News: April 2007

Monday, April 30, 2007

Courtney Love to sell Kurt Cobain's things

NEW YORK (AP) -- Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, says she plans to sell most of his belongings.

"I'm going to have a Christie's auction," Love, 42, tells AOL music Web site Spinner.com. "(My house) is like a mausoleum."

Love and Cobain wed in 1992 and had a daughter, Frances Bean, that year. Cobain committed suicide in 1994.

"My daughter doesn't need to inherit a giant ... bag full of flannel ... shirts," says Love, former frontwoman of the rock band Hole. "A sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to '(Smells Like) Teen Spirit' -- that's what my daughter gets. And the rest of it we'll just ... sell."

No date has been set for the auction, AOL publicist Kurt Patat told The Associated Press on Monday. AOL is owned by Time Warner, CNN.com's parent company.

Love, whose upcoming album is titled, "Nobody's Daughter," says friends support the idea.
"Everyone's been positive and behind me on it," she says. "We'll make a lot of money and give a bunch of it to charity."

She'll have a chance to move on from Cobain, too.

"I still wear his pajamas to bed. How am I ever going to go form another relationship in my lifetime wearing Kurt's pajamas?"

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'Shocking' Legoland coaster death

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A 21-year-old employee at the Legoland amusement park was killed in a roller coaster accident, police and park officials said Monday.

The woman, who was not identified, died immediately Sunday after being hit by a coaster car, police said. She had apparently jumped over a security fence to pick up a wallet that a passenger had lost near the track when the accident happened.

"We're shocked," Legoland manager Henrik Hoehrman said. Nothing like this has happened before."

The park, located next to the headquarters of toy maker Lego in Billund, 240 kilometers (150 miles) west of Copenhagen, opened as usual Monday but the roller coaster was closed as police investigated the incident.

In 2005, Lego sold its four Legoland amusement parks in Denmark, Britain, California and Germany to the U.S.-based private equity group Blackstone Capital Partners.
The Danish Legoland opened in 1968.

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Bay Area commuters switch to public transit

OAKLAND, California (AP) -- The threat of a nightmarish morning commute led many Bay Area residents to use public transportation Monday, one day after a fiery tanker crash caused a heavily trafficked section of freeway to collapse.

Westbound traffic into the city largely flowed as usual Monday morning, except for drivers slowing on interchange lanes headed to the Bay Bridge to look at the damage.

But officials warned the afternoon drive would bring bigger headaches as traffic leaving the city is diverted away from the collapsed eastbound segment.

The elevated section of highway that carries motorists from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to a number of freeways was destroyed early Sunday when the heat of a burning gasoline tanker truck weakened part of one overpass, crumpling it onto another. (Watch I-Reporter Paul Kochli explain his video of the aftermath of the fiery truck crash )

Authorities predicted that overall the crash would cause the worst disruption for commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Bay Bridge itself. The sight of the soaring freeway twisted into a fractured mass of steel and concrete was reminiscent of that quake's damage.

"The most worrisome thing is the afternoon commute coming out of San Francisco toward the maze because the traffic from the Bay Bridge fans out from across three freeways," said Jeff Weiss, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation. "Taking away two-thirds of the capacity is really going to cause a bottleneck."

Nearly 75,000 vehicles used the damaged portion of the road every day. But because the accident occurred where three highways converge, authorities said it could cause problems for hundreds of thousands of commuters. State transportation officials said 280,000 commuters take the Bay Bridge into San Francisco each day.

To encourage motorists to switch to public transit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized free passage Monday on ferries, buses and the Bay Area Rapid Transit rail system. Extra trains were added and bus and ferry operators also expanded service.

Parking lots at outlying BART stations filled up earlier than usual for the morning commute.
"I'm mad," said Crystal McSwain, who has a commuter pass to take a trans-bay bus but switched to the more expensive BART. "My life is upside down, and I don't know how long it's going to take."

However, while some trains appeared more crowded than usual, BART officials said overall ridership did not appear greater than normal. Riders likely delayed their morning commute to avoid crowds, or stayed home, BART spokesman Jim Allison said.

Transportation officials said it could take months to repair the damaged interchanges. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency to speed up cleanup and rebuilding efforts.
Despite the fire, the truck's driver walked away with only second-degree burns. James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, went to a gas station and called a taxi for a ride to a hospital, California Highway Patrol Officer Trent Cross said.

A preliminary investigation indicated Mosqueda may have been speeding on the curving road, he said. Mosqueda could not be reached for comment Monday; hospital officials would not transfer a call to him.

Police said he was headed from a refinery in Benicia to a gas station near the Oakland airport when the accident occurred early Sunday on the MacArthur Maze, a network of ramps and interchanges at the edge of downtown Oakland and about a half-mile from the Bay Bridge toll plaza.

Heat exceeded 2,750 degrees, softening and buckling steel beams and melting bolts, California Department of Transportation director Will Kempton said.

The cost of the repairs would likely run into the tens of millions of dollars, and the state was seeking federal disaster aid, Kempton said.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said the accident showed how fragile the Bay Area's transportation network is, whether to an earthquake or terrorist attack.
"It's another giant wake-up call," Newsom said.

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Ex-CIA officers slam former boss on Iraq, bin Laden

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the period leading up to the Iraq war, the head of the CIA didn't speak out loudly enough about U.S. intelligence that said Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, said a former CIA officer Monday.

Ex-CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson responded to comments by former CIA Director George Tenet which aired on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday. Tenet said the consensus in the U.S.

intelligence community was that Iraq did possess WMD, which the Bush administration said was its reason for invading in March of 2003.

Johnson told CNN on Monday that although Tenet knew intelligence indicating that Iraq had WMD "was a problem," he still played a role in the Bush administration's message to the American people that Iraq was a threat. (Watch how Tenet's comments have stirred up a hornet's nest on the U.S.-led war in Iraq )

"In fall of 2002, he was told specifically that there was a high level source in Saddam's government that was saying, 'We don't have WMD,' " Johnson said. "George Tenet's hands are just as bloody as everybody else in this administration in helping gin up what was an unfounded case for war."

Johnson is a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000.

Tenet, who's authored a new book on his tenure at CIA titled, "At the Center of the Storm," told CBS that he was outraged that senior officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, used Tenet's "slam dunk" reference to bolster Bush's decision to launch the war. (Read about how Rice said Tenet's 'slam dunk' comment didn't lead to war)

Johnson said Tenet "was willing to tell the president, 'Yeah I'll go out and help manipulate public opinion to build the case for war.' That's not the role of an intelligence chief. The role of the intelligence chief of the United States government is to tell the facts to the president and to the Congress regardless of what the political import of those are."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday that while much attention is on Tenet's "slam dunk," comment, the CIA was not alone in its assessment of Iraq's WMD capability.

"There doesn't seem to be any dispute about the fact that the best intelligence available to the United States, the intelligence committees on Capitol Hill, to intelligence services around the world, was that Saddam had some weapons of mass destruction he was pursuing further weapons of mass destruction," said Snow.

On Saturday, Johnson and five other ex-CIA officers released an open letter to Tenet calling their former boss "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and describing his book as an "admission of failed leadership." (Read more about the letter and its accusation that Tenet was a "failed leader")

The letter calls on Tenet to return the Presidential Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush and to donate royalties from his book to U.S. military casualties of the war and their families. The letter also says Tenet should have resigned to protest rather than participate in the administration's buildup to the war. (Read a PDF text of the letter)

"He could have stood up and spoke out when he had the job," Johnston said Monday. "He could have changed the course of American history. Instead he kept silent."

The writers accused Tenet of having helped send "very mixed signals" to Americans and their legislators before the war.

"CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq," said the letter. "This intelligence was ignored and later misused." In addition to Johnson, the letter was signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael.

Ex-CIA official: Tenet 'less than truthful' about bin Laden

Another ex-CIA official, Michael Scheuer, who headed a unit tasked with capturing Osama bin Laden, agreed Monday that Tenet should have resigned rather than participate in the buildup to the war.

Scheuer told CNN that during Tenet's interview with CBS, the former CIA chief was "less than truthful certainly in regard to Osama bin Laden, saying that we didn't have the opportunity to kill him."

Tenet writes in his book about Scheuer's unit and an operation targeting bin Laden that was canceled.

"Every one of the senior operations officers above Mike recommended against undertaking the operation," Tenet writes in "At the Center of the Storm." "They believed the chances of success were too low." (Read excerpts from Tenet's book)

Scheuer called that statement "a lie."

"The entire program was approved by everyone above me. It was canceled at the last moment for reasons unknown."

Scheuer said there were eight different chances for the U.S. military to kill bin Laden between May 1998 and May 1999.

"It seems to me if Mr. Tenet didn't speak up for the nature of the intelligence that was available to the United States government, some blame has to fall on him."
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White House spokesman back at work after cancer surgery

(CNN) -- White House press secretary Tony Snow wasted no time jumping into the political fray on his first day back on the job Monday.
An absence of five weeks after undergoing cancer surgery didn't mean forgetting any of the White House talking points.

Asked what President Bush will do with Democratic legislation that calls for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq to begin in October, Snow said, "He vetoes it.

Democrats will have made their political point. Now they can do their job." (The battle between the president and Congress over Iraq)
Snow called for a "clean bill" that does not impose "artificial timelines" or benchmarks.

"The problem with benchmarks at least as it's described is something where it doesn't even matter if there is progress, it doesn't matter if there is success," he told CNN's "American Morning." (Watch Snow's interview with CNN's John Roberts )

On the subject of benchmarks, Snow said, "The Democratic Party hasn't even made its own for legislation this year."

He became the latest member of the administration to insist that the president did not use former CIA Director George Tenet's "slam dunk" comment as the reason to invade Iraq. (Full story)

"The fact is the best intelligence we had indicated weapons of mass destruction, but obviously we haven't been able to find them," Snow said.

In March, Snow took time off as White House spokesman to undergo exploratory surgery, which found a recurrence of cancer. Doctors determined the cancer had spread to his liver, the White House said.

Snow said he has recovered from the surgery and will now start receiving chemo treatments every other week for four months.

Snow, 51, was treated for colon cancer in 2005, at which time his colon was removed.
Colon cancer is something Snow has had to deal with before. His mother died of the disease at age 38 in 1973, when he was 17.

Snow said he is optimistic that he will be able to "turn what used to be a fatal disease into a chronic disease."

The mere mention of cancer used to cause absolute panic, but with medical advances, what used to be incurable is now curable, the White House spokesman said.

"There are a lot of people with situations worse than mine that have been living 20, 30 years by simply dealing with it with regular chemo," he said. "They've been leading full and happy lives, and that's certainly what I hope to be doing."
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Panel says Olmert's leadership 'a failure' in Hezbollah war

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A government commission that probed Israel's summer war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday of "severe failure," saying he hastily led the country into the conflict without a plan.

A copy of the report obtained by The Associated Press cited a "severe failure in the lack of judgment, responsibility and caution."

Olmert, after receiving a copy of the panel's findings, said that "failures will be remedied."
The report was being officially released later Monday.

Olmert had faced strident calls for his resignation from coalition partners as well as opponents, and the harsh report further weakened his hold on power.

Olmert and his defense minister, Amir Peretz, who took office with limited security experience less than two months before the war, have lost much of their public support because of the conflict, launched when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid on July 12.

Relying heavily on massive airstrikes recommended by the military chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Olmert pledged to his people that Israel would crush Hezbollah and force return of the captured soldiers. Neither goal was accomplished. Halutz has resigned.

Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with nearly 4,000 rockets, halting only when the U.N. Security Council imposed a cease-fire, its short-range rocket capacity intact. Israel launched a late, costly ground offensive with the Security Council nearing completion of its cease-fire resolution.

In 34 days of fighting, between 1,035 and 1,191 Lebanese civilians and combatants were killed, as were 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians.

The report covers the first six days of the war, when Israel battered Lebanon with massive airstrikes as Hezbollah pounded Israel with rockets. Also, the report looks at developments during the six years that followed Israel's overnight pullout from southern Lebanon in 2000 -- tracing the Hezbollah buildup across from the Israeli border.

According to TV reports confirmed by Israeli officials, the commission appointed by Olmert and chaired by a retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, aims withering criticism at Olmert and Peretz over their decision-making, inexperience and failure to question plans presented by the military.

The report also says that Halutz, a former air force commander, did not provide political leaders with a sufficient range of military options, played down the rocket threat and silenced dissenting opinions within the army command, Israeli media said.

The Winograd panel does not have the authority to fire officials, but the scathing report could ignite public protests and demonstrations, coupled with political infighting, that could force the resignation of Olmert and Peretz. Noisy public demonstrations were expected to back demands that they step down.

On Sunday, a demand their for resignations came from Labor Party lawmaker Ofir Pines-Paz, who is challenging Peretz for party leadership in a May primary election.
"They should follow the example of Halutz, who did not wait for the Winograd commission to show him the door," he said.

Opposition lawmakers from the dovish Meretz as well as the hard-line National Religious Party also called for the government to step down.

Olmert's office declined comment until the report's official publication, but aides said Olmert was confident he would weather the storm and that he had no intention of quitting.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Vice Premier Shimon Peres pledged that the report's findings would be taken seriously. "We shall correct everything that calls for correction," he said.

Olmert's popular support is nearing single figures in newspaper polls, mostly because of the Lebanon war, but also because of allegations of his involvement in alleged corruption including real estate deals and undue interference in government transactions to favor friends and backers. Olmert has denied any wrongdoing.

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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Top general: U.S. needs a bigger Army faster

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (AP) -- The Army's new chief of staff said he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation's active-duty soldiers by 65,000.

The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.

"I said that's too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster," he said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.

Casey became the Army chief of staff April 12 after serving as the top U.S. commander in Iraq for more than two years. (Watch the new top commander in Iraq outline his plans for the war-ravaged nation )

He visited Hawaii for a few days in a Pacific region tour to talk with soldiers and their families. He next heads to Japan, South Korea and Alaska.

Casey said his staff has submitted a proposal for the accelerated timeline but that he has yet to approve the plan. He said the Army was stretched and would remain that way until the additional troops were trained and equipped.

Casey told a group of soldiers' spouses that one of his tasks is to try to limit the impact of the strain on soldiers and their families.

"We live in a difficult period for the Army because the demand for our forces exceeds the supply," he said.

A woman in the group asked Casey if her husband's deployments would stop getting longer. She said they used to last for six months in the 1990s but then started lasting nine months and 12 months. Two weeks ago, she heard the Army's announcement that deployments would be extended as long as 15 months.

"Do you honestly foresee this spiral, in effect, stopping?" she asked.
Casey said the Army wants to keep deployments to 15 months, but "I cannot look at you in the eye and guarantee that it would not go beyond."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January said he was recommending to the president that the Army boost its active-duty soldiers by 65,000 to 547,000. Casey said about 35,000 of those additional soldiers are already in place.

Gates also recommended that the Marine Corps increase its active-duty force by 27,000 to 202,000.

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Iraq raids net al Qaeda suspects, bomb ingredients

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops found 100 gallons of nitric acid and other bomb-making materials Sunday during raids that yielded the arrests of 72 suspected members of the al Qaeda in Iraq network, the U.S. military said.

The "constellation of overnight raids" was conducted in Anbar and Salaheddin provinces, the military said.

"Coalition operations like these continue to chip away at the al Qaeda in Iraq network, and we will continue to target them as long as they continue to injure and kill the innocent people of Iraq," said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. (Watch the top U.S. commander in Iraq explain his formula for success )

Half of those arrested were captured during raids in Samarra, in Salaheddin province north of Baghdad, according to the military. The nitric acid and bomb-making ingredients were found during a raid in Karmah.

The Samarra arrests came as authorities banned all movement in the city in response to recent threats, most notably a threatened suicide attack on the Samarra bridge, a security official said.
The Samarra bridge has a dam that generates power and regulates water levels on the Tigris River.

The city went on high alert after the Islamic State of Iraq -- the insurgent umbrella group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq -- distributed leaflets to police in Samarra on Saturday, warning them that they have three days to "repent" or be killed.

The insurgent group also told police to use loudspeakers at mosques and marketplaces to announce their rejection of the "apostate state."

A daylight curfew went into effect at 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Saturday ET) until further notice, the official said.

Two hours after the curfew took effect, a group of gunmen traveling in about 30 vehicles attacked a convoy of fuel tankers just outside Samarra, kidnapping the drivers of 16 trucks and setting fire to the vehicles, a Tikrit police official said.

The convoy was heading from Baiji -- the site of Iraq's largest oil refinery -- to Ramadi, in Iraq's volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad, the police official said.

In February 2006, Sunni extremists launched a strike against the Askariya Mosque, a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

The assault sparked reprisals against Sunnis by Shiite militias and death squads, and those strikes were countered by Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda in Iraq, who attacked Shiite targets.

Death toll in Karbala blast climbs
The Salaheddin and Anbar raids were conducted a day after a suicide bomb attack in Karbala left 75 people dead and 175 wounded, an Interior Ministry official said, updating Saturday's death toll of 58.

The suicide blast erupted between two Shiite shrines in the holy city as worshippers made their ways to evening prayers, Karbala police said. (Watch smoke pour into the sky after the bombing )

Enraged residents have accused the police of failing to protect them, and there were reports of residents throwing stones at police after the blast.

Karbala, south of Baghdad in Iraq's Shiite heartland, is one of the world's holiest Shiite hubs and is frequently visited by pilgrims drawn to the Imam Hussein shrine, which commemorates the martyr Hussein -- the Prophet Mohammed's grandson.

Saturday's attack occurred between the Hussein and Imam Abbas shrines. The bombing was at least 150 meters from the Abbas shrine and at least 300 meters from Hussein shrine.

It is the second bombing to leave dozens dead in Karbala this month. On April 14, a car bombing in Karbala killed 44 people and wounded scores more.

Other developments

A British soldier was killed Sunday morning in a small-arms attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where the British military in Iraq is based, according to the British Ministry of Defense.

The attack happened about 9:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. ET) while the soldier from the 2nd battalion of The Rifles was on routine patrol in the Ashar district, east of central Basra, the ministry statement said. With the death, 146 British military personnel have died in the Iraq war.

Iran announced Sunday it will send a high-level delegation led by its foreign minister to this week's conference on Iraqi security, despite a previous report that it would not attend the meeting unless five Iranians were released by the U.S. military in Iraq. (Full story)

Lt. Col William H. Steele, former commander of the U.S. Army's Camp Cropper, a detention facility for "high-value" detainees, will face an Article 32 hearing Monday after being accused of "aiding the enemy" by providing cell phones to Iraqi detainees. The hearing is a preliminary procedure to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to order a full court-martial against Steele.
Poor construction, improper design, substandard materials and lack of maintenance have caused the failure of seven of eight U.S.-funded Iraq reconstruction projects that were recently reviewed by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, according to an Inspector General report. (Full story)

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Sunday his country has "no illusion" that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq on an open-ended mission, but denounced the war spending bill passed last week by the U.S. Congress that calls for a withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq. "It was extremely unhelpful linking the funding of troops to a specific timetable," Zebari said. "It adversely affects our plans and the military plans here, and emboldens our enemies."

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, Ingrid Formanek and Hugh Riminton contributed to this report.

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Iran confirms it will attend summit on Iraq

Tehran, Iran (AP) -- Iran on Sunday confirmed it will attend this week's conference on Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, saying its delegation will be headed by its foreign minister.

The announcement will be widely welcomed as Iran, a Muslim Shiite-majority nation, has considerable influence among Iraqi Shiites, who now lead the Baghdad government. Iran is also suspected of having influential links with Shiite insurgent groups -- although it has repeatedly denied such ties.

"A high-ranking delegation headed by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will attend the Egyptian conference on Iraq," Foreign Ministy spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in an interview with state television.

Hours earlier, the Iraqi prime minister's office had announced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called to say his country would send a delegation to the two-day conference, which begins on Thursday.

"The decision came after consultations between Iraqi officials and the Iranian president," Hosseini said in the telephone interview, which was played on state TV.

Until Sunday, Iran had been the only country not to have announced its participation in the conference. All of Iraq's other neighbors as well as Egypt, Bahrain and representatives of the big five U.N. Security Council members have agreed to attend.

Hosseini's announcement came shortly after a top Iranian envoy, Ali Larijani, arrived in Baghdad for talks on issues to be raised at the conference. Hosseini said earlier Sunday that Larijani was going to the Iraqi capital because Iran had "some questions and ambiguities about the agenda."

In Baghdad, an adviser in the prime minister's office, Sadiq al-Rikabi, confirmed Larijani would meet senior Iraqi officials. "It is a very important visit," he added.

Last week Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari came to Tehran to try to persuade the government to attend the conference, and told reporters Iran's participation was "vital."

Earlier Sunday, the head of the Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Boroojerdi, said an Iranian delegation should go to Sharm el-Sheik.

"Iran should attend the conference, actively and powerfully," Boroojerdi was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Boroojerdi added that if Iran did not participate, it would lay itself open to criticism from the United States.

Iran has considerable influence among Shiite parties in Iraq, who now lead the country's government. It is also alleged to have links with Shiite insurgent groups, which is why numerous American politicians and analysts have urged Washington to engage Tehran in talks designed to curb the violence in Iraq.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday signaled that the conference could provide an opportunity for one-on-one talks between his administration and Iran, but he stressed that Tehran's nuclear program would not be on the table.

He said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might have bilateral conversations at the conference. "They could. They could," Bush told PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show.".

The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran following the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Although there have been periodic diplomatic contacts, the Bush administration has resisted pressure at home and abroad to engage Iran one-on-one in an effort to improve security in neighboring Iraq.

That policy began to change this spring. Although it is not inviting a broad conversation, the administration has repeatedly said it will not rule out sideline talks with either Iran or Syria at the conference May 3-4 at Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

Such contact would follow the model established last month when lower-level State Department officials had cordial discussions with Iranian and Syrian diplomats.

Bush said if a meeting occurs, Rice's message to the Iranians would be: "Don't send weapons in (to Iraq) that will end up hurting our troops, and help this young democracy survive."

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Pakistan probes deadly bomb attack

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Investigators tried Sunday to identify a suicide bomber who attacked a political rally, as the toll from the blast rose to 28 dead and 52 injured, including Pakistan's top security official.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao was left spattered in blood but only slightly injured in the attack Saturday in Charsadda, a town near his home village in North West Frontier Province.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombing, which took place just after Sherpao completed a speech to a rally of his political supporters.

Sherpao said on Sunday that he was the intended target of the attack, without naming any suspects. (Watch as the injured official gets hustled away from the bombing site )
But suspicion inevitably fell on Islamic militants who have repeatedly targeted top Pakistani officials, including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for supporting the U.S.-led war on terror.

"Yesterday's incident is open terrorism," Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said. "It is a challenge to stop terrorism, and we are fighting it with full commitment."

Hamid Karzai, the president of neighboring Afghanistan, sent a message of condolences and said long-suffering Afghans knew the hurt that Pakistanis were feeling.

Such attacks show the need for "strong cooperation between both countries to fight against terrorists and all those elements who try to bring instability to the region," Karzai's office said in a statement.

Karzai and Musharraf, who regularly accuse each other of failing to contain militancy, were to hold rare face-to-face talks Sunday in Turkey.

"The attack was carried out to target me," Sherpao told reporters Sunday in a hospital in Peshawar where he visited wounded victims of the weekend bombing.

Sherpao did not blame anyone for involvement, saying only that investigations are going on.
"Terrorism is a problem for the entire nation. The entire nation should unite in jihad (holy war) against terrorism," he said.

Mudassir Khan, a police officer in Charsadda, said police and intelligence experts were combing the scene of the bombing for evidence.

A senior police investigator in Peshawar, the provincial capital, said that the bomber's severed head and legs indicated he was in his 30s. His fair complexion suggested he was from Pakistan's border areas or Afghanistan, the investigator said.

"The pattern of recent attacks" also suggested a link to the tribal region along the border, where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are believed to operate, he added.

The official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to make media comments, declined to elaborate.

Durrani said it was unclear whether the bombing could be retaliation for a mysterious missile strike that killed four suspected militants in a village near the Afghan border on Friday.
Three suspected militants and a Pakistani soldier died in a clash on Sunday in the same North Waziristan region, intelligence officials said.

Pakistan has suffered a spate of suicide bombings this year, including attacks on the military and police, and at a five-star hotel in the capital, Islamabad.

Officials blame militants, but have announced no clear results of their investigations.
Witnesses said Saturday's attacker got within 15 meters (yards) of Sherpao -- detonating the bomb among a crowd that had gathered around the minister as he headed for his car.
While officials initially said that 22 people were killed, by Sunday the toll had risen to 28 dead and 52 injured, Durrani said.

Police said most of victims were local people, but also included several of Sherpao's police bodyguards. They said they were struggling to identify several of the badly mutilated bodies.
Top officials have been targeted repeatedly since Pakistan became a Washington ally against al-Qaida in late 2001.

In December 2003, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf narrowly escaped injury in two massive bombings 11 days apart in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Some 17 other people were killed in the second bombing.

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Rebels release 7 Chinese hostages

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Seven Chinese oil workers and two African civilians were released Sunday by an Ethiopian rebel group that attacked a Chinese oil exploration facility last week, a Red Cross spokesman said.

Patrick Megevand, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ethiopia, said the men were released at 2:30 p.m., but declined to provide any other details.

"They've been handed over to the ICRC," he said. The Red Cross was still in the process of transporting the men to a safe location to be turned over the Ethiopian and Chinese authorities, he added.

Officials at the Chinese embassy to Ethiopia said they could not provide any immediate information on the report. Ethiopian officials did not answer repeated phone calls.

The rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, said last week that the group's leaders were in contact with the Red Cross to negotiate a handover of the workers. Rebel leaders were not immediately available for comment and usually provide statements by e-mail.

The front claimed responsibility for an attack on the Chinese-owned oil exploration field in eastern Ethiopia on April 24, killing 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese.

The group said in a statement that six other Chinese workers "were removed from the battlefield for their own safety."

Ethiopian and Chinese officials said seven Chinese workers were missing and there was no immediate explanation for the difference in numbers.

The ONLF said it would resume fighting after the Chinese workers were transferred to the Red Cross.

The rebels said again that no foreign company should try to work in the Ogaden region, a large state along the Somali border. The group says it is fighting for the region's right to self-determination.

The Chinese government has condemned Tuesday's attack and rejected the group's warning.

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Costs expected to take center stage at climate talks

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The costs of cutting greenhouse gases and who will pay for doing it are likely to be the key issues at a major U.N.-backed climate change meeting of scientists and diplomats in the Thai capital this week, participants said Sunday.

Some of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters like the U.S. and Australia and top oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia will try to water down language in a draft report, obtained by The Associated Press earlier this month, that suggests reducing emissions could cost less than 3 percent of annual global economic activity, environmental activists said.

"Cost will be on everybody's mind," said environmental protection group WWF International's Martin Hiller. "Changing the energy system is costly, but we can still afford to do it. The cost for doing nothing is staggering and could be up to 20 times more expensive."

Developing countries are likely to demand that richer countries help them adapt to warming global temperatures, which are expected to cause widespread flooding, droughts and rising sea levels.

"If you take roads or electricity lines or buildings, they will all have to be adapted to climate change," said Hiller.

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a network of more than 2,000 scientists, will open a five-day meeting in Bangkok to finalize a report on how the world can mitigate rising levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases.

The draft report, which will be amended following comments from dozens of governments, says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, invests in energy efficiency and reforms the agriculture sector.

Two previous IPCC reports this year painted a dire picture of a future in which unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

Even a 2-degree-Celsius (3.6-degree-Fahrenheit) rise could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, the IPCC said.

The third report makes clear the world must quickly embrace a basket of technological options -- already available and being developed -- just to keep the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Making buildings more energy-efficient, especially in the developing world, through better insulation, lighting and other steps, could also lead to significant cuts as would converting from coal to natural gas, nuclear power and renewable energy such as wind.

"We believe that you can reduce emission by 50 percent by 2050 using renewable energy technology and energy efficiency," said Stephanie Tunmore, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace International. "Hopefully, energy efficiency will come out strongly in the report because that is really important. For the most part, it's a negative cost."

Over the next century, the report says, such technology as hydrogen-powered fuel cells, advanced hybrid and electric vehicles with better batteries, and carbon sequestration -- whereby carbon emissions are stored underground -- will become more commercially feasible.
The U.S. delegation at the Bangkok meeting is expected to argue that the report's cost estimates are unrealistically low and that the expense of reducing greenhouse gases currently would be difficult at present for most nations to bear.

The report says taking "optimal" mitigation measures might by 2030 stabilize greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at 445 to 534 parts per million, up from an estimated 430 ppm today.

Achieving the 445-534 ppm range might cost less than 3 percent of annual global gross domestic product (GDP) over two decades, the draft says.

Global GDP has grown by about 3 percent a year since 2000.

The damage from unabated climate change, in contrast, might eventually cost the global economy between 5 percent and 20 percent of GDP every year, according to a British government report last year.

The upbeat cost assessment runs counter to the administration of U.S. President Bush, which has rejected the mandatory cuts stipulated by the Kyoto Protocol because it fears that doing so would slow U.S. economic growth too much.