02/20/08 - EU officials furious as Washington says it wants extra data on all air passengers

Bush orders clampdown on flights to US

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.

The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirement.

According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said.

09/14/07 - McCain campaign suffers key shake-ups

John McCain jettisoned his two top aides Tuesday as the one-time Republican front-runner struggled to right a presidential bid in deep financial and political trouble.

Campaign manager Terry Nelson and chief strategist John Weaver offered McCain their resignations, which the Arizona senator accepted with "regret and deep gratitude for their dedication, hard work and friendship."

At least three other senior aides followed the two out the door, and the campaign announced that Rick Davis, who managed McCain's 2000 bid and has served as the current campaign's chief executive officer, will take over.

"I'm determined to continue to face our challenges head-on and win," McCain said, vowing to press on in an e-mail to supporters. Aides insisted he would not drop out of the race.

Full Story: Yahoo News

Israelis arrest Hamas leaders

Israeli troops in the West Bank arrested more than 30 senior Hamas members Thursday, the army said, including a Cabinet minister, legislators and mayors.

The Palestinian president condemned the arrests, saying they would hinder his efforts to restore a truce with Israel, and Washington expressed concern about the detentions. Hamas threatened to retaliate with attacks inside the Jewish state.

The arrests reflected an Israeli decision to target the Hamas political leadership — but not necessarily with the lethal airstrikes it has staged over the past week on targets linked to the Hamas military arm.

Israeli aircraft staged attacks during the day and into the night, mainly on Hamas training bases and command posts. A huge plume of black smoke rose over Gaza City after an afternoon attack, but there were no serious injuries, Palestinian medics said.

Full Story: YAHOO NEWS

Ex-Justice Aide Criticizes Gonzales While Admitting to Basing Hires on Politics

A former senior aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales leveled serious new accusations against him and his deputy yesterday, describing an "uncomfortable" attempt by Gonzales to discuss the firings of U.S. attorneys as Congress and the Justice Department were intensifying their investigations of the issue.

Full Story: Washington Post

New mayor is first to go through sex change

WHEN Jenny Bailey becomes Mayor of Cambridge tomorrow she will pass a new milestone in the city's history by becoming the first transgender person to take the office.

Jenny was born a boy, but went through a sex change operation to become a woman when she was in her 30s. And her partner, former councillor Jennifer Liddle - who will spend the year by Jenny's side as Mayoress - has also gone through the same process.

Jenny and Jennifer met while undergoing hormone replacement therapy. They now live together, work together and have served on Cambridge City Council together, as well as bringing up Jenny's two boys by her ex-wife.

The couple will be the world's first transgender mayor and mayoress, as Cambridge holds celebrations marking 800 years of the role.

Full Story: CEN NEWS

Cheney's lesbian daughter gives birth

US Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter Mary has given birth to a boy, Samuel David Cheney, his office said.

The boy, the vice president's sixth grandchild, weighed eight pounds, six ounces (3.8 kilograms), the office said in the caption to an official photograph released to the news media.

Mary Cheney, 38, had announced in December that she was starting a family with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe. She has not discussed publicly how the child was conceived.

Full Story: SMH . COM . AU

Faculty Battle: Tenet vs. Feith

On Douglas Feith's first day as a visiting professor at Georgetown last year, he dropped in on another new professor down the hall. George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, was friendly and welcoming, Feith recalled. Feith, who as the No. 3 at the Pentagon had served in the Bush administration with Tenet, suggested they get together for lunch.

Not long afterward, Tenet moved his office, four floors down. He told friends he wanted to be as far away as possible from Feith.

The tale of the two professors is shaping up as a reproduction in miniature of the Bush administration's titanic struggle over Iraq.

The two men, who played key roles in building President Bush's case for war, had spent countless hours together in meetings in 2002-2004, poring over intelligence and hammering out policy. Feith recalls the relationship as amicable, even if they often disagreed.

No longer. Tenet and Feith are teaching rival versions of recent history and taking their disagreements public. Each is teaching a class that reflects his own worldview and experience in institutions -- the Defense Department and the CIA -- that saw the world in starkly different terms. Both classes concentrate on al-Qaeda and the events preceding Sept. 11, 2001, as well as on Iraq.

Full Story: WASHINGTON POST

Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq

WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war.

A copy of the book was purchased at retail price in advance of publication by a reporter for The New York Times. Mr. Tenet described with sarcasm watching an episode of “Meet the Press” last September in which Mr. Cheney twice referred to Mr. Tenet’s “slam dunk” remark as the basis for the decision to go to war.

“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq,’ ” Mr. Tenet writes.

As violence in Iraq spiraled beginning in late 2003, Mr. Tenet writes, “rather than acknowledge responsibility, the administration’s message was: Don’t blame us. George Tenet and the C.I.A. got us into this mess.”

Full Story: NY TIMES

Democrats fault Bush over Iraq in 1st debate

Democratic presidential hopefuls flashed their anti-war credentials Thursday night, heaping criticism on President Bush's Iraq policy in the first debate of the 2008 campaign.

"The first day I would get us out of Iraq by diplomacy," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, one of eight rivals on the debate stage.

"If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I am president, I will," pledged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

But Clinton found herself on the receiving end of criticism moments later when former North Carolina Sen.John Edwards said she or anyone else who voted to authorize the war should "search their conscience."

Edwards, in the Senate at the time, also cast his vote for the invasion, but he has since apologized for it.

Of the eight foes participating in the debate at South Carolina State University, four voted earlier in the day to support legislation that cleared Congress and requires the beginning of a troop withdrawal by Oct. 1. The legislation sets a goal of a complete withdrawal by April 1, 2008.

"We are one signature away from ending this war," said Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill. He said if Bush won't change his mind about vetoing the bill, Democrats need to work on rounding up enough Republican votes to override him.

In addition to Obama and Clinton, Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut also cast votes in favor of the legislation.

Full Story: Yahoo News

SENATE PASSES WITHDRAWAL LEGISLATION

The Senate today gave final approval to a $124 billion war spending bill that requires troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1, with a goal of ending U.S. combat operations there by next March.

President Bush has pledged to veto the bill, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino promised this morning he would act "very soon."

The Senate approved the measure by a 51-46 vote, a day after the House passed the bill by 218-208, brushing aside weeks of angry White House rhetoric and veto threats.

"It is time to end the loss of American lives and to begin to bring our soldiers home," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said on Senate floor this morning. "For the sake of our troops we cannot repeat the mistakes of Vietnam and allow this to drag on long after the American people know it's a mistake."

Today's vote completes work on the rarest of bills: legislation to try to end a major war as fighting still rages. Democrats hope to send the measure to the White House on Monday, almost exactly four years after President Bush declared an end to major combat in a speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That would be a particularly pungent political anniversary for Bush to deliver only the second veto of his presidency.

Man Kills Hostage, Self at NASA Building

A NASA contract worker took a handgun inside an office building Friday at the Johnson Space Center and fatally shot a hostage before killing himself, police said. A second hostage escaped with minor injuries.

The gunman was able to take a snub-nosed revolver past NASA security and barricade himself in the building, which houses communications and tracking systems for the space shuttle, authorities said.

NASA and police identified him as 60-year-old William Phillips. He had apparently had a dispute with the slain hostage, police said.

NASA spokesman Doug Peterson said the agency would review its security.

"Any organization would take a good, hard look at the kind of review process we have with people," Peterson said.

To enter the space center, workers flash an ID badge as they drive past a security guard. The badge allows workers access to designated buildings.

Full Story: MY WAY . COM

U.S., Mexico sign nuke smuggling agreement

U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and Mexican Minister of Finance and Public Credit Agustin Carstens signed a pact to halt nuclear materials smuggling.

The Megaports agreement is designed to aid the detection and prevention of the smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material. It calls for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration to collaborate with Mexican Customs officials in the installation of radiation detection equipment at four Mexican seaports that account for nearly 90 percent of container traffic in Mexico.

"The Megaports Agreement ... solidifies the United States and Mexico's joint commitment to the safety, security and prosperity of our nations," Bodman said. "This initiative builds on our ongoing cooperation to advance non-proliferation by deploying advanced technologies to reduce the threat of illegal shipments of nuclear and other radioactive materials into our countries."

Full Story: SCIENCE DAILY (UPI)

Australia's Howard decries U.S. "gun culture"

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday decried the negative "gun culture" in America after the deadly shooting spree at a U.S. university, holding up tough gun laws in his own country as the answer.

Howard introduced strict gun ownership laws after the shooting massacre of 35 people in the southern island state of Tasmania in 1996.

"We had a terrible incident at Port Arthur, but it is the case that 11 years ago we took action to limit the availability of guns," said Howard, who extended his sympathies to the families of the 32 people killed at Virginia Tech university on Monday at the hands of what he described as "a crazed gunman."

"We showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country."

In 1996 a gunman with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people at Port Arthur in Australia's worst modern-day shooting massacre.

Full Story: REUTERS