John Nichols
The Nation -- What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) -- that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary's heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?
Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that "her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA" and that "there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;" now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton's campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?
As she campaigns now, Clinton says, "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning."
But the White House records confirm that this is not true.
Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.
When it comes to the essential test of the trade debate, Clinton has been identified as a liar -- a put-in-boldface-type "L-I-A-R" liar.
Those of us who covered the 1993 NAFTA debate have frequently expressed doubts about the former First Lady's recent statements. We never heard anything at the time about her dissenting from the Clinton Administration line on trade policy. And we knew that she had defended NAFTA in the years following its enactment. But fairness required that we at least entertain that notion--promoted by the lamentable David Gergen, himself a champion of free-trade policies while working in the Clinton White House--that Hillary Clinton had been a behind-the-scenes critic. We had to at least consider the possibility that, at the very least, Clinton had been worried that advancing NAFTA would trip up her advocacy for health care reform, that she had made her concerns known and that she had absented herself from pro-NAFTA lobbying.
This was certainly the impression that Clinton and her supporters sought to create as she campaigned in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana--states where worried workers want to know exactly where the candidates have stood and currently stand with regard to trade issues.
But that impression was a deliberate deception.
And we must all now recognize that when Hillary Clinton speaks about trade policy, she begins with a lie so blatant--that she's been "a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning"--that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Television's History Channel is History
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - The History Channel is now history.
Make that History. The cable network quietly dropped "the" and "channel" from its name recently, claiming History for itself.
"Our brand is, in the media landscape, synonymous with the genre of history so I don't think it's presumptuous of us to call ourselves History," said Nancy Dubuc, the network's executive vice president.
That's how many viewers already refer to it, she said. "Channel" is a drag on efforts to establish the brand in other media, like on the Internet. There were no licensing issues involved in the switch, she said.
The network has even changed its "H" logo to make it look bolder, less ancient.
Once dubbed "The Hitler Channel" for all of its World War II documentaries, History has switched to a more "immersive" style that tries to show rather than tell, she said. Adventure-seeking is in. Sitting in an armchair telling war stories is out.
History is following the model of Discovery, whose popular "Deadliest Catch" series about Alaskan crab fishermen is one of the most influential shows on cable. History has its own "Ice Road Truckers" about drivers on frozen lakes in Canada and just started "Ax Men" about loggers.
The series "MonsterQuest" may sound like a video game; it's about searches for mythic creatures.
"It's not exactly history, is it?" said Sean Wilentz, award-winning history professor at Princeton University.
"Anybody who thinks that there's only one place to go for history is badly mistaken," Wilentz said. "Why are they doing that? I don't know. Especially at a time they are moving away from history? I don't get it."
Although the attention-getting "Life After People" special dramatized a world after the human race had been wiped out — prehistory, in other words — Dubuc said she's concentrating on building signature series that people will return to each week.
Despite his bewilderment at the change, Wilentz and another prominent historian said they appreciated any efforts to get more people interested in the topic.
"Truth is that I love history so much and if the changed name brings more people to watch more history it's all to the good," said Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Gordon Wood, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Brown University, doesn't watch the network much.
"I must confess, I'm still back in the reading-of-books stage," he said.
___
History Channel and A&E: A&E Television Networks, a joint venture of Hearst Corp., Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal.
NEW YORK - The History Channel is now history.
Make that History. The cable network quietly dropped "the" and "channel" from its name recently, claiming History for itself.
"Our brand is, in the media landscape, synonymous with the genre of history so I don't think it's presumptuous of us to call ourselves History," said Nancy Dubuc, the network's executive vice president.
That's how many viewers already refer to it, she said. "Channel" is a drag on efforts to establish the brand in other media, like on the Internet. There were no licensing issues involved in the switch, she said.
The network has even changed its "H" logo to make it look bolder, less ancient.
Once dubbed "The Hitler Channel" for all of its World War II documentaries, History has switched to a more "immersive" style that tries to show rather than tell, she said. Adventure-seeking is in. Sitting in an armchair telling war stories is out.
History is following the model of Discovery, whose popular "Deadliest Catch" series about Alaskan crab fishermen is one of the most influential shows on cable. History has its own "Ice Road Truckers" about drivers on frozen lakes in Canada and just started "Ax Men" about loggers.
The series "MonsterQuest" may sound like a video game; it's about searches for mythic creatures.
"It's not exactly history, is it?" said Sean Wilentz, award-winning history professor at Princeton University.
"Anybody who thinks that there's only one place to go for history is badly mistaken," Wilentz said. "Why are they doing that? I don't know. Especially at a time they are moving away from history? I don't get it."
Although the attention-getting "Life After People" special dramatized a world after the human race had been wiped out — prehistory, in other words — Dubuc said she's concentrating on building signature series that people will return to each week.
Despite his bewilderment at the change, Wilentz and another prominent historian said they appreciated any efforts to get more people interested in the topic.
"Truth is that I love history so much and if the changed name brings more people to watch more history it's all to the good," said Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Gordon Wood, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Brown University, doesn't watch the network much.
"I must confess, I'm still back in the reading-of-books stage," he said.
___
History Channel and A&E: A&E Television Networks, a joint venture of Hearst Corp., Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal.
Bin Laden urges jihad for Palestinians
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF and KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writers
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden lashed out Thursday at Palestinian peace negotiations with Israel and called for a holy war to liberate the Palestinian lands. A day after a bin Laden audio on a militant Web site threatened Europeans, Al-Jazeera TV broadcast audio excerpts attributed to the al-Qaida leader that urge Palestinians to ignore political parties "mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy" and to rely on armed might.
"Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron," he said.
It was the first time bin Laden spoke of the Palestinian question at length since the deteriorating situation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military has been fighting with militants who fire rockets into southern Israel.
Bin Laden added that Palestinians who are unable to fight in the "land of Al-Quds" — a Muslim reference to Jerusalem — should join the al-Qaida fight in Iraq.
"The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field," he said.
He also called on the people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to "help in support of their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task."
Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the recording, which was broadcast with an old photograph of bin Laden in a white headscarf and traditional Arab dress.
There was no indication how recently the recording was made, or if it was an unreleased part of the audio posted late Wednesday on an extremist Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past. The two messages were bin Laden's first this year.
In the first recording, bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a "new Crusade" against Muslims and warned of a "severe" reaction for Europeans' publication of cartoons seen by Muslims as insulting Islam's prophet.
In the audio on Al-Jazeera, bin Laden said the sufferings of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip began when Arab leaders supported the U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., and the "Zionist entity," the militant name for Israel
The mention of the Annapolis summit in November was the only time reference given in the audio.
"By their support, they are considered partners to this horrible crime," bin Laden said of Arab leaders who are backing the Mideast peace talks.
He appeared to be seeking to merge the Palestinian cause into the wider al-Qaida struggle. There have been concerns al-Qaida would try to increase its influence in Palestinian territories, with supporters of the terror network calling for such action on Web sites.
Israel has been battling Hamas in Gaza since the Islamic militant group took control of the strip last June from followers of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli air raids are common in Gaza and militants fire rockets into Israeli towns near the strip.
"Palestine will not return to us with the negotiations by the submissive rulers, their conferences, nor by demonstrations and elections," bin Laden said. "Palestine will come back to us if we awaken from our ignorance and adhere to our religion and sacrifice our lives and means to it."
Although al-Qaida has previously released two messages in as many days — most recently by bin Laden's top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri in December — the latest two appeared to be the closest by bin Laden, said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages.
"Al-Qaida has been making a concerted effort to be responsive to developments in news cycle and to respond to current events with their perspective on it," Venzke said. "The situation in Gaza and the reprinting of cartoons was something bin Laden felt was important to address."
A militant Web site that frequently carries al-Qaida postings, said later Thursday that it expected bin Laden's new audio on "The Way to Salvage Palestine" soon.
In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel told The Associated Press that Israel does not comment on bin Laden's statements.
Saeb Erekat, a negotiator for Abbas' Palestinian administration, said it was up to all parties in the talks to show that bin Laden's path isn't the way.
"We and the international community must prove him wrong, because we have been pursuing peace through negotiations, and I believe the parties involved must make every effort to make the year 2008 a year of peace," Erekat said.
The audio released Wednesday raised concerns al-Qaida was plotting attacks in Europe. Some experts said bin Laden, believed to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan area, might be unable to organize attacks himself and was trying to fan anger over the cartoons to inspire violence by supporters.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the contents of bin Laden's message "are filled with hate and encouraging people to murder innocents in the name of a perverted and depraved cause."
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Thursday that bin Laden's accusation about the pope was baseless. He said Benedict repeatedly criticized the Muhammad cartoons, first published in some European newspapers in 2006 and republished by Danish papers in February.
___
Associated Press Writer Ian Deitch contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden lashed out Thursday at Palestinian peace negotiations with Israel and called for a holy war to liberate the Palestinian lands. A day after a bin Laden audio on a militant Web site threatened Europeans, Al-Jazeera TV broadcast audio excerpts attributed to the al-Qaida leader that urge Palestinians to ignore political parties "mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy" and to rely on armed might.
"Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron," he said.
It was the first time bin Laden spoke of the Palestinian question at length since the deteriorating situation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military has been fighting with militants who fire rockets into southern Israel.
Bin Laden added that Palestinians who are unable to fight in the "land of Al-Quds" — a Muslim reference to Jerusalem — should join the al-Qaida fight in Iraq.
"The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field," he said.
He also called on the people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to "help in support of their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task."
Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the recording, which was broadcast with an old photograph of bin Laden in a white headscarf and traditional Arab dress.
There was no indication how recently the recording was made, or if it was an unreleased part of the audio posted late Wednesday on an extremist Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past. The two messages were bin Laden's first this year.
In the first recording, bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a "new Crusade" against Muslims and warned of a "severe" reaction for Europeans' publication of cartoons seen by Muslims as insulting Islam's prophet.
In the audio on Al-Jazeera, bin Laden said the sufferings of Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip began when Arab leaders supported the U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., and the "Zionist entity," the militant name for Israel
The mention of the Annapolis summit in November was the only time reference given in the audio.
"By their support, they are considered partners to this horrible crime," bin Laden said of Arab leaders who are backing the Mideast peace talks.
He appeared to be seeking to merge the Palestinian cause into the wider al-Qaida struggle. There have been concerns al-Qaida would try to increase its influence in Palestinian territories, with supporters of the terror network calling for such action on Web sites.
Israel has been battling Hamas in Gaza since the Islamic militant group took control of the strip last June from followers of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli air raids are common in Gaza and militants fire rockets into Israeli towns near the strip.
"Palestine will not return to us with the negotiations by the submissive rulers, their conferences, nor by demonstrations and elections," bin Laden said. "Palestine will come back to us if we awaken from our ignorance and adhere to our religion and sacrifice our lives and means to it."
Although al-Qaida has previously released two messages in as many days — most recently by bin Laden's top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri in December — the latest two appeared to be the closest by bin Laden, said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages.
"Al-Qaida has been making a concerted effort to be responsive to developments in news cycle and to respond to current events with their perspective on it," Venzke said. "The situation in Gaza and the reprinting of cartoons was something bin Laden felt was important to address."
A militant Web site that frequently carries al-Qaida postings, said later Thursday that it expected bin Laden's new audio on "The Way to Salvage Palestine" soon.
In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel told The Associated Press that Israel does not comment on bin Laden's statements.
Saeb Erekat, a negotiator for Abbas' Palestinian administration, said it was up to all parties in the talks to show that bin Laden's path isn't the way.
"We and the international community must prove him wrong, because we have been pursuing peace through negotiations, and I believe the parties involved must make every effort to make the year 2008 a year of peace," Erekat said.
The audio released Wednesday raised concerns al-Qaida was plotting attacks in Europe. Some experts said bin Laden, believed to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan area, might be unable to organize attacks himself and was trying to fan anger over the cartoons to inspire violence by supporters.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the contents of bin Laden's message "are filled with hate and encouraging people to murder innocents in the name of a perverted and depraved cause."
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Thursday that bin Laden's accusation about the pope was baseless. He said Benedict repeatedly criticized the Muhammad cartoons, first published in some European newspapers in 2006 and republished by Danish papers in February.
___
Associated Press Writer Ian Deitch contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
Obama's passport records improperly accessed
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contract workers for the U.S. State Department improperly viewed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's passport records three times this year in what his campaign called "an outrageous breach" of his privacy.
The State Department said its initial assessment was that three workers in separate offices looked at the records out of "imprudent curiosity" rather than any political motivation but that it had requested an investigation into the matter.
The incidents, which occurred on January 9, February 21 and March 14, were quickly reported to lower-level State Department officials but only came to the notice of its senior management when a reporter e-mailed spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday.
Two of the three contract workers were fired as soon as the unauthorized viewing of Obama's files was discovered, while the third has been disciplined but still works for a contractor who has business with the State Department.
"At this point in time, it's our initial view that this was imprudent curiosity on the part of these three, separate individuals," McCormack told reporters in a hastily arranged conference call on Thursday night.
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."
"We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," the Obama spokesman added.
Obama learned of the incidents on Thursday on a plane between campaign stops in West Virginia and Oregon. His staff will get a more detailed briefing on Friday from Undersecretary of State Pat Kennedy.
Word of the passport breach came as Obama, who would be America's first black president, was trying to rebound after a rocky patch. The Illinois senator delivered a major speech this week on race relations in an effort to explain his relationship with his controversial longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
SENSITIVE INFORMATION
The latest Gallup survey showed Obama trailing rival Hillary Clinton by 49 percent to 42 percent among Democrats in the contest to select the Democratic nominee to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the November 4 election.
A spokesman for Clinton, a New York senator, said of the security breach, "If it's true, it's reprehensible, and the Bush administration has a responsibility to get to the bottom of it."
A political firestorm erupted in 1992 after State Department officials searched Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport and citizenship files. The search coincided with Republican attacks on Clinton for his role in the Vietnam anti-war movement as a student at Oxford University in 1969 and for a trip to Moscow he made at the same time.
An investigation found no laws were violated but that officials exercised poor judgment.
Speaking to reporters, U.S. officials said they had asked the State Department's inspector general to conduct an independent investigation of how and why Obama's records were accessed and what, if anything, was done with the information.
"We are now checking to make sure exactly what information was in the files that were accessed," Kennedy told reporters, saying it would typically include passport applications.
Applicants must provide such sensitive information as a social security number, date of birth, address and telephone number as well as their parents' names and places of birth when they apply for a passport.
The officials said that when a prominent person's passport records are accessed, it triggers an alarm in the computer system and the person who viewed them is questioned to see if there was a legitimate reason for looking at the file.
Despite her lead in the latest poll, Clinton trails Obama in the state-by-state contest for delegates that began in January. The nominees are formally chosen by delegates at the parties' conventions in the summer.
Clinton had hoped to try to chip away at Obama's delegate lead with a rerun of Michigan's contested Democratic presidential primary. But a Clinton-backed "do-over" proposal effectively died in the Michigan Legislature when lawmakers adjourned on Thursday without considering the plan.
Obama opposed rerunning the Michigan primary. The Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries were invalidated because both states ignored party directives and held their balloting earlier than allowed.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, JoAnne Allen, Jeff Mason, Patsy Wilson and Matthew Bigg; Editing by Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Contract workers for the U.S. State Department improperly viewed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's passport records three times this year in what his campaign called "an outrageous breach" of his privacy.
The State Department said its initial assessment was that three workers in separate offices looked at the records out of "imprudent curiosity" rather than any political motivation but that it had requested an investigation into the matter.
The incidents, which occurred on January 9, February 21 and March 14, were quickly reported to lower-level State Department officials but only came to the notice of its senior management when a reporter e-mailed spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday.
Two of the three contract workers were fired as soon as the unauthorized viewing of Obama's files was discovered, while the third has been disciplined but still works for a contractor who has business with the State Department.
"At this point in time, it's our initial view that this was imprudent curiosity on the part of these three, separate individuals," McCormack told reporters in a hastily arranged conference call on Thursday night.
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."
"We demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," the Obama spokesman added.
Obama learned of the incidents on Thursday on a plane between campaign stops in West Virginia and Oregon. His staff will get a more detailed briefing on Friday from Undersecretary of State Pat Kennedy.
Word of the passport breach came as Obama, who would be America's first black president, was trying to rebound after a rocky patch. The Illinois senator delivered a major speech this week on race relations in an effort to explain his relationship with his controversial longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
SENSITIVE INFORMATION
The latest Gallup survey showed Obama trailing rival Hillary Clinton by 49 percent to 42 percent among Democrats in the contest to select the Democratic nominee to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the November 4 election.
A spokesman for Clinton, a New York senator, said of the security breach, "If it's true, it's reprehensible, and the Bush administration has a responsibility to get to the bottom of it."
A political firestorm erupted in 1992 after State Department officials searched Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport and citizenship files. The search coincided with Republican attacks on Clinton for his role in the Vietnam anti-war movement as a student at Oxford University in 1969 and for a trip to Moscow he made at the same time.
An investigation found no laws were violated but that officials exercised poor judgment.
Speaking to reporters, U.S. officials said they had asked the State Department's inspector general to conduct an independent investigation of how and why Obama's records were accessed and what, if anything, was done with the information.
"We are now checking to make sure exactly what information was in the files that were accessed," Kennedy told reporters, saying it would typically include passport applications.
Applicants must provide such sensitive information as a social security number, date of birth, address and telephone number as well as their parents' names and places of birth when they apply for a passport.
The officials said that when a prominent person's passport records are accessed, it triggers an alarm in the computer system and the person who viewed them is questioned to see if there was a legitimate reason for looking at the file.
Despite her lead in the latest poll, Clinton trails Obama in the state-by-state contest for delegates that began in January. The nominees are formally chosen by delegates at the parties' conventions in the summer.
Clinton had hoped to try to chip away at Obama's delegate lead with a rerun of Michigan's contested Democratic presidential primary. But a Clinton-backed "do-over" proposal effectively died in the Michigan Legislature when lawmakers adjourned on Thursday without considering the plan.
Obama opposed rerunning the Michigan primary. The Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries were invalidated because both states ignored party directives and held their balloting earlier than allowed.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, JoAnne Allen, Jeff Mason, Patsy Wilson and Matthew Bigg; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Ex-SLA member freed from Calif. prison
By DAISY NGUYEN, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES - The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife has been released from prison after serving time for trying to bomb police cars, corrections officials said Thursday. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Monday, said Bill Sessa, a state Department of Corrections spokesman.
In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975 with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Olson vanished soon after she was charged in the attempted bombings and reinvented herself as a Minnesota housewife.
Olson later pleaded guilty in 2003 to second-degree murder in the 1975 shooting death of a customer during a bank robbery in Carmichael, near Sacramento. She was serving a concurrent, six-year sentence in that case.
"Like all inmates in her circumstance, she earned time for her good behavior in prison, she wasn't treated any differently than anybody else," Sessa said. He declined to discuss terms of her parole, citing security concerns.
Olson's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said her client was spending time with her family, who came to California to be with her. Olson still needed to work out the terms of her parole and whether she will be able to return to Minnesota, Holley said.
"Every time I've spoken with her, she just sounds happy and relieved, and happy to be with her family," Holley said.
Olson was caught in 1999 when her minivan was pulled over by police near her home in St. Paul, Minn. She had changed her name and was living with a husband and three school-age daughters.
After she was returned to California for trial, Olson pleaded guilty to the attempted bombings.
The union that represents Los Angeles police officers was dismayed her release.
"She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time-off for working in prison," Los Angeles Police Protective League President Tim Sands said in a statement.
LOS ANGELES - The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife has been released from prison after serving time for trying to bomb police cars, corrections officials said Thursday. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Monday, said Bill Sessa, a state Department of Corrections spokesman.
In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975 with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Olson vanished soon after she was charged in the attempted bombings and reinvented herself as a Minnesota housewife.
Olson later pleaded guilty in 2003 to second-degree murder in the 1975 shooting death of a customer during a bank robbery in Carmichael, near Sacramento. She was serving a concurrent, six-year sentence in that case.
"Like all inmates in her circumstance, she earned time for her good behavior in prison, she wasn't treated any differently than anybody else," Sessa said. He declined to discuss terms of her parole, citing security concerns.
Olson's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said her client was spending time with her family, who came to California to be with her. Olson still needed to work out the terms of her parole and whether she will be able to return to Minnesota, Holley said.
"Every time I've spoken with her, she just sounds happy and relieved, and happy to be with her family," Holley said.
Olson was caught in 1999 when her minivan was pulled over by police near her home in St. Paul, Minn. She had changed her name and was living with a husband and three school-age daughters.
After she was returned to California for trial, Olson pleaded guilty to the attempted bombings.
The union that represents Los Angeles police officers was dismayed her release.
"She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time-off for working in prison," Los Angeles Police Protective League President Tim Sands said in a statement.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
After 38 years, Israeli solves math code
By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem."
The conjecture essentially assumed it's possible to create a "universal map" that can direct people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts say the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and computer science.
The "Road Coloring Problem" was first posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss, an Israeli-American mathematician, and a colleague, Roy Adler, who worked at IBM at the time.
For eight years, Weiss tried to prove his theory. Over the next 30 years, some 100 other scientists attempted as well. All failed, until Trahtman came along and, in eight short pages, jotted the solution down in pencil last year.
"The solution is not that complicated. It's hard, but it is not that complicated," Trahtman said in heavily accented Hebrew. "Some people think they need to be complicated. I think they need to be nice and simple."
Weiss said it gave him great joy to see someone solve his problem.
Stuart Margolis, a mathematician who recruited Trahtman to teach at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, called the solution one of the "beautiful results." But he said what makes the result especially remarkable is Trahtman's age and background.
"Math is usually a younger person's game, like music and the arts," Margolis said. "Usually you do your better work in your mid 20s and early 30s. He certainly came up with a good one at age 63."
Adding to the excitement is Trahtman's personal triumph in finally finding work as a mathematician after immigrating from Russia. "The first time I met him he was wearing a night watchman's uniform," Margolis said.
Originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, Trahtman was an accomplished mathematician when he came to Israel in 1992, at age 48. But like many immigrants in the wave that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, he struggled to find work in the Jewish state and was forced into stints working maintenance and security before landing a teaching position at Bar Ilan in 1995.
The soft-spoken Trahtman declined to talk about his odyssey, calling that the "old days." He said he felt "lucky" to be recognized for his solution, and played down the achievement as a "matter for mathematicians," saying it hasn't changed him a bit.
The puzzle tackled by Trahtman wasn't the longest-standing open problem to be solved recently. In 1994, British mathematician Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's last theorem, which had been open for more than 300 years.
Trahtman's solution is available on the Internet and is to be published soon in the Israel Journal of Mathematics.
Joel Friedman, a math professor at the University of British Columbia, said probably everyone in the field of symbolic dynamics had tried to solve the problem at some point, including himself. He said people in the related disciplines of graph theory, discrete math and theoretical computer science also tried.
"The solution to this problem has definitely generated excitement in the mathematical community," he said in an e-mail.
Margolis said the solution could have many applications.
"Say you've lost an e-mail and you want to get it back — it would be guaranteed," he said. "Let's say you are lost in a town you have never been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are no street signs — the directions will work no matter what."
JERUSALEM - A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem."
The conjecture essentially assumed it's possible to create a "universal map" that can direct people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts say the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and computer science.
The "Road Coloring Problem" was first posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss, an Israeli-American mathematician, and a colleague, Roy Adler, who worked at IBM at the time.
For eight years, Weiss tried to prove his theory. Over the next 30 years, some 100 other scientists attempted as well. All failed, until Trahtman came along and, in eight short pages, jotted the solution down in pencil last year.
"The solution is not that complicated. It's hard, but it is not that complicated," Trahtman said in heavily accented Hebrew. "Some people think they need to be complicated. I think they need to be nice and simple."
Weiss said it gave him great joy to see someone solve his problem.
Stuart Margolis, a mathematician who recruited Trahtman to teach at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, called the solution one of the "beautiful results." But he said what makes the result especially remarkable is Trahtman's age and background.
"Math is usually a younger person's game, like music and the arts," Margolis said. "Usually you do your better work in your mid 20s and early 30s. He certainly came up with a good one at age 63."
Adding to the excitement is Trahtman's personal triumph in finally finding work as a mathematician after immigrating from Russia. "The first time I met him he was wearing a night watchman's uniform," Margolis said.
Originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, Trahtman was an accomplished mathematician when he came to Israel in 1992, at age 48. But like many immigrants in the wave that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, he struggled to find work in the Jewish state and was forced into stints working maintenance and security before landing a teaching position at Bar Ilan in 1995.
The soft-spoken Trahtman declined to talk about his odyssey, calling that the "old days." He said he felt "lucky" to be recognized for his solution, and played down the achievement as a "matter for mathematicians," saying it hasn't changed him a bit.
The puzzle tackled by Trahtman wasn't the longest-standing open problem to be solved recently. In 1994, British mathematician Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's last theorem, which had been open for more than 300 years.
Trahtman's solution is available on the Internet and is to be published soon in the Israel Journal of Mathematics.
Joel Friedman, a math professor at the University of British Columbia, said probably everyone in the field of symbolic dynamics had tried to solve the problem at some point, including himself. He said people in the related disciplines of graph theory, discrete math and theoretical computer science also tried.
"The solution to this problem has definitely generated excitement in the mathematical community," he said in an e-mail.
Margolis said the solution could have many applications.
"Say you've lost an e-mail and you want to get it back — it would be guaranteed," he said. "Let's say you are lost in a town you have never been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are no street signs — the directions will work no matter what."
Feds fire 2 for looking at Obama file
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON - Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file, and the department is investigating whether political or other motives were involved, senior officials said Thursday. Spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information. It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth that is required when a person fills out a passport application.
The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, and were detected by internal State Department computer checks, McCormack said. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.
The State Department would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined, or the names of the two companies they worked for. The department's inspector general is investigating.
"We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, but we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case," McCormack said.
The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.
"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes," Burton said.
"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.
The department informed Obama's Senate office of the breach on Thursday. Kennedy said that at the office's request, he will provide a personal briefing for the senator's staff on Friday. No one from the State Department spoke to Obama personally on Thursday, the officials said.
Obama was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for several years as a child before returning to the states. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has traveled to the Middle East, the former Soviet states with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Africa, where in 2006 he and his wife, Michelle, publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage people there to do the same.
Obama's father was born in Kenya, and the senator still has relatives there.
The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. The State Department's inspector general said the official had helped arrange the search in an attempt to find politically damaging information about Clinton, who had been rumored to have considered renouncing his citizenship to avoid the Vietnam war draft.
The State Department said the official, Steven Berry, had shown "serious lapses in judgment."
Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who is challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of the breach: "It's outrageous and the Bush administration has to get to the bottom of it."
In the current case, Kennedy and McCormack said it was too soon to say whether a crime was committed. The searches may violate the federal Privacy Act, and Kennedy said he is consulting State Department lawyers.
The State Department inspector general's power is limited, because two of the employees are no longer working for the department. McCormack said it was premature to consider whether the FBI or Justice Department should be involved.
McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was informed of the breaches on Thursday.
The State Department conducts background checks of its contract employees who perform passport applications work, but does not ask about political affiliations, Kennedy said.
WASHINGTON - Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file, and the department is investigating whether political or other motives were involved, senior officials said Thursday. Spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information. It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth that is required when a person fills out a passport application.
The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, and were detected by internal State Department computer checks, McCormack said. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.
The State Department would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined, or the names of the two companies they worked for. The department's inspector general is investigating.
"We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, but we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case," McCormack said.
The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.
"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes," Burton said.
"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.
The department informed Obama's Senate office of the breach on Thursday. Kennedy said that at the office's request, he will provide a personal briefing for the senator's staff on Friday. No one from the State Department spoke to Obama personally on Thursday, the officials said.
Obama was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for several years as a child before returning to the states. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has traveled to the Middle East, the former Soviet states with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Africa, where in 2006 he and his wife, Michelle, publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage people there to do the same.
Obama's father was born in Kenya, and the senator still has relatives there.
The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. The State Department's inspector general said the official had helped arrange the search in an attempt to find politically damaging information about Clinton, who had been rumored to have considered renouncing his citizenship to avoid the Vietnam war draft.
The State Department said the official, Steven Berry, had shown "serious lapses in judgment."
Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who is challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of the breach: "It's outrageous and the Bush administration has to get to the bottom of it."
In the current case, Kennedy and McCormack said it was too soon to say whether a crime was committed. The searches may violate the federal Privacy Act, and Kennedy said he is consulting State Department lawyers.
The State Department inspector general's power is limited, because two of the employees are no longer working for the department. McCormack said it was premature to consider whether the FBI or Justice Department should be involved.
McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was informed of the breaches on Thursday.
The State Department conducts background checks of its contract employees who perform passport applications work, but does not ask about political affiliations, Kennedy said.
Calif. woman slain while calling 911
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, Associated Press Writer
WEST COVINA, Calif. - A woman made a 911 call from her suburban mansion to report an attempted break-in, but her pleas were interrupted by gunshots, then silence: She had been shot to death.
The woman told the dispatcher late Wednesday morning that someone was trying to break into her home in upscale West Covina, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Dan Rosenberg said.
"Deputies heard gunshots followed by silence and an open phone line," he said.
Investigators combed the neighborhood Thursday outside the three-story house with a tennis court, pool and four-car garage. Investigators examined the opening mechanism of the driveway's black iron gates, and later a repairman worked on the gates.
The victim was identified as Hsiao Hsu, 45, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Hernandez.
Sheriff's deputies responding to the call entered the home and found the victim. She was pronounced dead at the scene. One or more males were reported seen running away from the house, the Sheriff's Department said.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune carried a report describing a man who came to the scene about an hour after the shooting and asked deputies, "Is my wife OK? Did you find the guy?"
The man collapsed and cried out, "No! No! No! She just called me, you lie," the newspaper said. A patrol car drove the man away.
A KABC-TV report showed an investigator in the neighborhood examining what appeared to be a handgun under a shrub.
The house is east of Los Angeles in an unincorporated area where many homes stand well back from roads, with tall hedges and gates. Horses stood quietly in a corral at one neighborhood home Thursday.
A neighbor said a couple recently occupied the home, described on real estate Web sites as being nearly 6,000 square feet and having recently sold for more than $2 million.
"They moved in only about six months ago. I've only seen them drive in and out," said Ronald Wheeler, 57, who lives across the street.
Irene and Jesus Marquez, who live nearby, said the family has two children.
"They were really nice, good people," said Irene Marquez.
___
Associated Press writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report.
WEST COVINA, Calif. - A woman made a 911 call from her suburban mansion to report an attempted break-in, but her pleas were interrupted by gunshots, then silence: She had been shot to death.
The woman told the dispatcher late Wednesday morning that someone was trying to break into her home in upscale West Covina, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Dan Rosenberg said.
"Deputies heard gunshots followed by silence and an open phone line," he said.
Investigators combed the neighborhood Thursday outside the three-story house with a tennis court, pool and four-car garage. Investigators examined the opening mechanism of the driveway's black iron gates, and later a repairman worked on the gates.
The victim was identified as Hsiao Hsu, 45, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Hernandez.
Sheriff's deputies responding to the call entered the home and found the victim. She was pronounced dead at the scene. One or more males were reported seen running away from the house, the Sheriff's Department said.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune carried a report describing a man who came to the scene about an hour after the shooting and asked deputies, "Is my wife OK? Did you find the guy?"
The man collapsed and cried out, "No! No! No! She just called me, you lie," the newspaper said. A patrol car drove the man away.
A KABC-TV report showed an investigator in the neighborhood examining what appeared to be a handgun under a shrub.
The house is east of Los Angeles in an unincorporated area where many homes stand well back from roads, with tall hedges and gates. Horses stood quietly in a corral at one neighborhood home Thursday.
A neighbor said a couple recently occupied the home, described on real estate Web sites as being nearly 6,000 square feet and having recently sold for more than $2 million.
"They moved in only about six months ago. I've only seen them drive in and out," said Ronald Wheeler, 57, who lives across the street.
Irene and Jesus Marquez, who live nearby, said the family has two children.
"They were really nice, good people," said Irene Marquez.
___
Associated Press writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report.
College Basketball - Duke barely escapes upset-minded Belmont
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The 15-over-2 club nearly added a new member Thursday night at the Verizon Center.
Duke (28-5) needed a steal and a layup from Gerald Henderson with 12 seconds left to ward off 15th-seeded Belmont 71-70 in what turned out to be a thrilling first-round matchup in the NCAA Tournament.
Gerald Henderson scored 21 points - including the game-winning basket.
Belmont (25-9) led for most of the final two minutes, going up 70-69 on two free throws from senior guard Justin Hare with 2:02 left. The Bruins then warded off a couple of Duke misses, including a short hook from Henderson that bounced in and out.
But in the final 20 seconds, Henderson intercepted a pass, drove downcourt and leapt through traffic as he laid the ball over the front of the rim. “We will be remembered as the team that almost did it,” Hare said. “It’s so hard going out that way.”
Hare launched a 40-foot prayer at the buzzer that glanced off the left side of the rim.
Belmont had an out-of-bounds play under its basket after Henderson’s clutch drive with 4 seconds left, but an errant pass was intercepted by Nelson.
Belmont would have been just the fifth No. 15 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game. Richmond beat Syracuse in 1991, Santa Clara beat Arizona in 1993, Coppin State beat South Carolina in 1997 and Hampton beat Iowa State in 2001.
Belmont, the Atlantic Sun Conference champ, was playing in its third consecutive tournament as a No. 15 seed. The Bruins lost by a combined 69 points to UCLA and Georgetown in the past two seasons, but they felt far more confident about matching up with the Blue Devils - who lack the size and the inside scoring threat of most No. 2 seeds.
The undersized Bruins used a guard-heavy lineup to beat Duke at its own game. They constantly spread the court on offense and focused on launching 3-pointers and trying to beat defenders off the dribble. When Duke lagged off the outside shooters, Belmont shot 3-pointers. When Duke defenders moved up, Belmont ran backdoor cuts.
“When we saw the film, I noticed they were a similar team to us,” Belmont guard Alex Renfroe said. “I always thought it was going to be a good game.”
Renfroe was proved right.
Belmont wasn’t intimidated, and had it not made some mistakes down the stretch, it could’ve pulled off the upset. Duke’s lack of an inside game was glaring, but Belmont’s lack of athleticism wasn’t an issue.
Duke didn’t lead by more than five points in the first half until freshman Taylor King hit a fadeaway jumper from near the free-throw line to put the Blue Devils up 42-35 at halftime.
Belmont used a 7-0 run to cut Duke’s lead to 51-50, and the Bruins went on take a 58-56 lead on a three-point play from Renfroe with 10:59 left. Duke appeared to take back control when two Henderson free throws put the Blue Devils up 69-65. But Belmont’s Andy Wicke answered with his fourth 3-pointer of the game. And after Duke’s DeMarcus Nelson missed a 3-pointer, Henderson bumped Hare in the backcourt, sending him to the free throw line for the shots that gave Belmont a short-lived lead.
“Watching them on tape, they looked really good,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “Watching them in person, they’re even better.”
Duke (28-5) needed a steal and a layup from Gerald Henderson with 12 seconds left to ward off 15th-seeded Belmont 71-70 in what turned out to be a thrilling first-round matchup in the NCAA Tournament.
Gerald Henderson scored 21 points - including the game-winning basket.
Belmont (25-9) led for most of the final two minutes, going up 70-69 on two free throws from senior guard Justin Hare with 2:02 left. The Bruins then warded off a couple of Duke misses, including a short hook from Henderson that bounced in and out.
But in the final 20 seconds, Henderson intercepted a pass, drove downcourt and leapt through traffic as he laid the ball over the front of the rim. “We will be remembered as the team that almost did it,” Hare said. “It’s so hard going out that way.”
Hare launched a 40-foot prayer at the buzzer that glanced off the left side of the rim.
Belmont had an out-of-bounds play under its basket after Henderson’s clutch drive with 4 seconds left, but an errant pass was intercepted by Nelson.
Belmont would have been just the fifth No. 15 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game. Richmond beat Syracuse in 1991, Santa Clara beat Arizona in 1993, Coppin State beat South Carolina in 1997 and Hampton beat Iowa State in 2001.
Belmont, the Atlantic Sun Conference champ, was playing in its third consecutive tournament as a No. 15 seed. The Bruins lost by a combined 69 points to UCLA and Georgetown in the past two seasons, but they felt far more confident about matching up with the Blue Devils - who lack the size and the inside scoring threat of most No. 2 seeds.
The undersized Bruins used a guard-heavy lineup to beat Duke at its own game. They constantly spread the court on offense and focused on launching 3-pointers and trying to beat defenders off the dribble. When Duke lagged off the outside shooters, Belmont shot 3-pointers. When Duke defenders moved up, Belmont ran backdoor cuts.
“When we saw the film, I noticed they were a similar team to us,” Belmont guard Alex Renfroe said. “I always thought it was going to be a good game.”
Renfroe was proved right.
Belmont wasn’t intimidated, and had it not made some mistakes down the stretch, it could’ve pulled off the upset. Duke’s lack of an inside game was glaring, but Belmont’s lack of athleticism wasn’t an issue.
Duke didn’t lead by more than five points in the first half until freshman Taylor King hit a fadeaway jumper from near the free-throw line to put the Blue Devils up 42-35 at halftime.
Belmont used a 7-0 run to cut Duke’s lead to 51-50, and the Bruins went on take a 58-56 lead on a three-point play from Renfroe with 10:59 left. Duke appeared to take back control when two Henderson free throws put the Blue Devils up 69-65. But Belmont’s Andy Wicke answered with his fourth 3-pointer of the game. And after Duke’s DeMarcus Nelson missed a 3-pointer, Henderson bumped Hare in the backcourt, sending him to the free throw line for the shots that gave Belmont a short-lived lead.
“Watching them on tape, they looked really good,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “Watching them in person, they’re even better.”
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Bush speech marks 5 years of war in Iraq
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Five years after launching the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush is making some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there. Bush said last year's troop buildup has turned Iraq around and produced "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden."
Massive anti-war demonstrations were planned in downtown Washington to mark Wednesday's anniversary of the war, which has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops. Across the river at the Pentagon, Bush was to give a speech to warn that backsliding in recent progress fueled by the increase of 30,000 troops he ordered more than a year ago cannot be allowed.
"The challenge in the period ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists' defeat," he said in excerpts the White House released Tuesday night. "We have learned through hard experience what happens when we pull our forces back too fast — the terrorists and extremists step in, fill the vacuum, establish safe havens and use them to spread chaos and carnage."
Bush added: "The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable, yet some in Washington still call for retreat."
Democrats took a different view.
"On this grim milestone, it is worth remembering how we got into this situation, and thinking about how best we can get out," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "The tasks that remain in Iraq — to bring an end to sectarian conflict, to devise a way to share political power and to create a functioning government that is capable of providing for the needs of the Iraqi people — are tasks that only the Iraqis can complete."
The president's address sought to shift the nation's focus from economic ills to the security gains in Iraq, part of a series of events the White House planned around the anniversary and an upcoming report from the top U.S. figures in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Vice President Dick Cheney just completed a two-day visit to view Iraq developments in person. Expected GOP presidential nominee John McCain also went to Iraq this week.
Cheney, asked during an ABC interview about strong opposition in the United States to the continuing war, said he wasn't worried about that.
"I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls," he said in a segment of the interview broadcast Wednesday on "Good Morning America."
Cheney added: "Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succceeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there."
Before top Pentagon officials and hundreds of others, Bush planned to trace the war's "high cost in lives and treasure" and thank those who have fought in, planned and assisted the U.S. military effort. In the excerpts, he defended the war as necessary at first, now, and for an undefined future until Iraq is stable enough to stand on its own.
"The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around — it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president said.
"For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."
Bush appeared to be referring to recent cooperation by local Iraqis with the U.S. military against the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely — or even whether — the group is connected to the international al-Qaida network. As for bin Laden, he is rarely heard from and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
Iraq no longer dominates the public debate and tops voters' concerns. With the economy taking a tumble, things improving by some measures in Iraq and much attention riveted on the 2008 presidential race, Iraq has faded from the front burner.
Bush has successfully defied efforts by the Democratic-led Congress to force troop withdrawals or set deadlines for pullouts. The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year's increase.
It is widely believed that Bush will in April endorse a recommendation from Petraeus for no additional troop reductions, beyond those already scheduled, until at least September. This so-called pause in drawdowns would be designed to assess the impact of this round of withdrawals before allowing more that could jeopardize the gains.
The surge was meant to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq so that the country's leaders would have space to advance legislation considered key to reconciliation between rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. The idea is that such political progress would weaken or even end the still-potent insurgency.
But the gains on the battlefield have not been matched by political progress, and violence may be increasing again. The Iraqis do not yet have a law for sharing the nation's oil wealth. Also unfinished is a plan for new provincial elections.
As of Monday, at least 3,990 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq. More than 29,000 U.S. service members have been injured in the war, which has cost the U.S. roughly $500 billion.
WASHINGTON - Five years after launching the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush is making some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there. Bush said last year's troop buildup has turned Iraq around and produced "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden."
Massive anti-war demonstrations were planned in downtown Washington to mark Wednesday's anniversary of the war, which has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops. Across the river at the Pentagon, Bush was to give a speech to warn that backsliding in recent progress fueled by the increase of 30,000 troops he ordered more than a year ago cannot be allowed.
"The challenge in the period ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists' defeat," he said in excerpts the White House released Tuesday night. "We have learned through hard experience what happens when we pull our forces back too fast — the terrorists and extremists step in, fill the vacuum, establish safe havens and use them to spread chaos and carnage."
Bush added: "The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable, yet some in Washington still call for retreat."
Democrats took a different view.
"On this grim milestone, it is worth remembering how we got into this situation, and thinking about how best we can get out," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. "The tasks that remain in Iraq — to bring an end to sectarian conflict, to devise a way to share political power and to create a functioning government that is capable of providing for the needs of the Iraqi people — are tasks that only the Iraqis can complete."
The president's address sought to shift the nation's focus from economic ills to the security gains in Iraq, part of a series of events the White House planned around the anniversary and an upcoming report from the top U.S. figures in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Vice President Dick Cheney just completed a two-day visit to view Iraq developments in person. Expected GOP presidential nominee John McCain also went to Iraq this week.
Cheney, asked during an ABC interview about strong opposition in the United States to the continuing war, said he wasn't worried about that.
"I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls," he said in a segment of the interview broadcast Wednesday on "Good Morning America."
Cheney added: "Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succceeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there."
Before top Pentagon officials and hundreds of others, Bush planned to trace the war's "high cost in lives and treasure" and thank those who have fought in, planned and assisted the U.S. military effort. In the excerpts, he defended the war as necessary at first, now, and for an undefined future until Iraq is stable enough to stand on its own.
"The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around — it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president said.
"For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."
Bush appeared to be referring to recent cooperation by local Iraqis with the U.S. military against the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely — or even whether — the group is connected to the international al-Qaida network. As for bin Laden, he is rarely heard from and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
Iraq no longer dominates the public debate and tops voters' concerns. With the economy taking a tumble, things improving by some measures in Iraq and much attention riveted on the 2008 presidential race, Iraq has faded from the front burner.
Bush has successfully defied efforts by the Democratic-led Congress to force troop withdrawals or set deadlines for pullouts. The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year's increase.
It is widely believed that Bush will in April endorse a recommendation from Petraeus for no additional troop reductions, beyond those already scheduled, until at least September. This so-called pause in drawdowns would be designed to assess the impact of this round of withdrawals before allowing more that could jeopardize the gains.
The surge was meant to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq so that the country's leaders would have space to advance legislation considered key to reconciliation between rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. The idea is that such political progress would weaken or even end the still-potent insurgency.
But the gains on the battlefield have not been matched by political progress, and violence may be increasing again. The Iraqis do not yet have a law for sharing the nation's oil wealth. Also unfinished is a plan for new provincial elections.
As of Monday, at least 3,990 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq. More than 29,000 U.S. service members have been injured in the war, which has cost the U.S. roughly $500 billion.
Iraq war protesters arrested at IRS
By SARAH KARUSH, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Police have arrested about a dozen people who crossed a barricade at the entrance of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington at the start of protests marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
Anti-war protests and vigils are planned across the country.
Dozens of people gathered at the IRS, chanting "This is a Crime Scene" and "You're arresting the wrong people." A crowd marched around the IRS before gathering at the entrance.
Protesters are blocking the main entrance of the building. But no federal workers appear to be using that entrance to go inside the IRS.
WASHINGTON - Police have arrested about a dozen people who crossed a barricade at the entrance of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington at the start of protests marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
Anti-war protests and vigils are planned across the country.
Dozens of people gathered at the IRS, chanting "This is a Crime Scene" and "You're arresting the wrong people." A crowd marched around the IRS before gathering at the entrance.
Protesters are blocking the main entrance of the building. But no federal workers appear to be using that entrance to go inside the IRS.
Zoo's response to tiger attack detailed
By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco Zoo workers should have believed two brothers who said a tiger was loose and had mauled their friend, but overall reacted well to the fatal Christmas Day attacks, according to the organization that accredits the nation's zoos.
The report by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which the zoo released in excerpts Tuesday, provided its most detailed account of the fatal mauling. The full document remains confidential between the organization and the zoo, but association spokesman Steve Feldman said the excerpts released by the zoo accurately reflected the full report.
"They've accurately summarized the findings from those documents," Feldman said. "The fact that we've maintained the zoo's accreditation also speaks for itself."
Association inspectors criticized the zoo's security supervisor for doubting two brothers, Kulbir and Paul Dhaliwal of San Jose, who said a tiger had escaped from its enclosure and attacked them and their friend.
Responding to calls that the men were at a zoo cafe seeking medical attention, the supervisor arrived to find that brothers "behaving erratically, possibly intoxicated," according to the inspection report's timeline of the incident.
The supervisor assumed there had been a fight and did not believe a tiger was free "because of the erratic and belligerent behavior of the two guests," the report said.
The 250-pound Siberian tiger, named Tatiana, already had killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and was roaming the zoo grounds. Minutes later, it attacked the brothers, who were kept outside the cafe by a manager who lacked a zoo radio and didn't know the tiger had escaped, the report said.
The report found that most of the zoo's workers had been sent home early for the holiday, leaving too few staffers on hand.
AZA inspectors also found that the one zookeeper who was trained as a shooter in animal escapes did not have keys to remove a shotgun from storage. He eventually retrieved the weapon with help from a veterinarian who had left for the day and returned because she had forgotten to complete a report.
The tiger was fatally shot by police about 20 minutes after the brothers first reported they had been attacked, according to police and zoo timelines.
The attacks came just over a year after the tiger devoured the arm of a zookeeper during a feeding.
"The zoo is too often chasing problems rather than proactively addressing known concerns," the report said. "This will require a shift in culture and the supervisory and maintenance staff to make it happen."
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco Zoo workers should have believed two brothers who said a tiger was loose and had mauled their friend, but overall reacted well to the fatal Christmas Day attacks, according to the organization that accredits the nation's zoos.
The report by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which the zoo released in excerpts Tuesday, provided its most detailed account of the fatal mauling. The full document remains confidential between the organization and the zoo, but association spokesman Steve Feldman said the excerpts released by the zoo accurately reflected the full report.
"They've accurately summarized the findings from those documents," Feldman said. "The fact that we've maintained the zoo's accreditation also speaks for itself."
Association inspectors criticized the zoo's security supervisor for doubting two brothers, Kulbir and Paul Dhaliwal of San Jose, who said a tiger had escaped from its enclosure and attacked them and their friend.
Responding to calls that the men were at a zoo cafe seeking medical attention, the supervisor arrived to find that brothers "behaving erratically, possibly intoxicated," according to the inspection report's timeline of the incident.
The supervisor assumed there had been a fight and did not believe a tiger was free "because of the erratic and belligerent behavior of the two guests," the report said.
The 250-pound Siberian tiger, named Tatiana, already had killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and was roaming the zoo grounds. Minutes later, it attacked the brothers, who were kept outside the cafe by a manager who lacked a zoo radio and didn't know the tiger had escaped, the report said.
The report found that most of the zoo's workers had been sent home early for the holiday, leaving too few staffers on hand.
AZA inspectors also found that the one zookeeper who was trained as a shooter in animal escapes did not have keys to remove a shotgun from storage. He eventually retrieved the weapon with help from a veterinarian who had left for the day and returned because she had forgotten to complete a report.
The tiger was fatally shot by police about 20 minutes after the brothers first reported they had been attacked, according to police and zoo timelines.
The attacks came just over a year after the tiger devoured the arm of a zookeeper during a feeding.
"The zoo is too often chasing problems rather than proactively addressing known concerns," the report said. "This will require a shift in culture and the supervisory and maintenance staff to make it happen."
Some Democrats' votes may be banned
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
LANSING, Mich. - Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Barack Obama on Tuesday of standing in the way of a second presidential primary in Michigan, as several state lawmakers expressed concerns over suggested rules governing any revote.
The former first lady planned a hastily arranged appearance in Detroit on Wednesday. Aides said she would argue for going ahead despite the obstacles.
Mo Elleithee, a spokesman, said Clinton would "make the case for counting the people of Michigan, that every vote must count and that Senator Obama is standing in the way of a revote, and that snubbing Michigan would hurt the Democratic party in November."
Even before Clinton announced her travel plans, Obama's spokesman accused her of merely looking out for her own political interests.
"As others in Michigan have pointed out, there are valid concerns about the proposal currently being discussed, including severe restrictions on voter eligibility and the reliance on private funding," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We have raised these concerns, as legislators in Michigan did today, and we're waiting to see if these issues can be resolved by the Legislature."
Michigan is one of two states that violated Democratic Party rules by holding primaries too early in the year. As punishment, the party stripped both states of their delegates to the national nominating convention.
Plans for a revote in the other state, Florida, collapsed over the weekend, leaving the future of its delegation unclear.
Originally, Michigan was to have 156 delegates; Florida's total was 210.
Clinton trails Obama in convention delegates after primaries and caucuses in more than 40 states, and her chances of catching up are remote.
Lopsided victories in second primaries in Florida and Michigan would help, and also would strengthen her argument that party leaders who attend the convention as superdelegates should consider a candidate's ability to win in the fall, rather than merely support the contender with the most delegates.
She won the earlier primaries in both states, although all the candidates had pledged not to campaign in either and Obama removed his name from Michigan's ballot.
One of the sticking points holding up a possible do-over election in Michigan is a rule that would ban anyone who voted in the Republican presidential primary from voting again in the Democratic one.
That ban would apply even to Democrats or independents who asked for a GOP ballot because Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the only major candidate left on the Jan. 15 Democratic ballot.
To cast a ballot in a do-over election, voters would have to sign a statement saying they hadn't voted in the GOP primary.
That could hurt Obama more, since his supporters were more likely than Clinton's to have crossed over to vote in the GOP primary. Obama has had more success than Clinton attracting the votes of independents and Republicans in states where they could vote in Democratic contests.
A group of Democratic leaders from Michigan is trying to set up a June 3 do-over primary so the state can get its delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention, but that looked less likely on Tuesday.
Seventeen Democratic state House members said Tuesday they have concerns about holding another election, including disenfranchising Democrats who voted in the Republican primary.
"These people that chose to vote in that Republican primary in January did so after being told by the DNC that the Democratic primary did not count. They weren't told that if they participated in a Republican primary they wouldn't be eligible to participate in a redo that was going to happen in June," said state Rep. Matt Gillard, an Obama supporter.
Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said he supports proposed legislation that would authorize a second primary, saying none of the legal objections "have any merit" and that in his opinion the legislation meets all national Democratic Party and legal requirements.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and the three Democratic leaders working on the proposal planned to lobby lawmakers on Wednesday.
Brewer said the party has the right, and the responsibility, to prevent non-Democrats from having a say in who becomes the party's nominee.
Michigan doesn't require voters to register by party to vote, so the parties have to use other tools to stop crossover voting. Both parties are due to get a list of who voted in the Jan. 15 primary and which ballot — Democratic or Republican — they chose. It's unclear whether those lists would be used to challenge anyone who had voted in the GOP primary.
Brewer said he's sorry some Democrats won't be able to vote again.
"I regret that that might be the case, but it's a national party rule and we have no choice but to follow it," he said.
LANSING, Mich. - Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Barack Obama on Tuesday of standing in the way of a second presidential primary in Michigan, as several state lawmakers expressed concerns over suggested rules governing any revote.
The former first lady planned a hastily arranged appearance in Detroit on Wednesday. Aides said she would argue for going ahead despite the obstacles.
Mo Elleithee, a spokesman, said Clinton would "make the case for counting the people of Michigan, that every vote must count and that Senator Obama is standing in the way of a revote, and that snubbing Michigan would hurt the Democratic party in November."
Even before Clinton announced her travel plans, Obama's spokesman accused her of merely looking out for her own political interests.
"As others in Michigan have pointed out, there are valid concerns about the proposal currently being discussed, including severe restrictions on voter eligibility and the reliance on private funding," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We have raised these concerns, as legislators in Michigan did today, and we're waiting to see if these issues can be resolved by the Legislature."
Michigan is one of two states that violated Democratic Party rules by holding primaries too early in the year. As punishment, the party stripped both states of their delegates to the national nominating convention.
Plans for a revote in the other state, Florida, collapsed over the weekend, leaving the future of its delegation unclear.
Originally, Michigan was to have 156 delegates; Florida's total was 210.
Clinton trails Obama in convention delegates after primaries and caucuses in more than 40 states, and her chances of catching up are remote.
Lopsided victories in second primaries in Florida and Michigan would help, and also would strengthen her argument that party leaders who attend the convention as superdelegates should consider a candidate's ability to win in the fall, rather than merely support the contender with the most delegates.
She won the earlier primaries in both states, although all the candidates had pledged not to campaign in either and Obama removed his name from Michigan's ballot.
One of the sticking points holding up a possible do-over election in Michigan is a rule that would ban anyone who voted in the Republican presidential primary from voting again in the Democratic one.
That ban would apply even to Democrats or independents who asked for a GOP ballot because Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the only major candidate left on the Jan. 15 Democratic ballot.
To cast a ballot in a do-over election, voters would have to sign a statement saying they hadn't voted in the GOP primary.
That could hurt Obama more, since his supporters were more likely than Clinton's to have crossed over to vote in the GOP primary. Obama has had more success than Clinton attracting the votes of independents and Republicans in states where they could vote in Democratic contests.
A group of Democratic leaders from Michigan is trying to set up a June 3 do-over primary so the state can get its delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention, but that looked less likely on Tuesday.
Seventeen Democratic state House members said Tuesday they have concerns about holding another election, including disenfranchising Democrats who voted in the Republican primary.
"These people that chose to vote in that Republican primary in January did so after being told by the DNC that the Democratic primary did not count. They weren't told that if they participated in a Republican primary they wouldn't be eligible to participate in a redo that was going to happen in June," said state Rep. Matt Gillard, an Obama supporter.
Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said he supports proposed legislation that would authorize a second primary, saying none of the legal objections "have any merit" and that in his opinion the legislation meets all national Democratic Party and legal requirements.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and the three Democratic leaders working on the proposal planned to lobby lawmakers on Wednesday.
Brewer said the party has the right, and the responsibility, to prevent non-Democrats from having a say in who becomes the party's nominee.
Michigan doesn't require voters to register by party to vote, so the parties have to use other tools to stop crossover voting. Both parties are due to get a list of who voted in the Jan. 15 primary and which ballot — Democratic or Republican — they chose. It's unclear whether those lists would be used to challenge anyone who had voted in the GOP primary.
Brewer said he's sorry some Democrats won't be able to vote again.
"I regret that that might be the case, but it's a national party rule and we have no choice but to follow it," he said.
Verizon recovers man's missing recording
IRVINGTON, N.Y. - An 80-year-old man can hear his late wife's voice again, any time he wants. Verizon has recovered a lost message recorded by Charles Whiting's wife, Catherine, before her death in 2005.
When Verizon upgraded the man's telephone service, his wife's voice disappeared from his voicemail system. The message said "Catherine Whiting," and her husband said he listened to it every day for comfort.
Company spokesman John Bonomo said Tuesday that a contractor found the recording in an archive and restored it to the new voicemail system.
Charles Whiting says he's very happy.
When Verizon upgraded the man's telephone service, his wife's voice disappeared from his voicemail system. The message said "Catherine Whiting," and her husband said he listened to it every day for comfort.
Company spokesman John Bonomo said Tuesday that a contractor found the recording in an archive and restored it to the new voicemail system.
Charles Whiting says he's very happy.
Obama's lead over Clinton narrows: Reuters poll
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama's big national lead over Hillary Clinton has all but evaporated in the U.S. presidential race, and both Democrats trail Republican John McCain, according a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. The poll showed Obama had only a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 44 percent over Clinton, down sharply from a 14 point edge he held over her in February when he was riding the tide of 10 straight victories.
Illinois Sen. Obama, who would be America's first black president, has been buffeted by attacks in recent weeks from New York Sen. Clinton over his fitness to serve as commander-in-chief and by a tempest over racially charged sermons given by his Chicago preacher.
The poll showed Arizona Sen. McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, is benefiting from the lengthy campaign battle between Obama and Clinton, who are now battling to win Pennsylvania on April 22.
McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll.
That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent.
"The last couple of weeks have taken a toll on Obama and in a general election match-up, on both Democrats," said pollster John Zogby.
Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent, narrower than his 50 to 38 percent advantage over her in February.
"It's not surprising to me that McCain's on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side," Zogby said
Obama gave a speech on Tuesday rebuking his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for sermons sometimes laced with inflammatory tirades but said he could not disown him and it was time for Americans to bind the country's racial wounds.
The poll showed Obama continues to have strong support from the African-American community but that he is experiencing some slippage among moderates and independents.
Among independents, McCain led for the first time in the poll, 46 percent to 36 percent over Obama.
He was behind McCain by 21 percent among white voters.
Zogby attributed this to a combination of the fallout from Clinton's victory in Ohio earlier this month and the controversy over Wright's sermons.
"And, just the closer he gets to the nomination, the tougher questions whites ask about an African-American candidate," Zogby said.
The March 13-14 poll surveyed 525 likely Democratic primary voters for the matchup between Clinton and Obama. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
For the matchup between McCain and his Democratic rivals, 1004 likely voters were surveyed. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama's big national lead over Hillary Clinton has all but evaporated in the U.S. presidential race, and both Democrats trail Republican John McCain, according a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. The poll showed Obama had only a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 44 percent over Clinton, down sharply from a 14 point edge he held over her in February when he was riding the tide of 10 straight victories.
Illinois Sen. Obama, who would be America's first black president, has been buffeted by attacks in recent weeks from New York Sen. Clinton over his fitness to serve as commander-in-chief and by a tempest over racially charged sermons given by his Chicago preacher.
The poll showed Arizona Sen. McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, is benefiting from the lengthy campaign battle between Obama and Clinton, who are now battling to win Pennsylvania on April 22.
McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll.
That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent.
"The last couple of weeks have taken a toll on Obama and in a general election match-up, on both Democrats," said pollster John Zogby.
Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent, narrower than his 50 to 38 percent advantage over her in February.
"It's not surprising to me that McCain's on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side," Zogby said
Obama gave a speech on Tuesday rebuking his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for sermons sometimes laced with inflammatory tirades but said he could not disown him and it was time for Americans to bind the country's racial wounds.
The poll showed Obama continues to have strong support from the African-American community but that he is experiencing some slippage among moderates and independents.
Among independents, McCain led for the first time in the poll, 46 percent to 36 percent over Obama.
He was behind McCain by 21 percent among white voters.
Zogby attributed this to a combination of the fallout from Clinton's victory in Ohio earlier this month and the controversy over Wright's sermons.
"And, just the closer he gets to the nomination, the tougher questions whites ask about an African-American candidate," Zogby said.
The March 13-14 poll surveyed 525 likely Democratic primary voters for the matchup between Clinton and Obama. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
For the matchup between McCain and his Democratic rivals, 1004 likely voters were surveyed. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
2 dead, 2 missing in central US floods
By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer
DALLAS - Airlines prepared for passenger backlogs Wednesday from hundreds of flights grounded by storms that chased people from flooded homes and deluged roads in the nation's midsection, killing at least two people in Missouri and sweeping a teen down a drainage pipe in Texas.
The National Weather Service posted flood and flash flood warnings from Texas to Ohio, with tornado watches in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Emergency officials in Mesquite, Texas, searched for a 14-year-old boy apparently swept away by floodwaters as he and a friend played in a creek. The friend was able to swim to safety, authorities said.
In northern Arkansas, rescuers searched for a man whose truck was believed to have been swept from a low-water bridge in West Fork. Authorities found only the vehicle.
Heavy rain began falling Monday and just kept coming. Forecasters said parts of Missouri could get 10 inches or more. The storms were expected to finally stop Wednesday.
Cape Girardeau County had received nearly 8 inches of rain by Tuesday afternoon, trapping some residents in their homes. About 50 roads were closed in Christian County after 7 inches of rain fell.
More than 6 inches of rain drenched areas around Dallas, including record rainfall at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where more than half of the 950 scheduled flights Tuesday were canceled.
Winds of more than 100 mph were briefly reported at the airport, which received a single-day record of 2.35 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service. The previous high of 1.52 inches was set in 1984, the weather service said.
By early Wednesday morning, the airport had opened all security checkpoint lanes in preparation for an early rush of stranded passengers. Airport officials said the backlog of flights would take most of Wednesday to unwind.
"Everybody did a great job overnight of hanging in there and trying to get some rest," airport spokesman Ken Capps said. "The airlines will be working the lines early to try to get as many people rebooked and out of here as quickly as possible."
Cots and blankets were given to stranded travelers overnight. The airport early Wednesday also received several hundred new passengers who were bussed from airports as far as Louisiana, after they were unable to make flights to DFW the day before.
Federal Aviation Administration officials evacuated the airport's west tower for about 15 minutes Tuesday morning after seeing a funnel cloud. By Tuesday night, the airport was accepting about 50 arrivals and departures an hour — less than half the usual 120 flights that use the airport's seven runways every hour, officials said.
Hundreds of people in Lancaster, south of Dallas, were advised to evacuate their homes as the Ten Mile Creek rose. By evening, the creek waters had receded. One woman was rescued from her yard and four people were rescued from their vehicles, city spokeswoman Ciciely Hickmon said.
In Arkansas, residents in parts of Baxter, Madison, and Sharp counties were evacuated because of rising floodwaters, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
The Spring River was rising at a rate of 6 inches per hour Tuesday, and debris flowing in it included full-size trees. Officials said dangerous flows were occurring in Mammoth Spring and Salem, where the river was out of its banks.
To the north, Gov. Matt Blunt activated the Missouri National Guard on Tuesday as high water closed hundreds of roads.
About 300 of the 900 homes in Piedmont, Mo., were evacuated when the McKenzie Creek flowed over its banks and caused flooding 2 to 3 feet deep in the center of the town, about 125 miles south of St. Louis. Dozens of people were rescued in about 15 to 20 boat trips.
Up to 30 homes were evacuated in Winona, and some residents of Cape Girardeau were trapped in their homes, according to the State Emergency Management Agency. In Ellington, as many as 50 homes and half the businesses were evacuated, officials said.
The body of an 81-year-old man was found in the water at Ellington, said Missouri State Water Patrol Lt. Nicholas Humphrey. A 21-year-old state Department of Transportation worker was killed near Springfield when his dump truck was hit by a tractor-trailer as he helped out in a flooded area, officials said.
Scott and Marilyne Peterson and their 25-year-old son, Scott Jr., scurried out of their mobile home in Piedmont after watching the water rise 3 feet in five minutes. The family had just enough time to grab some essentials, a few clothes and the family dog.
"You didn't have time to worry," Scott Peterson Sr. said. "You just grab what you can and go and you're glad the people are OK."
___
Associated Press writers Betsy Taylor in Piedmont, Mo., and Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
DALLAS - Airlines prepared for passenger backlogs Wednesday from hundreds of flights grounded by storms that chased people from flooded homes and deluged roads in the nation's midsection, killing at least two people in Missouri and sweeping a teen down a drainage pipe in Texas.
The National Weather Service posted flood and flash flood warnings from Texas to Ohio, with tornado watches in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Emergency officials in Mesquite, Texas, searched for a 14-year-old boy apparently swept away by floodwaters as he and a friend played in a creek. The friend was able to swim to safety, authorities said.
In northern Arkansas, rescuers searched for a man whose truck was believed to have been swept from a low-water bridge in West Fork. Authorities found only the vehicle.
Heavy rain began falling Monday and just kept coming. Forecasters said parts of Missouri could get 10 inches or more. The storms were expected to finally stop Wednesday.
Cape Girardeau County had received nearly 8 inches of rain by Tuesday afternoon, trapping some residents in their homes. About 50 roads were closed in Christian County after 7 inches of rain fell.
More than 6 inches of rain drenched areas around Dallas, including record rainfall at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where more than half of the 950 scheduled flights Tuesday were canceled.
Winds of more than 100 mph were briefly reported at the airport, which received a single-day record of 2.35 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service. The previous high of 1.52 inches was set in 1984, the weather service said.
By early Wednesday morning, the airport had opened all security checkpoint lanes in preparation for an early rush of stranded passengers. Airport officials said the backlog of flights would take most of Wednesday to unwind.
"Everybody did a great job overnight of hanging in there and trying to get some rest," airport spokesman Ken Capps said. "The airlines will be working the lines early to try to get as many people rebooked and out of here as quickly as possible."
Cots and blankets were given to stranded travelers overnight. The airport early Wednesday also received several hundred new passengers who were bussed from airports as far as Louisiana, after they were unable to make flights to DFW the day before.
Federal Aviation Administration officials evacuated the airport's west tower for about 15 minutes Tuesday morning after seeing a funnel cloud. By Tuesday night, the airport was accepting about 50 arrivals and departures an hour — less than half the usual 120 flights that use the airport's seven runways every hour, officials said.
Hundreds of people in Lancaster, south of Dallas, were advised to evacuate their homes as the Ten Mile Creek rose. By evening, the creek waters had receded. One woman was rescued from her yard and four people were rescued from their vehicles, city spokeswoman Ciciely Hickmon said.
In Arkansas, residents in parts of Baxter, Madison, and Sharp counties were evacuated because of rising floodwaters, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
The Spring River was rising at a rate of 6 inches per hour Tuesday, and debris flowing in it included full-size trees. Officials said dangerous flows were occurring in Mammoth Spring and Salem, where the river was out of its banks.
To the north, Gov. Matt Blunt activated the Missouri National Guard on Tuesday as high water closed hundreds of roads.
About 300 of the 900 homes in Piedmont, Mo., were evacuated when the McKenzie Creek flowed over its banks and caused flooding 2 to 3 feet deep in the center of the town, about 125 miles south of St. Louis. Dozens of people were rescued in about 15 to 20 boat trips.
Up to 30 homes were evacuated in Winona, and some residents of Cape Girardeau were trapped in their homes, according to the State Emergency Management Agency. In Ellington, as many as 50 homes and half the businesses were evacuated, officials said.
The body of an 81-year-old man was found in the water at Ellington, said Missouri State Water Patrol Lt. Nicholas Humphrey. A 21-year-old state Department of Transportation worker was killed near Springfield when his dump truck was hit by a tractor-trailer as he helped out in a flooded area, officials said.
Scott and Marilyne Peterson and their 25-year-old son, Scott Jr., scurried out of their mobile home in Piedmont after watching the water rise 3 feet in five minutes. The family had just enough time to grab some essentials, a few clothes and the family dog.
"You didn't have time to worry," Scott Peterson Sr. said. "You just grab what you can and go and you're glad the people are OK."
___
Associated Press writers Betsy Taylor in Piedmont, Mo., and Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
'Hogan's Heroes' actor Ivan Dixon dies
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Ivan Dixon, an actor, director and producer best known for his role as Kinchloe on the 1960s television series "Hogan's Heroes," has died. He was 76.
Dixon died Sunday at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte after a hemorrhage and of complications from kidney failure, said his daughter, Doris Nomathande Dixon of Charlotte.
Actor Sidney Poitier said the two men became friends after Dixon was his stunt double in the 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones."
"As an actor, you had to be careful," Poitier said in a statement. "He was quite likely to walk off with the scene."
Dixon began his acting career on Broadway in plays including "The Cave Dwellers" and "A Raisin in the Sun." On film, he appeared in "Something of Value," "A Raisin in the Sun," "A Patch of Blue," "Nothing But a Man" and the cult favorite "Car Wash."
But he was probably best known for the role of U.S. Staff Sgt. James Kinchloe on "Hogan's Heroes," a satire set in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. Kinchloe, in charge of electronic communications, could mimic German officers on the radio or phone.
While her father was most proud of work in plays such as "A Raisin in the Sun" and for films such as "Nothing But a Man," he had no mixed feelings about being recognized for the role of Kinchloe, his daughter said.
"It was a pivotal role as well, because there were not as many blacks in TV series at that time," Nomathande Dixon said. "He did have some personal issues with that role, but it also launched him into directing."
Dixon also earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the CBS Playhouse special "The Final War of Olly Winter."
In addition to acting on television, he also directed hundreds of episodic shows, including "The Waltons," "The Rockford Files," "Magnum, P.I." and "In the Heat of the Night."
Born April 6, 1931, in New York City, Dixon graduated in 1954 from North Carolina Central University in Durham.
His honors include four NAACP Image Awards, the National Black Theatre Award and the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award from the Black American Cinema Society. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild of America and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon of Charlotte, and a son, Alan Kimara Dixon of Oakland, Calif. Two sons, Ivan Nathaniel Dixon IV and N'Gai Christopher Dixon, died previously.
At Dixon's request, the family said, no memorial or funeral is planned.
Dixon died Sunday at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte after a hemorrhage and of complications from kidney failure, said his daughter, Doris Nomathande Dixon of Charlotte.
Actor Sidney Poitier said the two men became friends after Dixon was his stunt double in the 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones."
"As an actor, you had to be careful," Poitier said in a statement. "He was quite likely to walk off with the scene."
Dixon began his acting career on Broadway in plays including "The Cave Dwellers" and "A Raisin in the Sun." On film, he appeared in "Something of Value," "A Raisin in the Sun," "A Patch of Blue," "Nothing But a Man" and the cult favorite "Car Wash."
But he was probably best known for the role of U.S. Staff Sgt. James Kinchloe on "Hogan's Heroes," a satire set in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. Kinchloe, in charge of electronic communications, could mimic German officers on the radio or phone.
While her father was most proud of work in plays such as "A Raisin in the Sun" and for films such as "Nothing But a Man," he had no mixed feelings about being recognized for the role of Kinchloe, his daughter said.
"It was a pivotal role as well, because there were not as many blacks in TV series at that time," Nomathande Dixon said. "He did have some personal issues with that role, but it also launched him into directing."
Dixon also earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the CBS Playhouse special "The Final War of Olly Winter."
In addition to acting on television, he also directed hundreds of episodic shows, including "The Waltons," "The Rockford Files," "Magnum, P.I." and "In the Heat of the Night."
Born April 6, 1931, in New York City, Dixon graduated in 1954 from North Carolina Central University in Durham.
His honors include four NAACP Image Awards, the National Black Theatre Award and the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award from the Black American Cinema Society. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild of America and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon of Charlotte, and a son, Alan Kimara Dixon of Oakland, Calif. Two sons, Ivan Nathaniel Dixon IV and N'Gai Christopher Dixon, died previously.
At Dixon's request, the family said, no memorial or funeral is planned.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Vista upgrades available for download
By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology Writer
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. posted a major package of updates and security fixes for its Windows Vista operating system for download starting Tuesday.
People whose PCs run the newest Microsoft operating system can use Microsoft's Windows Update tool or visit its Download Center Web site and download the free Service Pack 1. In some cases, computer users may need to download older updates before they'll be able to install SP1.
Many of the fixes contained in SP1 have already been released as part of regular monthly updates in the year since the operating system went on sale to consumers. Microsoft has said SP1 improves Vista's reliability, security and performance.
Before SP1 was made widely available, Microsoft had determined that a handful of programs will fail in some way after SP1 is installed. On Tuesday, a Windows team blog said PC users with some drivers installed will "temporarily" not be able to get SP1 at all.
Microsoft said SP1 will block several applications from running for "reliability reasons." The list includes BitDefender Antivirus and Internet Security, version 10; Fujitsu's Shock Sensor hard drive protection for rugged laptops; two versions of Jiangmin KV Antivirus software and Check Point Technologies' Zone Alarm Security Suite.
The company said a few programs won't run on SP1, such as Web application design program Iron Speed Designer, while others will stop working well, like The New York Times Reader application.
Certain device drivers from RealTek AC, Intel and Symantec are among those Microsoft said would prevent an upgrade to SP1. The software maker said PC users can seek out updates from most of the makers of those devices to fix the problem.
Industry analysts offered mixed reports on whether Vista SP1 makes a noticeable difference on the way their computers run.
Michael Cherry, of the research group Directions on Microsoft, said that after installing SP1, the time it took to copy files over a network "returned to normal" — meaning, the operation felt as speedy as it did using Windows XP, Vista's predecessor.
But he said one thing SP1 didn't fix was his ability to wake his PC from sleep mode, which he described as "a hit or miss affair."
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said it took an hour or so to install the service pack on each of two of his computers, but once the machines were upgraded they both seemed "snappier" and less prone to crashing.
Is Vista "as fast as XP or not — now it's close enough where you can have the argument, where before, (Vista) was clearly slower," Enderle said.
While Cherry argued that breaking a short list of security programs was unacceptable, Enderle said that's par for the course with service packs, which often make changes to the deepest layers of the operating system, which security programs also access.
For now, the service pack is available for copies of Vista in five languages: English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The service pack for other languages will be released for manufacturing in mid-April, which Microsoft is also expected to push the upgrades to computer users who have set their PCs to receive automatic updates.
While Microsoft has not specified when retailers will start stocking boxed copies of Vista SP1, Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. is selling the software for shipping Wednesday.
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. posted a major package of updates and security fixes for its Windows Vista operating system for download starting Tuesday.
People whose PCs run the newest Microsoft operating system can use Microsoft's Windows Update tool or visit its Download Center Web site and download the free Service Pack 1. In some cases, computer users may need to download older updates before they'll be able to install SP1.
Many of the fixes contained in SP1 have already been released as part of regular monthly updates in the year since the operating system went on sale to consumers. Microsoft has said SP1 improves Vista's reliability, security and performance.
Before SP1 was made widely available, Microsoft had determined that a handful of programs will fail in some way after SP1 is installed. On Tuesday, a Windows team blog said PC users with some drivers installed will "temporarily" not be able to get SP1 at all.
Microsoft said SP1 will block several applications from running for "reliability reasons." The list includes BitDefender Antivirus and Internet Security, version 10; Fujitsu's Shock Sensor hard drive protection for rugged laptops; two versions of Jiangmin KV Antivirus software and Check Point Technologies' Zone Alarm Security Suite.
The company said a few programs won't run on SP1, such as Web application design program Iron Speed Designer, while others will stop working well, like The New York Times Reader application.
Certain device drivers from RealTek AC, Intel and Symantec are among those Microsoft said would prevent an upgrade to SP1. The software maker said PC users can seek out updates from most of the makers of those devices to fix the problem.
Industry analysts offered mixed reports on whether Vista SP1 makes a noticeable difference on the way their computers run.
Michael Cherry, of the research group Directions on Microsoft, said that after installing SP1, the time it took to copy files over a network "returned to normal" — meaning, the operation felt as speedy as it did using Windows XP, Vista's predecessor.
But he said one thing SP1 didn't fix was his ability to wake his PC from sleep mode, which he described as "a hit or miss affair."
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said it took an hour or so to install the service pack on each of two of his computers, but once the machines were upgraded they both seemed "snappier" and less prone to crashing.
Is Vista "as fast as XP or not — now it's close enough where you can have the argument, where before, (Vista) was clearly slower," Enderle said.
While Cherry argued that breaking a short list of security programs was unacceptable, Enderle said that's par for the course with service packs, which often make changes to the deepest layers of the operating system, which security programs also access.
For now, the service pack is available for copies of Vista in five languages: English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The service pack for other languages will be released for manufacturing in mid-April, which Microsoft is also expected to push the upgrades to computer users who have set their PCs to receive automatic updates.
While Microsoft has not specified when retailers will start stocking boxed copies of Vista SP1, Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. is selling the software for shipping Wednesday.
Credit card data stolen from supermarket chain
BOSTON (Reuters) - A computer hacker stole thousands of credit card numbers after breaching security at two U.S. grocery store chains owned by Belgium-based Delhaize Group SA, the companies said on Monday.
Nearly 2,000 cases of fraud have been linked to the breach, but no personal information such as names or addresses was accessed when the hacker broke into the Hannaford Bros. stores in Massachusetts, New England and New York, and Sweetbay customers in Florida, Hannaford said in a statement.
Boston's WBZ radio said 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen. Company officials were not immediately available to confirm the number of stolen card numbers.
Hannaford, headquartered in Scarborough, Maine, said it became aware of unusual credit card activity on February 27 and began an investigation. It said the data was illegally accessed during the credit card authorization process.
Hannaford Chief Executive Ron Hodge offered an apology for the intrusion. There are 165 Hannaford stores in the U.S. Northeast and 106 Sweetbay supermarkets in Florida.
"We sincerely regret any concern or inconvenience this has caused," Hodge said in a statement. "We have taken aggressive steps to augment our network security capabilities."
The breach is the latest at a big U.S. retailer and comes after U.S. retail group TJX Cos Inc disclosed last year that data from 45.7 million credit and debit cards were stolen by hackers over a period of 18 months, as well as personal information for 451,000 people.
A group of banks later asserted in court documents that the number of consumer accounts were affected was closer to 94 million, a charge Massachusetts-based TJX denied.
(Reporting by Jason Szep)
Nearly 2,000 cases of fraud have been linked to the breach, but no personal information such as names or addresses was accessed when the hacker broke into the Hannaford Bros. stores in Massachusetts, New England and New York, and Sweetbay customers in Florida, Hannaford said in a statement.
Boston's WBZ radio said 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen. Company officials were not immediately available to confirm the number of stolen card numbers.
Hannaford, headquartered in Scarborough, Maine, said it became aware of unusual credit card activity on February 27 and began an investigation. It said the data was illegally accessed during the credit card authorization process.
Hannaford Chief Executive Ron Hodge offered an apology for the intrusion. There are 165 Hannaford stores in the U.S. Northeast and 106 Sweetbay supermarkets in Florida.
"We sincerely regret any concern or inconvenience this has caused," Hodge said in a statement. "We have taken aggressive steps to augment our network security capabilities."
The breach is the latest at a big U.S. retailer and comes after U.S. retail group TJX Cos Inc disclosed last year that data from 45.7 million credit and debit cards were stolen by hackers over a period of 18 months, as well as personal information for 451,000 people.
A group of banks later asserted in court documents that the number of consumer accounts were affected was closer to 94 million, a charge Massachusetts-based TJX denied.
(Reporting by Jason Szep)
American Airlines cancels weather-hit Dallas flights
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Airlines is canceling up to 720 flights in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport due to lightning and the threat of tornadoes, the air carrier said on Tuesday.
The U.S. No. 1 airline, owned by AMR Corp, said its planes at the Dallas airport have been at a standstill since this morning and was diverting incoming flights to nearby cities.
"They had to evacuate the air traffic control tower for about 10 minutes under threat of tornado, and that resulted in a ground stop," an American Airlines spokesman told Reuters via e-mail. "We've had ramp closures because of lightning for hours now, and we had to make a tough decision."
The spokesman said American has diverted about 100 inbound flights, and is hoping to shuttle passengers to Dallas as soon as there is a break in the weather.
(Reporting by Bill Rigby and Kyle Peterson, editing by Mark Porter)
The U.S. No. 1 airline, owned by AMR Corp, said its planes at the Dallas airport have been at a standstill since this morning and was diverting incoming flights to nearby cities.
"They had to evacuate the air traffic control tower for about 10 minutes under threat of tornado, and that resulted in a ground stop," an American Airlines spokesman told Reuters via e-mail. "We've had ramp closures because of lightning for hours now, and we had to make a tough decision."
The spokesman said American has diverted about 100 inbound flights, and is hoping to shuttle passengers to Dallas as soon as there is a break in the weather.
(Reporting by Bill Rigby and Kyle Peterson, editing by Mark Porter)
Five Volcanic Episodes On Mars Identified by Scientists
Jeanna BrynerStaff WriterSPACE.com
The Red Planet had a fiery and watery past. New research reveals that beginning about 3.5 billion years ago, five episodes of violent volcanic activity spewed lava and hot water onto the Martian surface, sculpting the landscape into the dimpled world we see today.
Unlike on Earth, researchers say, the fashioning of the Martian surface has proceeded in spurts and stops. The rocky slabs that form Earth's outer surface steadily inch along to mold the mountains and valleys that shape our planet.
The results, presented last week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at League City, Texas, depicted periods of volcanic activity alternating with relatively quiescent stints on Mars.
"We now have good evidence that volcanism on Mars and the release of water was not at the same level at all times, but it was episodic," said Gerhard Neukum of Freie University of Berlin and principal investigator for Mars Express, the spacecraft which returned the data behind this study.
Dating rocks
Neukum and his colleagues analyzed images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express. In order to estimate the ages of volcanic material on Mars, Neukum's team counted the number of small craters carved into the surface. The older the surface, the more craters it would have accumulated as meteorites of all sizes bombarded its surface.
"We can now determine the ages of large regions and resurfacing events on the planet," Neukum said. Resurfacing occurs when volcanic eruptions spread lava across the planet's surface.
From this technique, the team estimated five volcanic periods: ?3.5 billion years ago, 1.5 billion years ago, between 400 million and 800 million years ago, 200 million years ago and 100 million years ago. The dates of the earlier episodes, Neukum estimates, are correct to within 100 million to 200 million years and the later dates are correct to within 20 million to 30 million years.
The most recent activity on Olympus Mons, Mars's largest volcano, occurred at the summit around 150 million years ago with minor flows in some areas as recent as 2 million years ago. Neukum added that peaks in eruptions of the volcano match the dates his team found for global volcanic activity.
The team also investigated two large channels, Kasei Valles and Mangala Valles, revealing episodes of water flow that roughly match the times of high volcanic activity.
"So water flowed over the surface of Mars not just at the beginning but again and again throughout its history," Neukum told SPACE.com.
Martian plates
The bursts of volcanic activity could be explained by plate tectonics, or lack thereof. Whereas Earth is covered with a puzzle of rocky slabs called plates, Mars is a one-plate planet.
Over time, heat from Mars's interior builds up and can cause the crust to crack in some areas, releasing fiery magma (called lava when it reaches the surface). The internal heat generated by the volcanic activity also may have caused water to erupt from the interior, leading to wide-scale flash flooding.
These episodes might not be over.
"The interior of the planet is not cold yet, so this could happen again," Neukum said. But the chances of Mars Express or another orbiter spying such events are slim, because the eruptions happen much less frequently on Mars than on Earth, he added.
"So Mars is not dead," Neukum said.
Image Gallery: Wild Volcanoes
Martian Volcanoes May Not be Extinct
Image Gallery: Mars Express ? A Year of Discoveries
Original Story: Five Volcanic Episodes On Mars Identified by Scientists
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
The Red Planet had a fiery and watery past. New research reveals that beginning about 3.5 billion years ago, five episodes of violent volcanic activity spewed lava and hot water onto the Martian surface, sculpting the landscape into the dimpled world we see today.
Unlike on Earth, researchers say, the fashioning of the Martian surface has proceeded in spurts and stops. The rocky slabs that form Earth's outer surface steadily inch along to mold the mountains and valleys that shape our planet.
The results, presented last week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at League City, Texas, depicted periods of volcanic activity alternating with relatively quiescent stints on Mars.
"We now have good evidence that volcanism on Mars and the release of water was not at the same level at all times, but it was episodic," said Gerhard Neukum of Freie University of Berlin and principal investigator for Mars Express, the spacecraft which returned the data behind this study.
Dating rocks
Neukum and his colleagues analyzed images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express. In order to estimate the ages of volcanic material on Mars, Neukum's team counted the number of small craters carved into the surface. The older the surface, the more craters it would have accumulated as meteorites of all sizes bombarded its surface.
"We can now determine the ages of large regions and resurfacing events on the planet," Neukum said. Resurfacing occurs when volcanic eruptions spread lava across the planet's surface.
From this technique, the team estimated five volcanic periods: ?3.5 billion years ago, 1.5 billion years ago, between 400 million and 800 million years ago, 200 million years ago and 100 million years ago. The dates of the earlier episodes, Neukum estimates, are correct to within 100 million to 200 million years and the later dates are correct to within 20 million to 30 million years.
The most recent activity on Olympus Mons, Mars's largest volcano, occurred at the summit around 150 million years ago with minor flows in some areas as recent as 2 million years ago. Neukum added that peaks in eruptions of the volcano match the dates his team found for global volcanic activity.
The team also investigated two large channels, Kasei Valles and Mangala Valles, revealing episodes of water flow that roughly match the times of high volcanic activity.
"So water flowed over the surface of Mars not just at the beginning but again and again throughout its history," Neukum told SPACE.com.
Martian plates
The bursts of volcanic activity could be explained by plate tectonics, or lack thereof. Whereas Earth is covered with a puzzle of rocky slabs called plates, Mars is a one-plate planet.
Over time, heat from Mars's interior builds up and can cause the crust to crack in some areas, releasing fiery magma (called lava when it reaches the surface). The internal heat generated by the volcanic activity also may have caused water to erupt from the interior, leading to wide-scale flash flooding.
These episodes might not be over.
"The interior of the planet is not cold yet, so this could happen again," Neukum said. But the chances of Mars Express or another orbiter spying such events are slim, because the eruptions happen much less frequently on Mars than on Earth, he added.
"So Mars is not dead," Neukum said.
Image Gallery: Wild Volcanoes
Martian Volcanoes May Not be Extinct
Image Gallery: Mars Express ? A Year of Discoveries
Original Story: Five Volcanic Episodes On Mars Identified by Scientists
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
Prices up, housing contruction drops
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - Wholesale prices rose again in February as another hefty increase in energy costs offset falling food prices. Outside of food and energy, prices shot up at the fastest pace in 15 months.
In another sign of troubles in housing, construction of new homes fell by a larger-than-expected 0.6 percent in February to an annual rate of 1.065 million units.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that wholesale prices were up 0.3 percent last month, following an even bigger 1 percent jump in January.
Outside of food and energy, the rise in inflation was a troubling 0.5 percent, the biggest increase for core inflation since a rise of 0.9 percent in November 2006.
The hefty February increase in core inflation raises concerns that relentless increases in energy costs over the past two years are beginning to spread to other areas of the economy.
That could act as a constraint on the Federal Reserve, which is trying to combat a serious economic slowdown by cutting interest rates to jump-start economic growth.
However, if inflation starts to be a problem, the Fed could be caught in the grips of stagflation, the malady of stagnant growth occurring at the same time that inflation is rising.
The February rise in wholesale prices reflected higher costs not only for energy but also for cars and light trucks as well as a 1.3 percent jump in prescription drug prices.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said that the overall figure will be even worse next month given that energy prices have been soaring. Crude oil prices hit new records last week above $111 per barrel.
For the moment, Fed officials have said they view the threat of a recession as the bigger problem. Financial markets are looking for another aggressive rate cut on Tuesday, especially in light of the collapse over the weekend of Bear Stearns, Wall Street's fifth largest investment bank, and the ongoing troubles in housing.
The drop in new-home construction was a bigger decline than the 0.2 percent drop that Wall Street had been expecting although January was revised up to show a stronger gain than originally reported.
However, building permits, considered a good indication of future activity, plunged by 7.8 percent in February to an annual rate of 978,000 units, the slowest pace in 16 years.
The troubles in housing with falling sales and prices in many parts of the country have acted as a drag on the overall economy, contributing to a serious slowdown that many analysts are worried could push the country into a recession.
The 0.3 percent rise in wholesale prices reflected a 0.8 percent jump in energy costs, driven higher by 2.9 percent jump in gasoline prices and 5.7 percent increase in residential natural gas prices, the biggest jump in this price in more than two years.
Food costs at the wholesale level actually fell by 0.5 percent last month as the cost of vegetables, fruit, dairy products and pork all declined.
For the past 12 months, wholesale prices have risen by 6.4 percent while excluding food and energy, inflation is up 2.6 percent, the biggest 12-month change for core inflation since the period ending last October.
WASHINGTON - Wholesale prices rose again in February as another hefty increase in energy costs offset falling food prices. Outside of food and energy, prices shot up at the fastest pace in 15 months.
In another sign of troubles in housing, construction of new homes fell by a larger-than-expected 0.6 percent in February to an annual rate of 1.065 million units.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that wholesale prices were up 0.3 percent last month, following an even bigger 1 percent jump in January.
Outside of food and energy, the rise in inflation was a troubling 0.5 percent, the biggest increase for core inflation since a rise of 0.9 percent in November 2006.
The hefty February increase in core inflation raises concerns that relentless increases in energy costs over the past two years are beginning to spread to other areas of the economy.
That could act as a constraint on the Federal Reserve, which is trying to combat a serious economic slowdown by cutting interest rates to jump-start economic growth.
However, if inflation starts to be a problem, the Fed could be caught in the grips of stagflation, the malady of stagnant growth occurring at the same time that inflation is rising.
The February rise in wholesale prices reflected higher costs not only for energy but also for cars and light trucks as well as a 1.3 percent jump in prescription drug prices.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said that the overall figure will be even worse next month given that energy prices have been soaring. Crude oil prices hit new records last week above $111 per barrel.
For the moment, Fed officials have said they view the threat of a recession as the bigger problem. Financial markets are looking for another aggressive rate cut on Tuesday, especially in light of the collapse over the weekend of Bear Stearns, Wall Street's fifth largest investment bank, and the ongoing troubles in housing.
The drop in new-home construction was a bigger decline than the 0.2 percent drop that Wall Street had been expecting although January was revised up to show a stronger gain than originally reported.
However, building permits, considered a good indication of future activity, plunged by 7.8 percent in February to an annual rate of 978,000 units, the slowest pace in 16 years.
The troubles in housing with falling sales and prices in many parts of the country have acted as a drag on the overall economy, contributing to a serious slowdown that many analysts are worried could push the country into a recession.
The 0.3 percent rise in wholesale prices reflected a 0.8 percent jump in energy costs, driven higher by 2.9 percent jump in gasoline prices and 5.7 percent increase in residential natural gas prices, the biggest jump in this price in more than two years.
Food costs at the wholesale level actually fell by 0.5 percent last month as the cost of vegetables, fruit, dairy products and pork all declined.
For the past 12 months, wholesale prices have risen by 6.4 percent while excluding food and energy, inflation is up 2.6 percent, the biggest 12-month change for core inflation since the period ending last October.
Lawmakers probe EPA conflicts
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A House committee opened an investigation Monday into potential conflicts of interest in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the case of eight scientists who were consultants or members of EPA science advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals while getting research support from the chemical industry on the same chemicals they were examining.
In two cases, EPA advisers were employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals being evaluated. the committee said.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said such conflicts appear to be in stark contrast to EPA's decision last summer to remove a public health scientist and expert in toxicology, from a panel examining the health impacts of a flame retardant because of critical comments she made about the chemical.
The American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group, had called for the removal of Deborah Rice, a toxicologist from Maine, as chairman of an independent EPA panel assessing the health risks from "deca", a flame retardant in electronic equipment, after she urged the Maine state legislature to ban the chemical.
"The routine use of chemical industry employees and representatives in EPA's scientific review process, together with EPA's dismissal of Dr. Rice raises serious questions with regard to EPA's conflict of interest rules and their application," said Dingell in a letter Monday to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
Rice, an employee of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, was never alleged to have any monetary interest associated with deca and her dismissal "seems to argue that scientific expertise ... is a basis for disqualification," the letter continued.
"We will be reviewing the letter and we will respond appropriately," said EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons.
The letter, also signed by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee's investigations subcommittee, demanded documents related to Rice's ouster, as well as records related the appointment of scientists with chemical industry ties.
Rice's removal, as chairman of the deca chemical review board "does not seem sensible on its face" given the EPA's acceptance of scientists with ties to the chemical industry and even to companies who make the chemicals being reviewed, the congressmen wrote.
Among the appointments questioned:
• An employee of Exxon Mobil Corp., who served on an expert panel assessing the cancer-causing potential of ethylene oxide, a chemical also made by Exxon Mobil.
• A participant in a panel examining the risk to humans from a widely used octane enhancer in gasoline, who was employed by an engineering company working with makers of the chemical and major oil and chemical companies.
• A scientist who served on a panel examining the health impacts of ethylene oxide, a component in various industrial chemicals, who received research support from Dow Agro, one of the chemicals' manufacturers.
The House committee questioned a case where a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his research on a chemical while he also prepared the chemical industry's public comments on the cancer-causing potential of the same chemical. Also cited was a case where a scientist who, while a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his own industry-supported research arguing the chemical was not a carcinogen.
In light of Rice's removal, Dingell and Stupak asked the EPA about the appointment of a Harvard University epidemiologist to a recently convened panel reviewing the possible cancer risk from acrylamide, an industrial chemical used as a thickener but also found in some foods. They said that the epidemiologist on a number of occasions has said the exposure to acrylamide through food does not appear to pose a cancer risk.
The examples cited by the House committee were included in a report last month by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group, that said its investigation found that among seven external EPA review panels, it found 17 reviewers with potential conflicts of interest.
WASHINGTON - A House committee opened an investigation Monday into potential conflicts of interest in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the case of eight scientists who were consultants or members of EPA science advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals while getting research support from the chemical industry on the same chemicals they were examining.
In two cases, EPA advisers were employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals being evaluated. the committee said.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said such conflicts appear to be in stark contrast to EPA's decision last summer to remove a public health scientist and expert in toxicology, from a panel examining the health impacts of a flame retardant because of critical comments she made about the chemical.
The American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group, had called for the removal of Deborah Rice, a toxicologist from Maine, as chairman of an independent EPA panel assessing the health risks from "deca", a flame retardant in electronic equipment, after she urged the Maine state legislature to ban the chemical.
"The routine use of chemical industry employees and representatives in EPA's scientific review process, together with EPA's dismissal of Dr. Rice raises serious questions with regard to EPA's conflict of interest rules and their application," said Dingell in a letter Monday to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.
Rice, an employee of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, was never alleged to have any monetary interest associated with deca and her dismissal "seems to argue that scientific expertise ... is a basis for disqualification," the letter continued.
"We will be reviewing the letter and we will respond appropriately," said EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons.
The letter, also signed by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee's investigations subcommittee, demanded documents related to Rice's ouster, as well as records related the appointment of scientists with chemical industry ties.
Rice's removal, as chairman of the deca chemical review board "does not seem sensible on its face" given the EPA's acceptance of scientists with ties to the chemical industry and even to companies who make the chemicals being reviewed, the congressmen wrote.
Among the appointments questioned:
• An employee of Exxon Mobil Corp., who served on an expert panel assessing the cancer-causing potential of ethylene oxide, a chemical also made by Exxon Mobil.
• A participant in a panel examining the risk to humans from a widely used octane enhancer in gasoline, who was employed by an engineering company working with makers of the chemical and major oil and chemical companies.
• A scientist who served on a panel examining the health impacts of ethylene oxide, a component in various industrial chemicals, who received research support from Dow Agro, one of the chemicals' manufacturers.
The House committee questioned a case where a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his research on a chemical while he also prepared the chemical industry's public comments on the cancer-causing potential of the same chemical. Also cited was a case where a scientist who, while a consultant to an EPA review panel, promoted his own industry-supported research arguing the chemical was not a carcinogen.
In light of Rice's removal, Dingell and Stupak asked the EPA about the appointment of a Harvard University epidemiologist to a recently convened panel reviewing the possible cancer risk from acrylamide, an industrial chemical used as a thickener but also found in some foods. They said that the epidemiologist on a number of occasions has said the exposure to acrylamide through food does not appear to pose a cancer risk.
The examples cited by the House committee were included in a report last month by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group, that said its investigation found that among seven external EPA review panels, it found 17 reviewers with potential conflicts of interest.
Man charged with abducting schoolgirl: prosecutor
LONDON (AFP) - A 39-year-old man has been charged with the abduction of a nine-year-old girl found alive after having disappeared for three weeks, prosecutors said Monday. Michael Donovan will appear before Dewsbury Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with the kidnap and false imprisonment of Shannon Matthews, who was discovered concealed in the base of a bed.
"Having carefully considered all of the material ... we have made the decision that there is sufficient evidence and have authorised that Michael Donovan should be charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment," said Peter Mann, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's West and North Yorkshire Complex Case unit.
She went missing on February 19 after a school swimming trip in Dewsbury, near Leeds, triggering a huge police investigation amid growing fears she may have been killed.
The schoolgirl, whose picture has been plastered in the media for the last three weeks, was found in a flat in Batley Carr, a short distance from her home.
"Having carefully considered all of the material ... we have made the decision that there is sufficient evidence and have authorised that Michael Donovan should be charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment," said Peter Mann, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's West and North Yorkshire Complex Case unit.
She went missing on February 19 after a school swimming trip in Dewsbury, near Leeds, triggering a huge police investigation amid growing fears she may have been killed.
The schoolgirl, whose picture has been plastered in the media for the last three weeks, was found in a flat in Batley Carr, a short distance from her home.
Some Wall St banks seen riskier than poor countries
By Peter Apps
LONDON (Reuters) - Turmoil and uncertainty over some of Wall Street's best-known investment banks has left some facing rougher market conditions that price them as riskier than developing countries or banks in volatile areas of the world.
Seen for decades as the power brokers in emerging market finance, Wall St firms' sudden underdog status points to the magnitude of fear surrounding them -- and perhaps a degree of confidence in the longer-term stability of developing countries.
Shortly before it received a Federal Reserve-backed rescue package late last week, the cost of insuring the debt of U.S. bank Bear Stearns (BSC.N) was higher than that for banks in Kazakhstan, one trader said.
On Monday, Bear Stearns was sold for a fraction of its value last week, further undermining global markets and confidence in what were once seen as some of the world's most reliable banks.
Early on Tuesday, before it posted results, the cost of protecting debt at Lehman Brothers was 443 basis points, or $443,000 a year for five years, to protect $10 million of debt with credit default swaps.
After Lehman Brothers (LEH.N) announced a fall in revenue but beat fearful expectations, its credit default swaps traded at 330 basis points according to Phoenix Partners.
One analyst said the bank's position appeared "survivable" -- but protecting its debt is pricier than protecting that of Turkey or Nigeria, traders say.
"You could say Lehman is riskier than Nigeria," one trader said, asking not to be named. "But it's not a trade or a comparison people often try to make."
Turkish credit derivatives swaps were trading at 290/298 despite worries over a wide current account deficit and volatile politics. Nigeria's are relatively illiquid but usually priced in the mid-200s, a trader said.
Goldman Sachs (GS.N) credit derivative swaps tightened to 160 basis points after the bank said its first-quarter earnings fell by half after recording more than $2.5 billion of losses on loans and other assets, but with robust trading helping the bank exceed market expectations.
But liquidity in global debt markets remains poor with the world's largest banks suspecting each other of not coming entirely clean on losses in the U.S. mortgage market, and many analysts saying more bad news is to come.
GREAT UNKNOWNS
"I think with Africa people feel they know what they are dealing with," said Razia Khan, head of Africa economics at Standard Chartered in London. "In contrast, everything else is a great unknown."
That was despite investors being slightly put off by the speed at which Kenya -- a perceived oasis of East African stability -- collapsed into violence after a disputed election in December.
In credit derivative swaps markets, Turkey was trading at the same level as British bank HBOS (HBOS.L), while healthy Brazil with credit derivatives swaps at 191/197 basis points was roughly level with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), BB Securities said.
That was despite worries over Turkey's wide current account deficit and concerns over an attempt by the country's secular prosecutors to ban the ruling party from politics for allegedly trying to build an Islamic state.
"It gives us some kind of snapshot of relative values," said BB Securities emerging markets research head Paul Hollingworth. "The fundamentals have become secondary to liquidity and technical factors.""
"Most banks in the UK and U.S. are trading well below valuations of top emerging markets banks," he said. "The Brazilian banking system has never had it so good. It is a stark comparison."
The country suffering worst in the credit crisis is not usually seen as a byword for trouble -- Iceland, ranked top in the world according to United Nations human development indicators.
Its highly leveraged banks are laboring under a greater proportion of debt than almost any other bank and this sent the Icelandic crown to all-time lows on Tuesday morning and the credit default swaps of its leading Kaupthing Bank to 864 basis points.
(Additional reporting by Sebastian Tong; editing by Stephen Nisbet)
LONDON (Reuters) - Turmoil and uncertainty over some of Wall Street's best-known investment banks has left some facing rougher market conditions that price them as riskier than developing countries or banks in volatile areas of the world.
Seen for decades as the power brokers in emerging market finance, Wall St firms' sudden underdog status points to the magnitude of fear surrounding them -- and perhaps a degree of confidence in the longer-term stability of developing countries.
Shortly before it received a Federal Reserve-backed rescue package late last week, the cost of insuring the debt of U.S. bank Bear Stearns (BSC.N) was higher than that for banks in Kazakhstan, one trader said.
On Monday, Bear Stearns was sold for a fraction of its value last week, further undermining global markets and confidence in what were once seen as some of the world's most reliable banks.
Early on Tuesday, before it posted results, the cost of protecting debt at Lehman Brothers was 443 basis points, or $443,000 a year for five years, to protect $10 million of debt with credit default swaps.
After Lehman Brothers (LEH.N) announced a fall in revenue but beat fearful expectations, its credit default swaps traded at 330 basis points according to Phoenix Partners.
One analyst said the bank's position appeared "survivable" -- but protecting its debt is pricier than protecting that of Turkey or Nigeria, traders say.
"You could say Lehman is riskier than Nigeria," one trader said, asking not to be named. "But it's not a trade or a comparison people often try to make."
Turkish credit derivatives swaps were trading at 290/298 despite worries over a wide current account deficit and volatile politics. Nigeria's are relatively illiquid but usually priced in the mid-200s, a trader said.
Goldman Sachs (GS.N) credit derivative swaps tightened to 160 basis points after the bank said its first-quarter earnings fell by half after recording more than $2.5 billion of losses on loans and other assets, but with robust trading helping the bank exceed market expectations.
But liquidity in global debt markets remains poor with the world's largest banks suspecting each other of not coming entirely clean on losses in the U.S. mortgage market, and many analysts saying more bad news is to come.
GREAT UNKNOWNS
"I think with Africa people feel they know what they are dealing with," said Razia Khan, head of Africa economics at Standard Chartered in London. "In contrast, everything else is a great unknown."
That was despite investors being slightly put off by the speed at which Kenya -- a perceived oasis of East African stability -- collapsed into violence after a disputed election in December.
In credit derivative swaps markets, Turkey was trading at the same level as British bank HBOS (HBOS.L), while healthy Brazil with credit derivatives swaps at 191/197 basis points was roughly level with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), BB Securities said.
That was despite worries over Turkey's wide current account deficit and concerns over an attempt by the country's secular prosecutors to ban the ruling party from politics for allegedly trying to build an Islamic state.
"It gives us some kind of snapshot of relative values," said BB Securities emerging markets research head Paul Hollingworth. "The fundamentals have become secondary to liquidity and technical factors.""
"Most banks in the UK and U.S. are trading well below valuations of top emerging markets banks," he said. "The Brazilian banking system has never had it so good. It is a stark comparison."
The country suffering worst in the credit crisis is not usually seen as a byword for trouble -- Iceland, ranked top in the world according to United Nations human development indicators.
Its highly leveraged banks are laboring under a greater proportion of debt than almost any other bank and this sent the Icelandic crown to all-time lows on Tuesday morning and the credit default swaps of its leading Kaupthing Bank to 864 basis points.
(Additional reporting by Sebastian Tong; editing by Stephen Nisbet)
Monday, March 17, 2008
Paterson to become 55th NY governor
By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. - Lt. Gov. David Paterson prepared to take over Monday for Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose vow as he took office of "Day One, Everything Changes," was unraveled a week ago by revelations of a prostitution scandal.
At his swearing-in as the state's 55th governor, Paterson plans to use his inaugural speech to project confidence and optimism, while relating his own personal struggles to New York's ability to overcome challenges, an aide said.
Paterson will become the state's first black governor — and would be the nation's first legally blind chief executive to serve more than a few days.
President Bush gave Paterson a congratulatory call Monday morning.
"He said that his friends in New York had told him that while it's a big job, that you can handle it," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. Bush said he "knows that Lt. Gov. Paterson will be able to do a great job, and that he looks forward to meeting him soon."
After acknowledging what a difficult week it has been for the state, Paterson plans to talk about the need for Republicans and his fellow Democrats to work together to address pressing issues, including the state budget.
On Sunday, Paterson was catching up on budget details and preparing — and memorizing — his inauguration speech.
Spitzer was scheduled to officially resign at noon Monday, and Paterson will officially take over an hour later before a joint session of the Legislature in the Assembly chamber. He spent much of last week meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders in preparation for his unexpected transition.
The new governor was Spitzer's lieutenant for just 14 months. Paterson has been a Democratic state senator since 1985, representing parts of Harlem and Manhattan's Upper West Side.
He graduated from Columbia University and Hofstra School of Law.
His father, Basil, a former state senator representing Harlem and later New York's first black secretary of state, was part of a political fraternity that included fellow Democrats U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins — the city's first black mayor — and former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton.
"It's very daunting" Paterson said Friday. "I definitely feel anxiety ... but in the end, we have a job to do. And we're here to do that job."
Federal prosecutors must still decide whether to pursue charges against Spitzer. The married father of three teenage girls was accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars on prostitutes — including a call girl "Kristen" in Washington the night before Valentine's Day.
ALBANY, N.Y. - Lt. Gov. David Paterson prepared to take over Monday for Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose vow as he took office of "Day One, Everything Changes," was unraveled a week ago by revelations of a prostitution scandal.
At his swearing-in as the state's 55th governor, Paterson plans to use his inaugural speech to project confidence and optimism, while relating his own personal struggles to New York's ability to overcome challenges, an aide said.
Paterson will become the state's first black governor — and would be the nation's first legally blind chief executive to serve more than a few days.
President Bush gave Paterson a congratulatory call Monday morning.
"He said that his friends in New York had told him that while it's a big job, that you can handle it," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. Bush said he "knows that Lt. Gov. Paterson will be able to do a great job, and that he looks forward to meeting him soon."
After acknowledging what a difficult week it has been for the state, Paterson plans to talk about the need for Republicans and his fellow Democrats to work together to address pressing issues, including the state budget.
On Sunday, Paterson was catching up on budget details and preparing — and memorizing — his inauguration speech.
Spitzer was scheduled to officially resign at noon Monday, and Paterson will officially take over an hour later before a joint session of the Legislature in the Assembly chamber. He spent much of last week meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders in preparation for his unexpected transition.
The new governor was Spitzer's lieutenant for just 14 months. Paterson has been a Democratic state senator since 1985, representing parts of Harlem and Manhattan's Upper West Side.
He graduated from Columbia University and Hofstra School of Law.
His father, Basil, a former state senator representing Harlem and later New York's first black secretary of state, was part of a political fraternity that included fellow Democrats U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins — the city's first black mayor — and former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton.
"It's very daunting" Paterson said Friday. "I definitely feel anxiety ... but in the end, we have a job to do. And we're here to do that job."
Federal prosecutors must still decide whether to pursue charges against Spitzer. The married father of three teenage girls was accused of spending tens of thousands of dollars on prostitutes — including a call girl "Kristen" in Washington the night before Valentine's Day.
Deadline looms for Tibetans to surrender
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writers
BEIJING - Tibet's governor denounced anti-Chinese protesters as criminals and threatened harsh consequences for those who do not turn themselves in by a midnight deadline Monday. More clashes erupted in other Chinese provinces.
The threat by China-appointed governor Champa Phuntsok heightened tensions. The Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said residents feared a military sweep after midnight.
The fiercest protests against Chinese rule of Tibet in almost two decades have attracted more international scrutiny of the communist government's human rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Summer Olympics, which is a great source of pride to China.
Tibet's legal authorities issued the surrender notice to demonstrators on Saturday.
"If these people turn themselves in, they will be treated with leniency within the framework of the law," said Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan. Otherwise "we will deal with them harshly," he added.
He said those who turn themselves in and inform on others will earn even more leniency.
"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice and China is no exception," Champa Phuntsok said at news briefing.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, said Sunday that he felt "helpless" in the face of a Chinese ultimatum for protesters to surrender.
"The deadline is at midnight tomorrow. So now every second it goes nearer," the Nobel Peace laureate told reporters at the Himalayan headquarters of Tibet's government-in-exile. "I feel very sad, very serious, very anxious. Cannot do anything."
The unrest in Tibet began March 10 on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in the region that sent the Dalai Lama and much of the leading Buddhist clergy into exile. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before Communist troops entered in 1950.
But what began as largely peaceful protests by monks spiraled Friday into a melee with Tibetans attacking Chinese and burning their businesses in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The outburst came after several years of intensifying government control over Buddhist practices and vilification of the Dalai Lama, whom Tibetans still revere.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated on Monday her call for China to show restraint in fighting the protests and urged Beijing to find a way to engage the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
"There's been a kind of missed opportunity for the Chinese to engage the Dalai Lama," Rice told reporters Monday. She said the Dalai Lama is a voice of authority, not a separatist, and he could "lend his moral weight" to helping stabilize Tibet.
Champa Phuntsok said the death toll from last week's violent demonstrations in Lhasa was 16 and dozens were injured. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India has said that 80 people were killed — a claim the governor denied.
Over the weekend, Chinese troops on foot and in armored vehicles poured into the streets of Lhasa and enforced a curfew that kept most people off the streets.
Authorities paraded handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in Lhasa on Monday, The Times of London reported on its online edition. The report said four trucks in a convoy drove through the city, with 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing in the back, their wrists handcuffed and a soldier behind each one holding the prisoner's head bowed.
Going house-to-house, police checked identity cards and residence permits, detaining any without permission to stay in Lhasa, the Times said.
While Lhasa was still swarming with troops, Chinese troops fanned out to quell sympathy protests that have spread to three neighboring provinces. More forces were mobilizing across western China's mountain valleys and broad plains to deal with protests in Tibetan communities in Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.
In Gansu's Maqu county, which borders Sichuan, thousands of monks and ordinary Tibetans clashed with police Monday in various locations, police and a Tibet rights group said.
"We have nothing to protect ourselves and we can't fight back," said an officer at the county police headquarters who refused to give his name or other details. He said about 10 police were injured.
In the city of Lanzhou, about 500 Tibetan students who gathered Sunday on the Northwest Minorities University's soccer field abandoned an overnight vigil. Fifty tried to march into the city, only to be blocked by security forces from leaving the campus, said the London-based Free Tibet Campaign.
A witness in Sichuan said troops moved into Ma'erkang county, next to an area where clashes between monks and police broke out Sunday with unconfirmed reports that as many as seven were killed.
At Central Nationalities University in Beijing, an elite school for ethnic minorities, 100 students held a silent candlelight vigil, sitting down in an outdoor plaza Monday night.
"We're doing this for those who are suffering," said a young Tibetan student.
Uniformed and plainclothes security kept watch but did not interfere with the vigil. Foreign journalists were prevented from taking photos and told to leave.
The government also began to tighten its already firm hold on information. Officials expelled foreign reporters from Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu provinces, contravening regulations that opened most of China to foreign media for the Olympics.
Some of the few independent media remaining in Lhasa were also ordered out, making it difficult to verify casualties and other details.
Police in Lhasa kicked out reporters from three Hong Kong television stations — Cable TV, TVB and ATV — and made TVB delete footage of Friday's violence, TVB reported.
There were also more sympathy protests outside China. In Nepal, police used bamboo batons to disperse about 100 Tibetan protesters and Buddhist monks near the main U.N. office in Katmandu on Monday. Some 44 people were arrested.
In the wake of Friday's violence, Beijing ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Dalai Lama, accusing his supporters of masterminding the riot.
"This was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique and it was created under the collusion of Tibet independence separatist forces both inside and outside China," said Champa Phuntsok.
He said three of the 16 people killed Friday in Lhasa were protesters who jumped out of a building to avoid arrest. He called the other 13 "innocent civilians," — apparently a reference to Chinese killed by demonstrators.
In one case, a person died after being covered in gasoline and then set on fire, he said. In another incident, the protesters "knocked out a police officer on patrol and then they used a knife to cut a piece of flesh from his buttocks the size of a fist," he said.
Champa Phuntsok said calm had been restored to Lhasa. Residents said Monday that police were patrolling the streets and had sealed off key roads in the downtown area, where the riots occurred, but that conditions were not as tense as over the weekend.
"Today, many people went back to work and some schools are open," said a tour guide. "Prices of food, gasoline and other things are soaring."
Another woman said there was "still a general mood of fear about going out. But it's better than a few days ago." She said a public announcement on a local television station was encouraging people to give themselves up.
Champa Phuntsok said he did not know if anyone had surrendered and police and government officials in Lhasa refused to comment.
In a further sign of China's concern about repairing the situation, Tibet's hard-line Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli — the region's most powerful official — returned to Lhasa over the weekend and met with security forces, the official Tibet Daily newspaper said. Zhang had been attending the national legislature's annual session in Beijing, which ends Tuesday.
The Tibet Daily quoted Zhang as saying security forces "carried out a frontal assault against the thugs" who rioted in Lhasa.
Russia voiced support for the Chinese government over the violence in Tibet, saying it hopes "Chinese authorities will take all necessary measures to stop illegal actions and provide for the swiftest possible normalization of the situation." The Foreign Ministry said any efforts to boycott the Beijing Olympics are "unacceptable."
Olympic officials have also said they oppose any boycott over Tibet.
BEIJING - Tibet's governor denounced anti-Chinese protesters as criminals and threatened harsh consequences for those who do not turn themselves in by a midnight deadline Monday. More clashes erupted in other Chinese provinces.
The threat by China-appointed governor Champa Phuntsok heightened tensions. The Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said residents feared a military sweep after midnight.
The fiercest protests against Chinese rule of Tibet in almost two decades have attracted more international scrutiny of the communist government's human rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Summer Olympics, which is a great source of pride to China.
Tibet's legal authorities issued the surrender notice to demonstrators on Saturday.
"If these people turn themselves in, they will be treated with leniency within the framework of the law," said Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan. Otherwise "we will deal with them harshly," he added.
He said those who turn themselves in and inform on others will earn even more leniency.
"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice and China is no exception," Champa Phuntsok said at news briefing.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, said Sunday that he felt "helpless" in the face of a Chinese ultimatum for protesters to surrender.
"The deadline is at midnight tomorrow. So now every second it goes nearer," the Nobel Peace laureate told reporters at the Himalayan headquarters of Tibet's government-in-exile. "I feel very sad, very serious, very anxious. Cannot do anything."
The unrest in Tibet began March 10 on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in the region that sent the Dalai Lama and much of the leading Buddhist clergy into exile. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before Communist troops entered in 1950.
But what began as largely peaceful protests by monks spiraled Friday into a melee with Tibetans attacking Chinese and burning their businesses in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The outburst came after several years of intensifying government control over Buddhist practices and vilification of the Dalai Lama, whom Tibetans still revere.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated on Monday her call for China to show restraint in fighting the protests and urged Beijing to find a way to engage the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
"There's been a kind of missed opportunity for the Chinese to engage the Dalai Lama," Rice told reporters Monday. She said the Dalai Lama is a voice of authority, not a separatist, and he could "lend his moral weight" to helping stabilize Tibet.
Champa Phuntsok said the death toll from last week's violent demonstrations in Lhasa was 16 and dozens were injured. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India has said that 80 people were killed — a claim the governor denied.
Over the weekend, Chinese troops on foot and in armored vehicles poured into the streets of Lhasa and enforced a curfew that kept most people off the streets.
Authorities paraded handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in Lhasa on Monday, The Times of London reported on its online edition. The report said four trucks in a convoy drove through the city, with 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing in the back, their wrists handcuffed and a soldier behind each one holding the prisoner's head bowed.
Going house-to-house, police checked identity cards and residence permits, detaining any without permission to stay in Lhasa, the Times said.
While Lhasa was still swarming with troops, Chinese troops fanned out to quell sympathy protests that have spread to three neighboring provinces. More forces were mobilizing across western China's mountain valleys and broad plains to deal with protests in Tibetan communities in Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.
In Gansu's Maqu county, which borders Sichuan, thousands of monks and ordinary Tibetans clashed with police Monday in various locations, police and a Tibet rights group said.
"We have nothing to protect ourselves and we can't fight back," said an officer at the county police headquarters who refused to give his name or other details. He said about 10 police were injured.
In the city of Lanzhou, about 500 Tibetan students who gathered Sunday on the Northwest Minorities University's soccer field abandoned an overnight vigil. Fifty tried to march into the city, only to be blocked by security forces from leaving the campus, said the London-based Free Tibet Campaign.
A witness in Sichuan said troops moved into Ma'erkang county, next to an area where clashes between monks and police broke out Sunday with unconfirmed reports that as many as seven were killed.
At Central Nationalities University in Beijing, an elite school for ethnic minorities, 100 students held a silent candlelight vigil, sitting down in an outdoor plaza Monday night.
"We're doing this for those who are suffering," said a young Tibetan student.
Uniformed and plainclothes security kept watch but did not interfere with the vigil. Foreign journalists were prevented from taking photos and told to leave.
The government also began to tighten its already firm hold on information. Officials expelled foreign reporters from Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu provinces, contravening regulations that opened most of China to foreign media for the Olympics.
Some of the few independent media remaining in Lhasa were also ordered out, making it difficult to verify casualties and other details.
Police in Lhasa kicked out reporters from three Hong Kong television stations — Cable TV, TVB and ATV — and made TVB delete footage of Friday's violence, TVB reported.
There were also more sympathy protests outside China. In Nepal, police used bamboo batons to disperse about 100 Tibetan protesters and Buddhist monks near the main U.N. office in Katmandu on Monday. Some 44 people were arrested.
In the wake of Friday's violence, Beijing ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Dalai Lama, accusing his supporters of masterminding the riot.
"This was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique and it was created under the collusion of Tibet independence separatist forces both inside and outside China," said Champa Phuntsok.
He said three of the 16 people killed Friday in Lhasa were protesters who jumped out of a building to avoid arrest. He called the other 13 "innocent civilians," — apparently a reference to Chinese killed by demonstrators.
In one case, a person died after being covered in gasoline and then set on fire, he said. In another incident, the protesters "knocked out a police officer on patrol and then they used a knife to cut a piece of flesh from his buttocks the size of a fist," he said.
Champa Phuntsok said calm had been restored to Lhasa. Residents said Monday that police were patrolling the streets and had sealed off key roads in the downtown area, where the riots occurred, but that conditions were not as tense as over the weekend.
"Today, many people went back to work and some schools are open," said a tour guide. "Prices of food, gasoline and other things are soaring."
Another woman said there was "still a general mood of fear about going out. But it's better than a few days ago." She said a public announcement on a local television station was encouraging people to give themselves up.
Champa Phuntsok said he did not know if anyone had surrendered and police and government officials in Lhasa refused to comment.
In a further sign of China's concern about repairing the situation, Tibet's hard-line Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli — the region's most powerful official — returned to Lhasa over the weekend and met with security forces, the official Tibet Daily newspaper said. Zhang had been attending the national legislature's annual session in Beijing, which ends Tuesday.
The Tibet Daily quoted Zhang as saying security forces "carried out a frontal assault against the thugs" who rioted in Lhasa.
Russia voiced support for the Chinese government over the violence in Tibet, saying it hopes "Chinese authorities will take all necessary measures to stop illegal actions and provide for the swiftest possible normalization of the situation." The Foreign Ministry said any efforts to boycott the Beijing Olympics are "unacceptable."
Olympic officials have also said they oppose any boycott over Tibet.
Stocks gyrate after Bear Stearns deal
By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - Wall Street fell in temperamental trading Monday as investors grappled with news of JPMorgan Chase & Co. buying the stricken Bear Stearns & Co. in a deal backed by the government. The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 200 points in the early going, fluctuated into positive territory and then pulled back again.
A buyout of Bear Stearns was certainly more appealing than the alternative: letting the investment bank collapse and causing huge losses for anyone linked to it.
And some unprecedented moves by the Federal Reserve gave the market a bit of solace on what many predicted would be a day of precipitous losses in the stock market.
Besides supporting the buyout, the Fed lowered the rate it charges to loan directly to banks by a quarter-point on Sunday night — two days before its scheduled meeting Tuesday. The central bank also set up a lending option for firms, including many non-bank financial services firms, to secure short-term loans for a broad range of collateral.
"This removes the risk of further slides for these companies, the risk that a Bear Stearns incident would happen again," said Robert Pavlik, portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.
The Fed appears to be pledging to do everything in its power to keep the credit crisis from destroying the financial industry and the economy. Policy makers at the central bank are expected to reduce the target fed funds rate — the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans — by at least a half-point on Tuesday, and perhaps even a full point.
Still, the market remained extremely volatile, and a steeper drop Monday was still quite possible. The sale of Bear Stearns — and the fact that JPMorgan valued the fifth-largest Wall Street investment bank at a minuscule $2 a share, or $236 million — stirred fear among investors worldwide about other banks' exposure to the troubled credit markets.
"You're going to have some very weak players pushed out of business," said Joseph V. Battipaglia, chief investment officer at Ryan Beck & Co. He said JPMorgan's buy of Bear Stearns and Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. are probably not the only rescues the industry will witness during this credit crisis.
The Dow fell 76.04, or 0.64 percent, to 11,875.05, after briefly venturing into positive territory.
Broader indexes also fell in choppy trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 17.39, or 1.35 percent, to 1,270.75, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 34.22, or 1.55 percent, to 2,178.27.
JPMorgan, one of the Dow components, rose $3.55, or 9.7 percent, to $40.09. The Fed essentially guaranteed JPMorgan that it would backstop any risk involved in taking over the 85-year-old Bear Stearns, which has 14,000 workers worldwide.
Bear Stearns shares fell 86 percent to $4.20 — still above the buyout price, implying that some shareholders believe the deal terms might change. About one-third of Bear Stearns stock is held by its employees.
Bond prices rose as stocks fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.34 percent from 3.44 percent late Friday.
The dollar sank to a record low against the euro and hit a 12 1/2 year low against the yen, while gold prices surged to another record high.
Light, sweet crude dropped $2.47 to $107.74 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rising to nearly $112 a barrel in premarket trading.
The pain for investors in Bear Stearns, which succumbed to losing bets on souring mortgages for borrowers with poor credit, will be sizable. JPMorgan is buying Bear, including its midtown Manhattan headquarters, for about 1 percent of the investment bank's worth little more than two weeks ago. Bear Stearns' buyout arrives after a short-term bailout Friday that JPMorgan led and that the Fed backed.
The market's concern wasn't limited to the Bear sale. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., a large bank based in Singapore, instructed traders via e-mail Monday to disregard an earlier e-mail barring new transactions with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to Dow Jones Newswires. Earlier Monday, DBS emailed traders and said not to engage in new transactions with Lehman or Bear, according to two people familiar with the situation, Dow Jones reported.
Lehman fell $9.41, or 24 percent, to $29.85.
This week, Lehman and other major investment banks are slated to report quarterly results. Investors will likely be focusing on comments from the companies for insights about their financial well-being.
While investors were focused on the financial sector, fresh economic news offered little solace. The Fed said output at the country's factories, mines and utilities fell by 0.5 percent in February, the biggest decline last October. Many analysts had been expecting a slight increase of one-tenth of one percent.
The Commerce Department also said Monday the broadest measure of foreign trade fell slightly in 2007 as stronger growth in U.S. exports helped make up for a spiking foreign oil bill. The deficit in the current account, which covers not only goods and services but also investment flows between the United States and other countries, dropped by 9 percent last year to $738.6 billion.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 619.9 million shares.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 10.65, or 1.61 percent, to 652.25.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 3.71 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 5.18 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.32 percent, Germany's DAX index dropped 3.29 percent, and France's CAC-40 lost 2.52 percent.
NEW YORK - Wall Street fell in temperamental trading Monday as investors grappled with news of JPMorgan Chase & Co. buying the stricken Bear Stearns & Co. in a deal backed by the government. The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 200 points in the early going, fluctuated into positive territory and then pulled back again.
A buyout of Bear Stearns was certainly more appealing than the alternative: letting the investment bank collapse and causing huge losses for anyone linked to it.
And some unprecedented moves by the Federal Reserve gave the market a bit of solace on what many predicted would be a day of precipitous losses in the stock market.
Besides supporting the buyout, the Fed lowered the rate it charges to loan directly to banks by a quarter-point on Sunday night — two days before its scheduled meeting Tuesday. The central bank also set up a lending option for firms, including many non-bank financial services firms, to secure short-term loans for a broad range of collateral.
"This removes the risk of further slides for these companies, the risk that a Bear Stearns incident would happen again," said Robert Pavlik, portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.
The Fed appears to be pledging to do everything in its power to keep the credit crisis from destroying the financial industry and the economy. Policy makers at the central bank are expected to reduce the target fed funds rate — the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans — by at least a half-point on Tuesday, and perhaps even a full point.
Still, the market remained extremely volatile, and a steeper drop Monday was still quite possible. The sale of Bear Stearns — and the fact that JPMorgan valued the fifth-largest Wall Street investment bank at a minuscule $2 a share, or $236 million — stirred fear among investors worldwide about other banks' exposure to the troubled credit markets.
"You're going to have some very weak players pushed out of business," said Joseph V. Battipaglia, chief investment officer at Ryan Beck & Co. He said JPMorgan's buy of Bear Stearns and Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. are probably not the only rescues the industry will witness during this credit crisis.
The Dow fell 76.04, or 0.64 percent, to 11,875.05, after briefly venturing into positive territory.
Broader indexes also fell in choppy trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 17.39, or 1.35 percent, to 1,270.75, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 34.22, or 1.55 percent, to 2,178.27.
JPMorgan, one of the Dow components, rose $3.55, or 9.7 percent, to $40.09. The Fed essentially guaranteed JPMorgan that it would backstop any risk involved in taking over the 85-year-old Bear Stearns, which has 14,000 workers worldwide.
Bear Stearns shares fell 86 percent to $4.20 — still above the buyout price, implying that some shareholders believe the deal terms might change. About one-third of Bear Stearns stock is held by its employees.
Bond prices rose as stocks fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.34 percent from 3.44 percent late Friday.
The dollar sank to a record low against the euro and hit a 12 1/2 year low against the yen, while gold prices surged to another record high.
Light, sweet crude dropped $2.47 to $107.74 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rising to nearly $112 a barrel in premarket trading.
The pain for investors in Bear Stearns, which succumbed to losing bets on souring mortgages for borrowers with poor credit, will be sizable. JPMorgan is buying Bear, including its midtown Manhattan headquarters, for about 1 percent of the investment bank's worth little more than two weeks ago. Bear Stearns' buyout arrives after a short-term bailout Friday that JPMorgan led and that the Fed backed.
The market's concern wasn't limited to the Bear sale. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., a large bank based in Singapore, instructed traders via e-mail Monday to disregard an earlier e-mail barring new transactions with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to Dow Jones Newswires. Earlier Monday, DBS emailed traders and said not to engage in new transactions with Lehman or Bear, according to two people familiar with the situation, Dow Jones reported.
Lehman fell $9.41, or 24 percent, to $29.85.
This week, Lehman and other major investment banks are slated to report quarterly results. Investors will likely be focusing on comments from the companies for insights about their financial well-being.
While investors were focused on the financial sector, fresh economic news offered little solace. The Fed said output at the country's factories, mines and utilities fell by 0.5 percent in February, the biggest decline last October. Many analysts had been expecting a slight increase of one-tenth of one percent.
The Commerce Department also said Monday the broadest measure of foreign trade fell slightly in 2007 as stronger growth in U.S. exports helped make up for a spiking foreign oil bill. The deficit in the current account, which covers not only goods and services but also investment flows between the United States and other countries, dropped by 9 percent last year to $738.6 billion.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 619.9 million shares.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 10.65, or 1.61 percent, to 652.25.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 3.71 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 5.18 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.32 percent, Germany's DAX index dropped 3.29 percent, and France's CAC-40 lost 2.52 percent.
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