Star-Telegram.com: Breaking News

McCain taps Alaska governor for VP

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:40 CDT

By LIZ SIDOTI and BETH FOUHY

Republican John McCain introduced first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate Friday, a stunning selection of a little-known conservative newcomer who relishes fighting the establishment.

"She's exactly who I need. She's exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington politics of 'Me first and country second,' " McCain declared as the pair stood together for the first time at a boisterous rally in Ohio just days before the opening of the party's national convention.

Palin, the first Republican woman on a presidential ticket, promised: "I'm going to take our campaign to every part of our country and our message of reform to every voter of every background in every political party, or no party at all."

"... Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties," added the Palin, 44, who has built her career in large measure by challenging fellow Republicans.

In the increasingly intensive presidential campaign, McCain made his selection six days after his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, named Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, as his No. 2 on the ticket.

The contrast between the two announcements was remarkable - Obama, 47, picked a 65-year-old running mate with long experience in government and a man whom he said was qualified to be president. The timing of McCain's selection appeared designed to limit any political gain Obama derives from his own convention, which ended Thursday night with his nominating acceptance speech before an estimated 84,000 in Invesco Field in Colorado.

Public opinion polls show a close race between Obama and McCain, and with scarcely two months remaining until the election, neither contender can allow the other to jump out to a big post-convention lead.

On his 72nd birthday, McCain chose Palin, a woman younger than two of the Arizonan's seven children and a person who until recently was the mayor of small-town Wasilla, Alaska and has been governor less than two years. He settled on her six months after first meeting the governor and following only one phone call between them last Sunday and a single face-to-face meeting Thursday, according to a timeline provided by his campaign.

The Obama campaign immediately questioned whether she would be prepared to step in and be president if necessary.

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency," Adrianne Marsh, a spokeswoman for Obama, said in a written statement. A statement was put out on Obama's plane with the candidate merely welcoming her to the campaign.

President Bush complimented McCain for "an exciting decision."

"Governor Palin is a proven reformer who is a wise steward of taxpayer dollars and champion for accountability in government," a presidential statement said. "By selecting a working mother with a track record of getting things done, Senator McCain has once again demonstrated his commitment to reforming Washington."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who came so close to being the first major party woman presidential candidate, said in a statement: "We should all be proud of Gov. Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Sen. McCain. While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Gov. Palin will add an important new voice to the debate."

"It's an absolutely brilliant choice," said Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law. "This will absolutely energize McCain's campaign and energize conservatives," he predicted.

Palin's name had not been on the short list of people heavily reported upon by the news media in recent days, and McCain's decision was a well-kept secret until just a couple hours before Friday's rally.

McCain's campaign said that Palin and a top aide met with senior McCain advisers in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Wednesday night. The next morning, the campaign said McCain formally invited Palin to join the ticket on the deck of McCain's home near Sedona, Ariz., and later Thursday the governor flew to Middletown, Ohio, with staff to await Friday's event in Dayton.

Describing the process that led to her selection, Palin told reporters she'd received word that she was McCain's choice on Thursday and had met privately with him that day to discuss it. She spoke briefly as the two running mates surprised shoppers at the Buckeye Corner in Columbus, Ohio, where they purchased Ohio State University sports memorabilia. McCain and Palin started a bus tour across Ohio and to Pittsburgh, where they will hold a campaign rally Saturday. Ohio and Pennsylvania are two states that figure prominently in who wins the election this fall.

Asked why McCain chose her, his campaign manager Rick Davis said, "Part of it is personal fit."

"He sees Sarah, Governor Palin, as the future of the party," he added. "These are people he'd like to elevate in that regard. reformers."

Sharyl Odenweller, a retired teacher from Delphos, Ohio who was visiting the store, said she was pleased that McCain had chosen a woman and someone "very pro life." But, Odenweller also said, "I'd like to know more about her experience. If something happened to him, would she be qualified to step into the presidency?"

Karadzic makes defiant stand before UN court

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:35 CDT

By MIKE CORDER

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic made a defiant stand before a U.N. court preparing to try him on genocide charges, refusing to enter pleas Friday and branding the tribunal a NATO proxy out to "liquidate" him.

Judge Iain Bonomy entered not guilty pleas on Karadzic's behalf on 11 counts, which also include charges of crimes against humanity, allowing pretrial proceedings to proceed even though he rejects the court's legitimacy.

Karadzic is charged with genocide for allegedly masterminding atrocities, including the slaughter of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995 and the deadly siege of Sarajevo, when he was president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic.

He blended measured belligerence with sarcasm at his second appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslav, declining to respond to an indictment that accused him of orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

"This court is representing itself falsely as a court of the international community, whereas it is in fact a court of NATO whose aim is to liquidate me," Karadzic said. "I will not plead."

Bosnian Serbs count NATO as an enemy after the alliance launched a bombing campaign in August 1995, ultimately forcing the Serbs to negotiate an end to the war with the Dayton peace agreement.

Karadzic confirmed he intended to represent himself with a team of legal advisers, despite Bonomy's warning that the issues ahead would be complex and nuanced.

When the Scottish judge said the rules required him to plead not guilty on the defendant's behalf if Karadzic refused, Karadzic responded, "I would rather hear you say that at the end of the trial rather than the beginning."

The 25-minute hearing was a crucial step in Karadzic's case. He is accused of masterminding the worst atrocities perpetrated by Serb forces in the Bosnian war, which claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people, and of orchestrating the savage ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats to clear the way for a Bosnian Serb ministate.

It was Karadzic's first encounter with Bonomy, who also sat on the panel of judges during the latter half of the genocide trial of Slobodan Milosevic. The former Yugoslav president, who once was Karadzic's mentor, died of a heart attack in 2006 before his case concluded.

Bonomy was appointed to the case after Karadzic insisted on the removal of Dutch judge Alphons Orie, accusing him of bias at the first court hearing a month ago.

Karadzic, 63, one of the most familiar figures of the Balkan wars in the early 1990s, was arrested on a Belgrade bus July 21 while posing as a new-age guru. His disguise of a bushy beard and long white hair allowed him to move unrecognized through the Serbian capital despite being one of the world's most-wanted fugitives.

Survivors of the Bosnian war crowded into the court's public seating gallery to glimpse the man they say ruined their lives and it was a chilling experience for many of them.

"I had the feeling I was drowning," Munerva Avdic told Associated Press Television News. "And now that I'm talking to you I feel blood freezing in my veins."

Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica group that represents survivors of the massacre, said seeing Karadzic prompted painful flashbacks. "In my mind I saw my son, my husband and 22 members of my family that were killed in Srebrenica," she said.

In two written submissions filed since he was turned over to the court July 30, Karadzic claimed he cannot get a fair trial because the court is not impartial and public opinion has been poisoned against him. He has called for his case to be dismissed. He also claimed he had been promised immunity in a secret deal with U.S. peace broker Richard Holbrooke if he disappeared and did not disrupt the agreement ending the Bosnian war.

Bonomy, who must oversee preparations for Karadzic's trial, scheduled a Sept. 17 hearing at which Karadzic will get a chance to air his objections. The judge also made it clear he will run the case with a firm hand.

Bonomy scolded prosecutors for being slow to amend the latest version of the indictment from 2000 to update it with evidence heard in other trials since then.

When Bonomy formally entered the not-guilty pleas, Karadzic said, "May I hold you to your word ... that I am not guilty?"

The judge replied dryly, "We shall see in due course, Mr. Karadzic."

Body parts scheme ringleader pleads guilty in Pa.

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:55 CDT

By KATHY MATHESON

A man who made millions of dollars by plundering hundreds of bodies sent to funeral homes and selling their often-diseased parts and tissues to medical companies pleaded guilty Friday to a raft of charges that could send him to prison for life.

Michael Mastromarino, 44, of Fort Lee, N.J., pleaded guilty to hundreds of counts of abusing corpses, forgery, theft and other allegations stemming from an operation authorities say he ran with three Philadelphia funeral directors.

Mastromarino made millions of dollars off the scam, which also involved funeral homes in New York and New Jersey, prosecutors said. His attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr., described the scheme as driven by greed - one that was hard to stop because it was so lucrative.

"You just keep taking the money," Peruto said after the court hearing Friday.

The bodies, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, were carved up without permission and were not medically screened. They were sold around the country for dental implants, knee and hip replacements and other procedures.

About 10,000 people received tissue supplied by Mastromarino's company, New Jersey-based Biomedical Tissue Services; some say they have contracted diseases from tainted body parts.

Mastromarino previously pleaded guilty to enterprise corruption, body stealing and reckless endangerment in New York, where he was sentenced in June to 18 to 54 years in prison in June.

He did not make a statement in court Friday. He previously apologized to families in the New York area whose loved ones' bodies were dissected and, in some cases, reconstructed with plastic pipes in order to make them presentable for viewing.

In Philadelphia, authorities say Mastromarino went into business with James McCafferty and brothers Louis and Gerald Garzone because they collectively owned a crematorium.

Reconstructing plundered corpses was too expensive and time-consuming, so Mastromarino wanted to use bodies scheduled for cremation, Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos said Friday.

He paid McCafferty and the Garzones $245,000 for at least 244 cadavers between February 2004 and October 2005, Manos said.

Mastromarino would then send a "cutting" crew, led by former nurse Lee Cruceta, to Philadelphia to dissect the bodies. Cruceta pleaded guilty to abusing corpses and other charges in January.

Manos described a macabre operation in which bodies were left unrefrigerated, sometimes for days, while awaiting the cutting crews. The corpses' ages, causes of death and next of kin were falsified on various paperwork because Mastromarino was unconcerned about their conditions and whether permission had been obtained to harvest the parts, she said. Diseased tissue that was initially rejected by a medical supplier was often relabeled and resold, she said.

McCafferty has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and theft charges and is awaiting sentencing. The Garzones have pleaded not guilty are scheduled to go to trial Tuesday on abuse of corpse, theft and related offenses. Mastromarino will testify against them if asked, Peruto said.

"They were all in this together, and it is a tragic situation," Peruto said.

Gerald Garzone's lawyer disputed that.

"It's inaccurate to say we were all in this together," attorney William J. Brennan said Friday. "Mr. Mastromarino masterminded this entire operation."

Louis Garzone's attorney declined to comment.

Mastromarino has no sentencing agreement with Philadelphia authorities and faces a maximum of life in prison and more than $18 million in fines. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 22 and is seeking to have any Pennsylvania prison sentence run concurrently to his New York punishment.

CDC: Salmonella outbreak appears to be over

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:20 CDT

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

The government said Thursday that the salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 1,440 people appears to be over, but its ultimate source may never be known, partly because of shortcomings in the nation's food safety system.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said they found strong evidence to implicate jalapeno and serrano peppers, and a farm in Mexico, in the largest outbreak of foodborne illness in a decade. Investigators were unable to clear domestic and imported tomatoes, however, although the evidence against tomatoes is weaker.

The FDA also lifted its warning that consumers avoid eating jalapeno and serrano peppers from Mexico. But officials pointedly said that doesn't guarantee another such outbreak can be prevented.

"None of us can provide a cast-iron guarantee that salmonella Saintpaul will not re-emerge," said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's food safety chief. "We have not identified the total source of this."

FDA and CDC officials said a number of steps are needed to improve the safety of fresh produce, even as the government and the medical community are urging consumers to eat more fruits and vegetables for better nutrition.

Among those measures: Standard procedures and more funding to allow state laboratories to test samples of suspected pathogens more rapidly. Congressional action to give the FDA authority to impose produce safety regulations. And industry action to develop a faster system for tracing back to the farm any produce items suspected in an outbreak.

The CDC said the outbreak began in late April, and that by early August the number of new cases had fallen to levels that would be considered normal. Most victims got sick during May and June. And there have been no new restaurant clusters of cases since early July. That "is an important indication that this particular outbreak is over," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of CDC's foodborne illness branch.

Texas was the hardest-hit state, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the all confirmed cases. People were sickened in 43 states and Washington, D.C.

The joint investigation by CDC and the FDA found strong evidence that jalapeno peppers were a major carrier of the outbreak bacteria, and that serrano peppers were also a carrier. It was the first time that jalapenos were implicated in such an outbreak.

The salmonella strain was traced back to a jalapeno pepper at a produce distribution center in Texas that received peppers from Mexico. But FDA investigators struck out when they performed tests at the farm in Mexico where they believed the pepper had been grown.

Instead, they found the bacteria on another Mexican farm about 100 miles away from the first. The outbreak strain was isolated from water in a pond used for irrigation and from a sample of serrano peppers. Acheson said it is not completely clear that the second farm was the source of the outbreak.

Both farms provided produce to a common packing facility in Mexico, which shipped to the United States. That raises the possibility that contamination could have occurred during packing and shipping.

Consumers around the country first heard about the problem June 7, when the FDA issued a broad warning against eating various kinds of tomatoes.

Yet the extensive probe found not a single contaminated tomato. Still, investigators said they cannot rule tomatoes out as a carrier, particularly early in the outbreak. Interviews with patients who got sick suggested a strong link to tomatoes, which had been implicated in previous salmonella outbreaks.

"We continue to believe that association could reflect real contamination early on," said CDC's Tauxe. But he acknowledged the evidence is weaker when it comes to tomatoes.

"It is information that is more restricted in time and does not have confirmatory laboratory findings behind it," he said.

As the focus shifted to peppers, the U.S. tomato industry complained that the government had unfairly singled it out based on flimsy evidence, leading to an estimated $250 million in losses.

Probe reveals oxygen tank burst on Qantas flight

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:11 CDT

By ROD McGUIRK

An oxygen tank exploded and blew a car-sized hole in a Qantas jet last month, air safety officials said Friday, but investigators appear to be no closer to figuring out why.

The release of the interim report by Julian Walsh, acting executive director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, confirmed earlier suspicions by investigators that the tank was the cause.

"We don't really know why the bottle failed - and that's the key question for the investigation," Walsh told reporters in releasing the report. He said the investigation will likely continue for months.

The Boeing 747-438 aircraft, carrying 365 people, was flying over the South China Sea July 25 when the explosion blew a hole in the fuselage 79 inches wide and 60 inches high, the report said.

Walsh said one of the seven emergency oxygen cylinders below the cabin floor had exploded.

The 26-pound steel cylinder, pressurized to 1,850 pounds per square inch, "sustained a failure that allowed a sudden and complete release of the pressurized contents," Walsh said.

Most of the cylinder rocketed up through the cabin floor, shearing off an emergency exit door handle and narrowly missing a crew seat before striking the cabin roof. It ricocheted back down through the hole it created in the cabin floor, the report said.

Walsh said the cylinder had undergone a safety inspection shortly before it was installed in the jet and six weeks before it exploded.

The plane - en route from London to Melbourne, Australia - rapidly descended thousands of feet with the loss of cabin pressure and flew about 300 miles to Manila, where it made a successful emergency landing.

No one was injured, but questions were raised about the much-lauded safety of Qantas Airways, which has never lost a jet aircraft because of an accident.

In the weeks after the incident, Qantas planes experienced a number of other problems, including a loss of hydraulic fuel that led to an emergency landing, failure of landing gear, and detached panels.

The problems prompted the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Australia's aviation agency, to launch a review of Qantas Airways' safety standards.

Qantas Airways backed the bureau's findings.

"The preliminary report was a factual account of the incident and investigation to date," Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said in the statement. "Our own investigations agree with the ATSB's preliminary conclusions."

Qantas earlier this month temporarily pulled six planes from service because of irregularities in maintenance records. Qantas said it was a record-keeping issue and there were no safety implications for the aircraft.

McCain makes decision on VP running mate

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:12 CDT

By LIZ SIDOTI

Republican presidential candidate John McCain decided on a running mate early Thursday, and one top prospect, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, abruptly canceled numerous public appearances.

The Arizona senator will appear with his No. 2 at an Ohio rally on Friday, aides said, though they provided no details on who McCain had picked.

Without explanation, Pawlenty called off an Associated Press interview at the last minute, as well as other media interviews in Denver, site of the Democratic National Convention.

Others believed to be in contention for the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket included former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was meeting with donors throughout California, and Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who was vacationing on New York's Long Island.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, too, was still a possibility, as was the idea that McCain would choose a dark horse from any number of names that have circulated.

Fueling speculation that McCain would choose either Pawlenty or Romney or another conservative Republican, two GOP officials said they believed McCain had picked a traditional candidate. They based their conclusion on the fact that the campaign, which once had put the party on notice to prepare for the possibility of an unconventional candidate, does not have preparations in place to curb the fallout from a right flank that certainly would revolt if Ridge, an abortion-rights backer, or Lieberman, a former Democrat, was on the ticket.

McCain, for his part, was uncharacteristically silent.

As he and his wife, Cindy, boarded a plane in Phoenix bound for Dayton, Ohio, reporters shouted a barrage of questions at the senator about whether he'd made up his mind. McCain wasn't biting. He flashed a double thumbs-up and boarded the plane.

Earlier, he played coy.

In an interview aired Thursday morning, McCain said he still hadn't made up his mind. Far from quieting speculation, this only fueled it as he sought to siphon attention from Democrat Barack Obama's acceptance of the presidential nomination in Denver.

He told KDKA NewsRadio in Pittsburgh in an interview taped Wednesday: "I haven't decided yet so I can't tell you."

McCain, who spoke with the radio station from his home in Arizona, told people late Wednesday that he wasn't going to make a final decision until after he talked with his wife. She has been in the country of Georgia this week and returned sometime at nightfall.

With both the eventual pick and the effort to keep buzz alive beforehand, McCain's campaign hopes curb any uptick in polling that Obama might get from his convention and to create momentum heading into the gathering of GOP delegates for McCain next week in St. Paul, Minn.

Pawlenty, in Denver to criticize Democrats on McCain's behalf, canceled without explanation an afternoon roundtable interview with the AP as well as other media interviews. Questioned about the vice presidential selection earlier, Pawlenty would only say that he is to be in Minnesota on Friday for the state fair. He had cautioned during a series of morning TV interviews that while speculation might be fun, "most of it turns out to be inaccurate."

Romney, who had played the GOP attack-dog role earlier in the week at the Democratic convention, left his beachfront San Diego home Thursday morning with an overnight bag. His son, Matt, said Romney was headed to an unspecified location in the state. Asked about being vice president, the elder Romney said: "I don't have anything for you right now."

Ridge was at his suburban Washington, D.C., home. Asked by an AP photographer as he took out the trash if he had any travel plans for the day, Ridge smiled and said he didn't.

One Lieberman aide said there has been no indication he is the choice. For instance, no staff have been called to join him at his vacation site.

For months, McCain's vice presidential search process has been kept closely held by a small group of his advisers. But details have been trickling out this week.

This includes word from two Republicans that McCain met with his senior advisers in Arizona on Wednesday to discuss the pick, conflicting information about whether or not he had settled on a choice, and the campaign's announcement it would air a one-evening-only TV ad in battleground states around when Obama will be giving his prime-time acceptance speech.

Turns out the ad has nothing to do with the vice presidential choice, bearing only a simple message for Barack Obama: "Job well done."

Gulf Coast businesses say they're prepared for new storms

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:33 CDT

By KEVIN G. HALL

Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed the U.S. Gulf Coast in rapid succession, and with another potentially dangerous storm possibly arriving next week, businesses in the region say they are much better prepared this time.

The National Hurricane Center believes Hurricane Gustav, now south of Cuba, could make landfall in the U.S. by Tuesday, although where isn't yet known. So from the Florida Panhandle to Houston's industrial belt, Gustav preparations are under way.

"I think everyone has a hurricane preparedness plan that we might not have had previously," said Orlando Ciramella, trade development director for the port of Port Arthur, on the Texas coast. "We've got a command center now that is hurricane proof that was being constructed when Rita hit, so we do now have a secured command center where some of your emergency responders can meet."

One change that Ciramella said has taken place since the 2005 storms: Businesses are speeding shipments to get goods into the supply chain ahead of the storm, instead of holding them with plans to ship afterward. That means shortages that hit in the wake of Katrina and Rita are likely to be less noticeable should Gustav hit the Gulf Coast.

"Some of our customers are talking about having us work this weekend ... to get product into the supply line to feed their customers," Ciramella said. "One of the things learned from Rita is that we have more advanced planning, better communications, and people are taking these storms a lot more seriously than we did in the past."

A hard lesson learned from Katrina and Rita is that the rest of the U.S. depends greatly on the Gulf Coast, both for its energy production and for the barges that travel the inland waterway system. Those barges carry Midwest corn and soybeans for export, as well as coal and chemicals.

"Trust me, as soon as they even mention we start looking at it. We watch everything down there and try to react as best we can each day," said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge, a barge operator in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Iowa corn growers are nervously watching the weather reports because their harvest is less than a month away, and a major hurricane on the Gulf Coast could repeat the problems caused by Katrina and Rita in 2005. Those storms damaged Gulf ports and clogged shipping channels, backing up barge traffic hundreds of miles along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

Corn is already being harvested closer to the Gulf in states such as Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri, and growers could be forced to put their crops into storage should a major hurricane strike the Gulf Coast next week.

Few companies are watching Gustav more closely than Royal Dutch Shell. About 80 percent of Shell's U.S. oil and natural-gas production comes from the Gulf of Mexico, where it's the top oil producer. Shell's average daily gross production is equivalent to 510,000 barrels of oil.

Shell evacuated about 400 nonessential workers from its offshore oil-production sites in the Gulf on Wednesday, expecting that Gustav would gain strength over the warm, deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico later in the week. Shell began shutdown procedures Thursday for some of its sub-sea drilling units in the deeper Gulf waters that take longer to secure ahead of storms.

"We are working toward a full evacuation of Shell-operated assets in the Gulf," Shell said in a statement Thursday, adding that by the end of Thursday at least 700 people will have been evacuated from Gulf production. "We expect to evacuate the remaining 600 personnel on Friday and Saturday."

The Gulf Coast contains the greatest cluster of oil refineries in the United States, mostly in Texas and Louisiana. Refiners are readying their emergency plans in case they have to drain massive tanks to prevent leakage during a major storm.

"The process is comparable to a trip-wire - if it takes a plant 36 hours to empty its tanks of inventory and fill them with water, and if the plant is in the storm arc 36.5 hours out, shutdown procedures are enacted," said Bill Holbrook, a spokesman for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association in Washington, D.C. He added that "these kinds of events are different just about every time, and new variables can arise from the uncertainties that come with each storm."

Homeowners are also fretting about the coming storm. The good news: More homeowners across the Gulf region now have flood insurance than they did when Katrina and Rita struck within weeks of each other in 2005.

"We're better prepared to handle a catastrophe from an insurance point of view," said Mike Chaney, Mississippi's insurance commissioner, who also is the state's fire marshal.

The insurance industry is pre-positioning claims adjusters and the state is preparing to move deputy fire chiefs and rescue personnel to coastal regions or neighboring states, depending on where Gustav eventually comes ashore.

"There are just a whole lot of little parts to this situation that I am better prepared to handle," Chaney said, cautioning that "you are never prepared for a catastrophic event, but we are better prepared."

Still, there are likely to be plenty of insurance problems.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said that although the number of households with flood insurance has risen sharply in some Gulf Coast states, the percentage of structures within flood hazard areas with insurance has actually fallen in Texas and Alabama and only held steady in Mississippi. Louisiana stands alone as showing progress on this score.

Afghans say deadly US raid based on misleading tip

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:47 CDT

By FISNIK ABRASHI and JASON STRAZIUSO

Afghan officials said Thursday that a deadly U.S.-led special forces raid on a remote western village last week was based on misleading information provided by a rival clan.

It was the latest twist in a tangled debate over what happened. U.N. officials say the raid killed up to 90 civilians, most of them children. A NATO official said U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first, touching off a battle of several hours that killed 25 militants and five civilians.

The U.S. government is pressing for a joint U.S.-Afghan probe in hopes of reaching a common conclusion. Two Pentagon officials said Thursday a U.S. review concluded civilian deaths were far fewer than claimed by others. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report had not been made public, said the findings were given to Afghan leaders.

Evidence from all sides has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad on Aug. 22. But the claim of high civilian casualties, also made by Afghan officials, is causing new friction between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers.

Karzai has castigated Western commanders over civilian deaths from military operations, saying they create anger among Afghans that the Taliban and other insurgents use as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government.

Claims of civilian deaths can be tricky, however. Relatives of Afghan victims are given condolence payments by Karzai's government and U.S. military, providing an incentive to make false claims.

Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking Azizabad, a village in Shindand district of Herat province.

They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.

The officials said the raid was aimed at militants supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, who they identified as Nader Tawakal. Attempts to locate Tawakal failed.

Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with a vendetta or simply interested in generic reward money for anti-government militants.

In a report after the raid, Oliver North, a Fox News reporter who accompanied the U.S. special forces unit during the firefight, interviewed an unidentified American major on camera who said credible information had come from a council of local tribal elders indicating a Taliban meeting would be held in the village.

A top NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results of the U.S. investigation have not been released, said the U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first when they moved into the village before dawn.

He said combat spanned several hours, during which troops called in airstrikes from Apache helicopters, AC-130 gunships and Predator drones.

The clash destroyed or damaged 15 houses, the official said. Afghan officials give similar accounts of the extent of the damage on the property.

The U.S. and Afghan troops stayed in the village until 8 a.m. and counted 30 dead - 25 militants and five civilians, the NATO official said. The target of the operation, a militant named Mullad Siddiq, was killed, and there were no reports of mass casualties among civilians, the NATO official said.

Reports filed by North, a former Marine who played a key role in the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra affair, also said the first shots fired in the clash came from the village. He said the U.S. and Afghan troops received heavy fire from AK-47 assault rifles and machine guns during a 2 1/2-hour battle.

The Afghan military gave similar accounts of the clash soon after the raid, but within hours Afghan civilian officials were saying many innocent civilians had been killed.

U.N. officials later said that up to 90 civilians may have been killed, but a U.N. official said Thursday that the world body did not conduct an exhaustive and conclusive investigation. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said such a study was being done by the Afghan government.

Ahmad Nader Nadery, the head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, said his investigators concluded 91 people were killed in Azizabad: 59 children, 19 women and 13 men.

Nadery said 76 of the victims belonged to one large, extended family - that of Timor Shah's brother, who is named Reza. Reza was also killed, Nadery said.

Thai protesters push police off premier's compound

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:02 CDT

By SUTIN WANNABOVORN

Thai anti-government protesters occupying the grounds of the prime minister's office forced several hundred policemen off the compound early Friday and promised more action in their bid to oust the leader.

Police exercised restraint when the demonstrators - some armed with golf clubs, batons and bamboo sticks - pushed up to 400 officers out of the Government House grounds at about 1 a.m.

Protesters celebrated by dancing to rock music, a sharp contrast to the tensions Wednesday, when they feared a raid and threw up makeshift barricades.

"We can relax now, but please be cautious, they might return soon," protest organizer Samran Rodpetch announced from a stage.

Thousands of supporters of the conservative People's Alliance for Democracy spent a third night encamped at Government House in support of their campaign to force Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej from office.

The alliance accuses Samak's government of serving as a proxy for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and faces several pending corruption cases. Thaksin is in self-imposed exile in Britain.

After Thaksin was deposed in the bloodless coup, his party was dissolved and he was banned from public office until 2012.

But Samak led Thaksin's political allies to a December 2007 election victory, and their assumption of power triggered fears that Thaksin would make a political comeback on the strength of his continued popularity in Thailand's rural majority.

The number of protesters in and around the government compound has varied from a few thousand most mornings to a high of 30,000 who staged demonstrations at several locations Tuesday across Bangkok.

The alliance promised a "final showdown" this week, but has suffered several setbacks, including when it sent several dozen masked thugs Tuesday to take over a government-controlled television station. The band surrendered to police and video of the bullying tactics were broadcast repeatedly.

Meanwhile, railroad workers in Thailand walked off the job Friday, disrupting service on lines from Bangkok to the country's northeast.

The two-day strike was organized last year and is not related to the protests in Bangkok, said Sathorn Sinpru, a northeastern rail union leader.

"This is the result of money problems," he said.

Police issued arrest warrants Wednesday for nine of the group's leaders on charges of insurrection, conspiracy, illegal assembly and refusing orders to disperse. Insurrection, the legal equivalent of treason, carries a maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment.

Another court issued an order late Wednesday demanding that the protesters leave the government compound immediately and stop blocking streets. On Thursday, a court rejected the alliance's appeal of the order to vacate Government House, which was seized Tuesday.

One of the top alliance leaders, Chamlong Srimuang, told reporters Thursday night that protesters would continue to rally at the compound despite the court order.

Chamlong, one of the nine leaders sought by police, insisted the protesters were doing nothing wrong.

"We are staging a protest because the government has made too many mistakes and has no legitimacy to run the country," he said. "From now on, it will be stickier. Our political rallying will get stronger because more of our supporters from upcountry will come to help us. We will not back down."

The alliance's best known leaders are Chamlong, an influential former politician and army officer, and Sondhi Limthongkul, a media mogul.

In what appeared to be a related development, there were work stoppages by Thai railway workers on several lines Thursday after an unknown number of employees took immediate two-day sick leaves.

Spring's economic rebound unlikely to last

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:00 CDT

By JEANNINE AVERSA

The economy pulled out of a dangerous rough patch in the spring, thanks largely to strong exports, but the rebound isn't expected to last. Economic slowdowns overseas could make exports tail off just as Americans are hunkering down after the bracing impact of rebate checks wanes, plunging the country into another rut later this year.

"There will be heavy sledding for the U.S. economy during the next couple of quarters," predicted Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group.

Gross domestic product, or GDP, grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, its fastest pace in nearly a year, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The revised reading was much better than the government's initial estimate of a 1.9 percent pace and exceeded economists' expectations for a 2.7 percent growth rate.

The rebound followed two dismal quarters. The economy actually shrank in the final three months of 2007 and barely budged in the first quarter at a minuscule 0.9 percent pace. The 3.3 percent growth in the spring was the best performance since the third quarter of last year, when the economy was chugging along at a brisk 4.8 percent pace.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the numbers demonstrated the economy's resilience in the face of many challenges. But she added: "No one is doing a victory dance."

Others agreed that the growth pickup wasn't a sign of better days ahead. Analysts predict the second quarter will represent the high point for economic activity this year.

It's "the last hurrah for this economic cycle," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned the economy will be weak through the rest of 2008. Economists believe growth will slow in the July-September quarter to a pace of around 1.5 percent, and will turn even weaker in the fourth quarter. Some, including Regalia, think the economy might jolt into reverse yet again.

GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the best barometer of the country's economic health.

The economy is the top concern for Americans. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama favors a second government stimulus package, while Republican rival John McCain supports free trade and other business measures to buttress the economy.

On Wall Street, the GDP report lifted stocks. The Dow Jones industrials were up more than 180 points in afternoon trading.

For months, housing, credit and financial troubles have hammered the economy.

In turn, employers have clamped down on hiring, driving the nation's unemployment rate up to 5.7 percent in July, a four-year high. The Labor Department said Thursday the number of people signing up for jobless benefits declined last week for the third straight period, but remained above 400,000 - an indicator of a slowing economy.

Health care products maker Abbott Laboratories, telecommunications provider Embarq Corp., and aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. are among the companies recently announcing layoffs.

Employers have cut jobs every month this year and wage growth is trailing inflation. That combination raises concerns about the future of consumer spending, one of the pillars underpinning the economy.

The biggest factor in the GDP's second-quarter rebound was robust sales of U.S. exports. The weaker value of the U.S. dollar has bolstered those sales, which accounted for half of the gain in GDP. Exports grew at a 13.2 percent pace in the spring, more than double the 5.1 percent growth rate logged in the first quarter.

Imports, meanwhile, fell at a 7.6 percent annualized pace in the spring, as economic troubles in the U.S. crimped demand for foreign-made goods. The improved trade picture added 3.1 percentage points to second-quarter GDP, the most since 1980.

Against that backdrop, Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. on Thursday lowered its global sales target for next year, proof that even one of the world's most durable automakers is being hurt by a slowing U.S. market.

"With the rest of the world now slowing and the dollar off its lows, the U.S. will be more reliant on domestic demand in coming quarters," said Nigel Gault, an economist at Global Insight. "Since consumer spending is slowing down and the credit crunch is tightening its grip, it is hard to foresee another quarter with such a robust GDP headline for some time."

U.S. consumers did boost their spending at a 1.7 percent pace in the second quarter, the best showing in nearly a year. Government stimulus checks of up to $600 a person helped energize shoppers. But many expect consumers to pull back in the months ahead as unemployment rises, paychecks shrink and their biggest asset - their homes - continue to sink in value.