said.

Co-host Bill Hemmer then introduced a clip of an eight-year-old girl singing the national anthem at a hockey game. Her microphone cut out, and the crowd joined in to finish the song.“Cute stuff,” Mr. Hemmer said.

But amid the banality would come moments of defiance from Fox News staff.

Mr. Hemmer was wrapping up an interview with a guest about Mr. Obama’s speech when he noted the part where the President said political discourse was not to blame for the tragedy.

“Wasn’t it just yesterday that the {Los Angeles} Times was blaming the right for this?,” Mr. Hemmer said.

“We don’t know if the guy owned a radio. Did he own a TV? Did he watch cable news? His friends say he didn’t pay attention!”

The guest nodded, and was thanked for coming on.

It was a theme that continued throughout the day. Megyn Kelly, host of America Live, said,“As soon as the news broke of the Arizona shootings, we started hearing voices, particularly on the left, blaming political rhetoric for helping contribute to this incident.” Then she played a clip of Mr. Obama saying no one can know what lurked in the mind of a gunman.

Neil Cavuto, host of Your World, aired video from the funeral of Christian Taylor-Green, the nine-year-old shooting victim. After a moment of quiet, he said the sad scene in Tuscon“shows how cheap the politics were that started immediately after. We don’t even allow ourselves the chance to mourn.”

He then mentioned Mr. Obama’s statements about rhetoric. “I thought the President was so eloquent,” he said. “The time for politics could have waited.”

Roger Ailes, Fox News’ president, said this week he had ordered his employees to “tone it down,” so perhaps the on-air personalities were doing just that. Or perhaps they aren’t the reflexive staunch conservatives critics make them out to be. Whatever the case, by Thursday night the discussion was again on familiar Fox ground.

Mr. O’Reilly asked his guest, conservative author Bernie Goldberg, about Mr. Obama’s call for civility.

Mr. Goldberg was skeptical it could be achieved.“You and I worked with these liberal elites,” he said, before continuing with a statement that was rather ironic considering it was in response to a question about civility.

“They not only think they’re smarter than those hicks and hayseeds who live between Manhattan and Malibu, they think they’re better, they think they’re more decent. The snobbery, the disgusting snobbery, is in their DNA.”

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

National Post

sstinson@nationalpost.com

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Obama hailed for role as healer-in-chief after U.S. shooting

TUCSON, Arizona— John Jewell did not vote for Barack Obama — and he never voted for Gabrielle Giffords either, for that matter.

But as the 59-year-old Tucsonan paid silent tribute to Ms. Giffords on Thursday outside the hospital where the Arizona congresswoman is recovering from her gunshot wound, he had a message for his president: Well done.

On the day after Mr. Obama rallied Americans to begin“talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds,” he was being praised by supporters and opponents alike who said his unqualified call for civility was the proper antidote to several days of finger-pointing in the tragedy’s wake.

“Both sides were accusing each other. We don’t need that right now. What we need is healing,” said Mr. Jewell, who brought his wife, Sharon, to the University Medical Center, where the front lawn was covered with tributes to the victims of the shooting.

“Let’s hope we come away from this with a new outlook. We all need to pull together.”

Tucsonan Linda Griber said she sensed Mr. Obama’s speech had already had a “very uplifting” impact on the city, perhaps the country.

“He said all the right things. I think the tone was perfect,” said Ms. Griber, who was dabbing tears from her eyes as she studied the makeshift shrines, posters and notes from well wishers.

“I think it gave people hope and maybe alleviated some of the pain.”

Mr. Obama’s speech was being dissected by America’s political punditry from the moment he finished addressing a 14,000-person strong crowd at a memorial service Wednesday night for the six people who were killed in Saturday’s shooting.

Some of the most gracious commentary came the president’s strongest critics on the political right, who said they saw in Mr. Obama a leader who — for one night, at least — transcended partisan politics.

“This is probably the best speech he has ever given, and with all sincerity, thank you Mr. President, for becoming the president of the ‘United’ States of America last night,” said Fox News host Glenn Beck. “It was needed and you accomplished the job and you did it expertly.”

Moreover, some conservative activists took Mr. Obama’s caution against being “too eager to lay the blame” as a gentle reproach to liberals who have blamed right-wing political figures such as Sarah Palin for poisoning America’s political discourse.

“This was a non-accusatory, genuinely civil, case for civility, in stark contrast to what we’ve read and heard over the last few days,” wrote Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review.

“He subtly rebuked the Left’s finger-pointing, and rose above the rancour of both sides, exactly as a president should.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican sometimes mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said Obama“did exactly what a leader should do at a moment like this.”

Mr. Christie was less charitable toward former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who has accused critics of manufacturing a“blood libel” by claims she bore some responsibility for the attempted assassination of Giffords.

Ms. Palin’s political action committee placed crosshairs over Ms. Giffords’ congressional district in an Internet posting.

“I don’t think anybody really believes Gov. Palin was really trying to make someone get hurt or bring violence on. And I think she should have just said that and left it at that.”

For residents of this Arizona city, Mr. Obama’s speech did something else — provide an emotional boost as it began burying its dead. The first of six funerals was held Thursday, for nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, a little girl born the day of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Slowly, the shock of Saturday’s shooting is giving way to optimism about the survivors.

In an emotional scene Thursday outside the hospital, shooting victim Ron Barber emerged in a wheelchair to view the tributes to him and others wounded in a shooting authorities allege was carried out by Jared Lee Loughner, 22.

Mr. Barber, a senior aide to Ms. Giffords, placed a single rose beside a photograph of his colleague Gabe Zimmerman, the 30-year-old congressional staffer who died in the shooting.

“Glad to see you here, Ron,” shouted one of those holding vigil.

“Thank you,” Mr. Barber replied, clutching his hand to his mouth with emotion.

Doctors said Ms. Giffords, 40, is increasingly making spontaneous movements, particularly with her left hand.

Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at the hospital, said he was present when Ms. Giffords opened her eyes— a development first reported by Mr. Obama during his speech. Her eyes have also started to track movements or objects in the room, he said.

“That’s important from a scientific or neurosurgical perspective: because it implies that . . . the parts of the brain that let us awake from sleeping, our arousal centre, those are starting to work spontaneously,” Dr. Lemole said. “She’s starting to become aware of her surroundings and ofthe context, the appropriate context of family, friends.”

While Tucsonans are applauding Mr. Obama for taking on the mantle of healer-in-chief, they responded with some indignation to complaints from some conservatives who said the celebratory feel to Wednesday’s memorial service was inappropriate to the occasion.

John Podhoretz, a New York Post columnist, described the cheering and standing ovations for Obama was“appalling behaviour” that made a sombre occasion resemble a pep rally.

“The crowd certainly wanted to hear the president speak. But they were there for the victims, and for Gabby,” Mr. Griber said in response.

“I thought the mood was just right. Those poor people — they just need that support. I saw it as a supportive thing. That’s how we feel.”

Mr. Jewell, for his part, said people were cheering“out of relief” for having made it through a trying week. “That was their way of grieving.

“It was a relief. People want to cheer. That’s their way of grieving.”

Source

Lebanese government collapses after mass resignations

UNITED NATIONS— Hezbollah and its political allies pulled out of Lebanon’s unity government Wednesday, forcing its collapse just as members of the extremist Shia group faced indictment in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Eleven of the cabinet’s 30 ministers announced their resignation, which brought about the government’s dissolution according to a law requiring all of Lebanon’s diverse religious communities to be represented.

The collapse raised widespread fears of a resurgence of violence in the country, which emerged from a 15-year civil war in 1990, and suffered sectarian strife as recently as 2008.

It also threw into question the timetable for unveiling the pending indictments, which will come from a United Nations-backed tribunal whose chief prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, took on the job after a long career in the Canadian legal system.

The resignations unfolded as Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri— son of the slain Lebanese leader — was meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence, which have been elusive for the small Middle Eastern country amid interference from Syria and manipulation by Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

But a White House statement claiming that Hezbollah’s move demonstrated the group’s “own fear” was, arguably, more wishful thinking than a reflection of reality.

Mr. Obama has been less emphatic than former U.S. president George W. Bush in pledging unwavering support for the Hariri government as his administration has sought a rapprochement of sorts with Syria, a Hariri foe.

This has been aimed at trying to stabilize Lebanon, draw Syria away from its alliance with Iran and, in the longer term, set the stage for a broader Arab-Israeli peace process.

Some have argued the strategy has helped Syria re-establish itself as a player in Lebanese affairs.

The UN-backed tribunal was expected to seek to indict two to six Hezbollah members within“hours or days,” according to reports.

But the militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a Nov. 11 speech that Hezbollah would “cut off the hand” of anyone who tried to arrest its members.

Many Lebanese blame Syria for the assassination of their former prime minister, and the tribunal initially pointed the finger at its operatives. But in the past year, members of Hezbollah have emerged as prime suspects.

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah has denounced the tribunal as an“Israeli project” and urged Mr. Hariri to reject it.

Energy Minister Jibran Bassil, one of the cabinet members who resigned, said he and the others acted because Mr. Hariri had“succumbed to foreign and American pressures.”

Environment Minister Mohammed Rahhal, a member of the Future Movement and Hariri ally, suggested the prime minister would not back down now.

“They think that by piling pressure on him, that Hariri will bend,” but they are mistaken,” he told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Mr. Hariri made no public comment as he left the Oval Office for France, where he was to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy before returning to Beirut.

He will lead a caretaker government until the country’s president meets with parliamentary blocs in a bid to agree on an acceptable new leader.

Hezbollah had only two seats in the cabinet under a November 2009 power-sharing deal that ended months of deadlock over the formation of a government following elections that year. But its political allies were given another eight, and an appointee of the president also joined the group who resigned.

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Haiti remembers victims ahead of earthquake anniversary

PORT-AU-PRINCE - President Rene Preval on Tuesday launched a poignant first anniversary remembrance of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, laying a wreath at the mass grave of tens of thousands of quake dead and saying his country would never forget the victims.

On a dusty hill overlooking the blue Caribbean 6 miles (10 km) north of the capital Port-au-Prince, the Haitian president, his wife Elisabeth and members of his cabinet attended a somber memorial for the some quarter of a million people killed in the Jan. 12 quake a year ago.

Between 150,000 and 200,000 victims are believed to be buried at the St. Christophe mass grave site, where in the chaotic days following the disaster trucks carried heaps of crushed and mutilated bodies gathered in the capital’s shattered streets for hasty burial in troughs scooped out of the earth.

“Women and men of Haiti, adults, children fallen in all places; at work, at school, at church, in the street, everywhere, we want to say to all: We remember you, we will never forget you,” Mr. Preval said.

Hundreds of black-painted wooden crosses cover the burial site, which was marked by two banners proclaiming in Haitian Creole“January 12, we will never forget.” A larger black cross overlooks the site, which was also flanked by recently planted trees and poles from which white fabric had been hung.

The anniversary of a disaster that many experts call the biggest urban catastrophe in modern history is going ahead amid a barrage of criticism and controversy over Haiti’s slow recovery and reconstruction, despite billions of dollars of international donations and aid pledges.

With rubble still clogging much of Port-au-Prince and more than 800,000 survivors camped out under tents and tarpaulins, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of the multibillion-dollar international aid effort.

“Look, nobody’s been more frustrated than I am that we haven’t done more,” said former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti who co-chairs an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission with outgoing Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

“But I’m encouraged if you look at how much faster it’s been going in the last four months,” Mr. Clinton told reporters at a debris-clearing site in Port-au-Prince.

“If you look at the level of activity on the street, I think we’re doing better,” he said, referring to the resurgence of traffic, pedestrians and street vendors that once again jam the streets of the sprawling capital.

Health workers in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest state are also grappling with a cholera epidemic that broke out months after the quake and has killed more than 3,750 people.

“We carry the mark of the catastrophe of January 12 in our bodies, in our hearts, in our souls,” said Mr. Preval, who has come under fire from critics who say his government failed to effectively handle the quake response and the cholera.

Mr. Clinton, whose own charity foundation has also been contributing to the recovery effort, was in the country with other foreign dignitaries and senior humanitarian officials to attend the quake anniversary commemoration.

Other memorial services are planned for Wednesday afternoon in Port-au-Prince, to remember the exact time— 4:53 p.m. — when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck on Jan. 12, 2010.

It only lasted 10 to 20 seconds but toppled buildings like cards, killing around a quarter of a million people, injuring more than 300,000 and making more than 1.5 million homeless.

Mr. Clinton said he hoped faster progress could be made this year with resettling the tens of thousands of homeless survivors, one of the most delayed post-quake recovery tasks.

“Housing is always the thing people want most, next to a job, and always the thing that takes the longest,” he said.

Mr. Clinton added his voice to appeals for a solution to the dispute triggered by chaotic UN-backed presidential and legislative elections held in Haiti on Nov. 28. Street riots and fraud allegations greeted the Dec. 7 preliminary results.

At the request of outgoing president Mr. Preval, Organization of American States experts have been verifying the contested preliminary results of the vote and their report was leaked to a U.S. media organization on Monday.

Citing vote tally irregularities, it recommends that a government-backed presidential candidate be eliminated from a second-round run-off, a recommendation that seems likely to roil the edgy political climate during the quake anniversary.

Mr. Clinton, who an aide said had not seen the OAS team report, told reporters:“I supported the OAS coming in ... we just need to proceed and resolve this.”

The electoral tension and uncertainty have stoked fears that political instability could delay the handover of billions of dollars of urgently needed reconstruction funds.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

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Arizona shooting suspect became an‘outcast’ in high school

As a high school freshman, Jared Lee Loughner seemed an average kid with a head of curly hair and a talent for the saxophone. But in the ensuing years his classmates described a youth growing increasingly disturbed.

Kylie Smith, told the New York Times she had known Mr. Loughner since elementary school.“It just seems so out of character for the Jared I grew up with,” Ms. Smith said.

At Mountain View High School in Tucson, friends remembered Mr. Loughner as odd but generally amiable. He wore shorts some days, like many of the other students, and dark“goth”-style clothes with chains on others. He was enough of a joiner to play in the jazz band. “He was just a normal kid who doodled and wrote things on his notebooks,” said Michelle Martinez, a classmate.

But during his junior high year, things began to deteriorate, other acquaintances told the Wall Street Journal, he began using drugs and his grades fell apart. One friend, Zach Osler, said he would suddenly embark on odd discourses,“He didn’t make sense,” Mr. Osler said. Then he would shut up. “A lot of the time he was mute,” Mr. Osler told the paper.

In tenth grade everything started to fall apart. High school friend Alex Montanaro told the Wall Street Journal Mr. Loughner took a turn after a break-up with a girlfriend. He started hanging out with drug users, grew distant from his friends and“really became an outcast,” said Mr. Montanaro. Classmate Catie Parker described him as a “pot head” and by grade eleven his marks had dropped. He didn’t bother returning for grade twelve.

In 2007 he could have been graduating high school, but instead was arrested on drug charges. That year he also made his first contact with Ms. Giffords at a“Congress on your Corner” event and said after that he found her “stupid and unintelligent.”

In 2008, he tried to enlist in the Army but failed a a drug-screening test.

Mr. Loughner enrolled at Pima Community College where several classmates noticed his odd behaviour. Lynda Sorenson had an algebra course with Mr. Loughner last June and noticed something was off during the very first class.“We do have one student in the class who was disruptive today, I’m not certain yet if he was on drugs (as one person surmised) or disturbed,” wrote Ms. Sorenson in an email to a friend obtained by the Washington Post. “He scares me a bit.” In a later email, she wrote, “He is one of thosewhose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird.”

Professor Ben McGahee told the New York Times that Mr. Loughner responded with an incorrect answer to a math question and asked him,“How can you deny math instead of accepting it?” Mr. McGahee said that Mr. Lougher continued with a pattern of disruptive and erratic behaviour including hysterical laughter and explosions of anger. “I was afraid he was going to pull out a weapon,” said Mr. McGahee.

Poetry student Don Coorough told CBS that Mr. Loughner read a poem about bland tasks such as showering, going to the gym and riding the bus in a wild style,“grabbing his crotch and jumping around the room.” Mr. Coorough told CBS, “He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child. He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.”

Steven Cates, who attended the advanced poetry writing class with Mr. Loughner, said he liked to talk about philosophy, logic and literature. He“didn’t have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence,” Mr. Cates told CBS.

Mr. Loughner dropped out of the college last October when he was asked to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

National Post

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Shooting could subdue overheated U.S. political rhetoric

WASHINGTON - Protesters parade an altered photo of President Barack Obama sporting an Adolf Hitler-like mustache. A candidate for the U.S. Senate muses about gun“remedies” if election results don’t go the right way. Members of Congress are spat on and taunted with racial epithets before casting votes for a healthcare reform bill.

Welcome to politics American-style.

For the past few years, some public officeholders and pundits have warned that the political rhetoric has gotten a little too overheated in a country known for its loose gun laws and history of presidential assassinations.

Now, in the aftermath of Saturday’s Arizona shooting rampage that left a congresswoman in critical condition from a gunshot to the head, six people dead and 13 others wounded, some are saying it’s time to reset the tone of America’s political discourse.

A suspect in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, of Tucson, is in custody but his motives are unclear. The FBI is investigating whether the man is the same person who posted a rambling Internet manifesto accusing the government of mind control and demanding a new currency.

Pending clarity on the reasons for the shooting, senior politicians have called for calm.

“We ought to cool it, tone it down,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a member of the Senate’s Republican leadership, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

An angry America is no doubt the result of economic woes underscored by an unemployment rate that has been stuck at nearly 10% for a prolonged period.

The Tea Party movement— a loose union of conservatives who have mostly supported Republican candidates or have run as Republicans — has capitalized on the uncertain times, winning dozens of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Some Tea Party“town hall meetings” have included angry confrontations with incumbent members of Congress.

Republicans, however, point out that the suspected shooter might not have been acting out of political motivations.

“We just have to acknowledge that there are some mentally unstable people in this country; who knows what motivates them to do what they do,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

But 10 months ago, in the midst of a tough re-election campaign, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was gunned down on Saturday, warned that she had been receiving violent threats. Shortly after she voted for Mr. Obama’s healthcare reform bill, a window in one of her Arizona offices was smashed.

“Our office corner has really become an area where the Tea party movement congregates and the rhetoric is really heated. Not just the calls but the e-mails, the slurs,” Ms. Giffords said at the time.

A local sheriff in southern Arizona does not believe the shooting occurred in a vacuum.

“When the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates, and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has impact on people especially who are unbalanced personalities,” said Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting, there could be a pause in Washington’s harsh talk and infighting, according to some analysts.

“Temporarily, politicians are really going to be careful about what they say,” predicted Paul Sracic, chairman of the political science department at Youngstown State University in Ohio.

But, he added,“American politics has a very short memory” and issues that deeply divide the country — from immigration policy to healthcare — are likely to stoke political anger again.

Furthermore, the carnage in Arizona likely will have an impact far beyond Ms. Giffords and the other shooting victims, according to Sracic.

“I certainly think in the short-term it damages (Sarah) Palin’s political cache,” Mr. Sracic said.

Ms. Palin, the failed 2008 Republican candidate for vice president who has hinted at a possible run for president in 2012, has used some highly charged language in fund-raising efforts and other forums and has sometimes been depicted toting a rifle.

“Commonsense conservatives& lovers of America:“Don’t Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!” she tweeted amid the healthcare debate last year.

On a Facebook site in early 2010, Ms. Palin posted a map of the United States with cross hairs over 20 congressional districts held by Democrats she hoped would be thrown out of office. It included the seat held by Ms. Giffords.“It’s time to take a stand,” the posting said.

“That’s going to be hard for her to overcome,” Mr. Sracic said, adding, “With this, she comes across as irresponsible. It has damaged her chances as a nominee” for president.

Palin aide Rebecca Mansour, speaking on conservative radio host Tammy Bruce’s show on Saturday, tried to play down the cross hairs image.

“The graphic is ... we never ever ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply cross hairs like you’d see on maps ... a surveyor’s symbol,” she said.

There also can be political winners after such tragedies, Mr. Sracic noted.“We should expect President Obama’s popularity to rise after this,” he said, adding that “Americans look to the president” after any tragedy that is viewed as “an attack on the country as a whole.”

House Speaker John Boehner— only five days into his new job after Republicans gained control of the House in the November elections — also could see a boost, Mr. Sracic said.

“He may be the right person at the right time for this,” saying that Mr. Boehner is not the polarizing figure that former speakers Newt Gingrich or Nancy Pelosi have been. “He doesn’t have that kind of edge. He may become somewhat of a unifying figure in Congress.”

© Thomson Reuters 2011

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Suicide bomber kills 17 at Afghanistan bath house

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan— A Taliban suicide bomber on Friday assassinated a police commander and killed 16 others at a public bath in southern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, the deadliest attack in months.

The militia claimed responsibility for the attack. Policemen, who are generally less well protected than soldiers, are common targets in the Taliban’s nine-year insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government.

The bombing underscored the perilous security in parts of the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home, despite being the focus of the U.S.-led military strategy to reverse their momentum.

It was the deadliest bomb attack in Afghanistan since a northern provincial governor and 19 other people were killed at a mosque in Takhar on October 8.

“At around 12:00 pm a suicide bomber blew up explosives strapped to his chest at a public bath in Spin Boldak,” border police official General Abdul Raziq told AFP.

Apart from the head of the rapid reaction border police unit, who was killed, and two policemen who were wounded, all the other casualties were civilians, Mr. Raziq said.

The local government confirmed from provincial capital Kandahar that at least 17 people had been killed in the attack and that 23 people were wounded.

Shopkeeper Mujebullah, whose cousin was wounded in the attack, said the baths were in a crowded market and used by people to wash before attending the main weekly Muslim prayers.

“The public baths were destroyed. Lots of dead bodies were picked out of the rubble at the beginning and afterwards,” he told AFP.

“Different people were killed in this explosion — old people, even children,” he added.

The administration released a statement saying the bomber had been targeting a police commander named Ramazan, who died in the attack.

Spin Boldak is a short distance from the border with Pakistan, where U.S. officials say the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents use rear bases to plot attacks in Afghanistan and the West.

Taliban spokesman Yusuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone that the militia killed the police commander and denied that civilians had been hurt, saying that when Ramazan used the public baths, he cleared everyone else out.

“Today is Friday (the weekly Muslim day of rest). There weren’t any civilians inside,” he told AFP, speaking from an unknown location.

The Taliban are fighting to bring down the Western-backed Afghan government and expel 140,000 U.S.-led foreign troops.

U.S. officials say an American-led military campaign in the south is make-or-break for the war, pinning their hopes on undermining the Taliban in its heartland and limiting the number of attacks such as Friday’s bombing.

The U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan said bomb attacks killed three of its soldiers on Friday, two in the east and one in the south.

It declined to identify the soldiers’ nationalities. In 2010, 711 foreign troops were killed during the war, by the far the deadliest annual toll in the nine-year conflict.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates has ordered an extra 1,400 U.S. Marines to southern Afghanistan in a move the Pentagon said would put pressure on the Taliban in order to pre-empt a traditional insurgent offensive in the spring.

Defence officials expressed hope that the extra troops would bolster areas recently cleared between Kandahar city and Helmand province.

There are about 97,000 American troops in Afghanistan and 45,000 from other countries. Officials said the new Marines would not push the total number of U.S. forces above the limit of 100,000 authorised by President Barack Obama.

A year after ordering 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan as part of a last-ditch“surge” strategy designed to defeat Al-Qaeda and reverse the Taliban, Obama conceded last month that gains were fragile and reversible.

U.S. commanders are under pressure to show clear progress in Afghanistan in 2011 so that at least a limited drawdown of American troops can begin from July, or else face fresh public doubts about the course of the war.

Agence France-Presse

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Iran refuses entry to American woman suspected of being 'spy'

TEHRAN— A U.S. woman reported by media to be a suspected spy was refused entry at a border crossing with Armenia a week ago over a visa problem, Iran’s Al-Alam television reported Thursday, citing a security source.

That contradicted earlier media reports that she had been arrested.

“The American woman was not able to enter Iran,” Al-Alam said. “She approached the border guards, but as she did not have a visa, she was not authorised to enter Iran. She was sent back to Armenia.”

Earlier in the day, Fars news agency reported that Iranian officials had arrested an American woman on spying charges after she tried to enter the country from Armenia“with spying equipment in her teeth.”

“About a week ago an American spy woman whose name is said to be Hal Talayan was arrested by customs officials at Nordouz” border area in East Azarbaijan province, Fars said, quoting an unnamed source.

“The 55-year-old American woman was arrested while she had entered Iran from Armenia without a visa and had placed spying equipment in her teeth,” the report said, without elaborating.

“This American spy said after arrest that she would be killed by Armenian security forces if Iran handed her over,” Fars said.

There has been no official confirmation of any version of the story, which was first reported on Wednesday by a little known conservative news website Nasimonline.ir, without naming any sources.

Its unsourced, unconfirmed report was carried by several Iranian newspapers on Thursday morning.

The woman would have been the fourth American to be arrested by Iran on spying charges along with hikers Sarah Shourd, 32, Shane Bauer, 28 and Josh Fattal, 28.

The three insist they innocently strayed across the border when they were detained on July 31, 2009 during a hike in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

While Ms. Shourd was released last year on humanitarian grounds, Iranian authorities have not dropped the case against her and officials have set February 6 as a trial date for all three hikers.

Their trial date coincides with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution and the fall of the U.S.-backed shah’s regime — when anti-American rhetoric traditionally reaches a climax.

Iran is also detaining two German journalists after they were arrested in October while interviewing the son of a woman condemned to death by stoning.

Tehran says the Germans entered the country on tourist visas and failed to obtain the necessary accreditation for journalists from the authorities before“posing as reporters” when they contacted Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s family.

After Ms. Shourd was freed on hefty bail in September, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested that the United States free eight jailed Iranians as a“humanitarian gesture” in exchange for the two remaining hikers.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner rejected any link at the time.

“We would just say that there is no equivalent between these individuals who have been either charged or tried and afforded due process in a court and these hikers who crossed an unmarked border and have yet to be charged,” Toner said.

Iran is also under mounting international pressure led by the United States over its controversial nuclear programme which is feared to cover a weapons drive.

Iran denies the charge and is due to hold a second round of talks over its nuclear programme with world powers in Istanbul in late January.

Agence France-Presse

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