Afternoon Edition

A vast foreign aid effort is struggling to meet survivors’ needs 17 days after the disaster, which killed around 170,000 people and left one million homeless and short of medicine, food and water.

Several medical teams reported increased cases of diarrhea in the last few days in Haiti, Paul Garwood, a spokesman for the UN World Health Organization, said in Geneva.

But a ray of hope penetrated the gloom as doctors marveled at how a 16-year-old girl who was pulled from the rubble of the capital a day earlier managed to survive 15 days buried alive without any food or water.

With aid still only trickling in despite a vast international relief effort launched after the January 12 quake, hundreds of thousands of homeless people in tent camps are not only short of food but also at risk from rising crime.

While Greece’s prime minister attacked currency speculators, Clinton told the political and business elite at the World Economic Forum that real money could be made in the Caribbean nation where nearly 170,000 people died in the January 12 quake.

“They need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster,” said Clinton, a UN special envoy on Haiti, a country he said had been “punished by either being ignored or abused”.

Rounding off his day-long evidence session, Blair said he accepted “responsibility but not a regret for removing Saddam,” insisting the Iraqi leader was a “monster” who had “threatened not just the region but the world.”

As he left the London hearing, there were shouts of “liar” and “you’re a murderer” from the public gallery, where some of the relatives of the 179 British troops killed in Iraq watched his appearance.

Giving eagerly awaited evidence to a public inquiry into the conflict, he insisted he had backed war because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had flouted UN resolutions, not because he wanted “regime change”. Related article: Saddam was a ‘monster’ says Blair

Almost seven years on, six months after British troops withdrew from Iraq, Blair’s decision to back the war remains a highly controversial subject, and hundreds of anti-war protesters demonstrated outside the inquiry venue.

Blair is the star witness in a long-awaited inquiry that commentators hope will finally resolve questions about the intelligence that justified the March 2003 invasion, and whether the US-led war was legal.

Anti-war campaigners, who held a million-strong march against the invasion at the time, have promised protests for the hearing in London, while the public interest is such that organisers had to hold a ballot for spectators.

Gates announced at the World Economic Forum that the money will come over the next decade from the foundation he runs with his wife Melinda, and that vaccines will become the charity’s top priority.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has now committed more than 25 billion dollars to various health projects, especially targeting AIDS and polio and other diseases that hit poor countries.

Next week may yield the first clues.

Countries are being asked to say by Sunday whether they will endorse an 11th-hour deal, the “Copenhagen Accord,” which saved the marathon meeting from collapse but sparked accusations of failure and betrayal.

The latest in a series of recalls which has now hit almost eight million Toyota cars worldwide, was again due to an accelerator problem and covered eight separate models and dates ranging back to February 2005.

That is equivalent to Toyota’s entire worldwide sales last year of 7.81 million vehicles.

Toyota said its parts supplier CTS had begun making pedals based on a new design that resolved the problem and the two firms are testing a remedy that will be rolled out “as quickly as possible” for cars already on the road.

The Japanese giant was believed to be putting the finishing touches to a repair whereby it would insert a “spacer” in the pedal mechanism in order to increase the tension in a spring and reduce the risk of sticking.

Toyota raced past US giant General Motors in 2008 to become the world’s top-selling automaker, but it has been bedevilled by a series of safety issues that have raised questions about whether its quality control has suffered.

Toyota shares tumbled 3.91 percent to 3,560 yen Thursday, after a drop of 4.26 percent the previous day in response to the group’s decision to suspend sales in United States of eight models due to the safety concerns.

Afghan security forces will take over an unspecified number of provinces “by late 2010/early 2011”, the powers said after a conference in London, saying it marked “a new phase on the way to full Afghan ownership”.

Western powers like the United States hope the pledges will allow them to cut troop levels in Afghanistan.

While leaders meeting in London to discuss the war-shattered country agreed to back a multimillion-dollar fund for militants who lay down their arms, a UN official said UN envoy Kai Eide had met Taliban members in Dubai this month.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not indicate which Taliban members were at the meeting, but said they were “active members of the insurgency” and that the meeting was held at the militants’ request.

Villepin immediately vowed to return to the political fray, criticising Sarkozy’s policies for “not giving results” and saying he would challenge the president from within the ruling UMP party that both men belong to.

He is now believed to be considering a run for president in 2012.

Villepin branded the decision to lodge an appeal as politically-motivated, accusing Sarkozy of being “consumed with hate” and fiercely determined to see him behind bars.

A second trial for the 56-year-old will probably take place at the end of the year or early 2011, chief prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin told Europe 1 radio.

The human cost of post-recession, structural economic rebirth could be seen in updated European Union data when the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for the 16 euro countries hit a miserable one in 10 in December.

The news came on top of rising inflation — with separate official figures showing the annual rate of price rises hitting 1.0 percent, a new peak after falling to an all-time low of minus 0.7 percent six months earlier.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou held new meetings to overcome what they admit is a “credibility deficit” as Athens battles the fallout from a huge national debt.

But the euro lost more ground as worries deepened about Greece and the state of other European economies. The European currency fell to 1.3938 dollars in Tokyo afternoon trade from 1.3966 in New York late Thursday.

Blair said the September 11 al Qaeda attacks on the United States meant rogue states had to be dealt with to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) falling into the wrong hands, risking even greater carnage.

Facing the first official public grilling on why he sent 45,000 British troops to war in Iraq, he repeatedly said he was concerned that such a risk remained today, referring to fears over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

President Barack Obama has been slammed for plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators a few blocks from where the World Trade Center twin towers stood because of concerns about giving them certain legal rights, a large security cordon, and the impact on area businesses.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in November decided to put the trials in New York City, whose lower Manhattan courthouse is connected to a fortified detention center with a tunnel.

The Democratic president delivered the double-edged message in a sometimes tense session at a Republican congressional retreat in Baltimore as he sought to dig out of his deepest political rut since taking office a year ago.

Facing down his Republican critics two days after a State of the Union speech aimed at reconnecting with the public, Obama sought to counter their attempt to paint him as a big-spending liberal who only wants to expand government.

Scott Roeder, 51, was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated assault by a Wichita, Kansas jury which deliberated for just over 30 minutes. The case attracted anti-abortion protesters from around the nation to support Roeder.

Abortion has been one of America’s most contentious and divisive issues for decades, affecting everything from local and national elections to the selection of U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The move by Honda, tipped to benefit from Toyota’s woes, came as suppliers, consumers and analysts weighed the financial impact on Toyota of its recall and its suspension of U.S. sales.

Investors also assessed the fall-out for an industry just emerging from global crisis as well as the damage to Japanese automakers’ prized reputation for safety and reliability.

Top executives from leading U.S. and European banks held behind-the-scenes talks on their response, people attending the talks said. But a deal has proved elusive.

Regulators and policymakers, meanwhile, appeared to have struck some common ground at the World Economic Forum, agreeing on the need to ensure changes to the rulebook — from banker pay to lenders’ activities — are global, and not unilateral.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency proposed five separate sales, including 60 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, 114 Patriot “Advanced Capability-3” anti-missiles and a command and control enhancement knows as Multifunctional Information Distribution Systems.

The United States also would supply 12 advanced Harpoon missiles capable of both land-strike and anti-ship missions plus two refurbished Osprey-class mine-hunting ships, the security agency said in notices to Congress.

In the country’s south, suicide attackers launched an assault in the capital of Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province, with gunmen holed up in three buildings, battling government and NATO troops who returned fire with helicopter strikes.

When the fighting stopped before dusk a Reuters reporter at the scene saw the bullet-riddled bodies of four gunmen dragged out of a building by Afghan troops and displayed in the street. Two of the dead gunmen wore police uniforms.

Bernanke survived a revolt by lawmakers angry at big banks and their regulators, including the Fed. He still faces acute political pressure to ease economic strains at a time when the Fed is showing divisions over how much support the economy needs.

President Barack Obama welcomed the Senate vote and said he looked forward to working with Bernanke going forward.

The day after a State of the Union address in which he tried to reconnect with the public with a hard focus on the economy, Obama went to Florida where he unveiled $8 billion in grants for high-speed rail projects the White House says will create employment and transform train travel.

With his poll numbers down and his presidency faltering after his first year, Obama told a friendly audience at a townhall-style meeting that he understood the economic pain they were feeling because of double-digit unemployment.

As days turn to weeks, doctors struggling to keep up with demand in devastated hospitals and improvised clinics are warning of a looming public health calamity as earthquake survivors with untreated injuries fail to get proper attention, Elisabeth Byrs, of the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination office said Friday in Geneva.

Poor sanitation can also kill as tens of thousands of Haitians living in squalid camps with limited water, she said.

Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons confirms information in a company e-mail obtained by the AP that says parts were shipped to factories. Lyons says that’s how the company normally distributes parts.

But some dealers say they should get the parts first because they now have no way to fix the pedals on any of the 4.2 million recalled vehicles affecting eight U.S. models.

The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder for putting a gun to the forehead of Dr. George Tiller on May 31 and pulling the trigger.

Defense attorney Mark Rudy described his case as helpless and hopeless.

That was Tony Blair’s message Friday as he fought for his place in history against critics who contend it was folly to join the Americans in invading Iraq based on intelligence that was faulty and weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.

The highly anticipated testimony before an official inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq conflict provided both a reprise and a coda to the Blair years: The former prime minister showed his impressive rhetorical skills and high-minded principles, but left unanswered whether the war that defines his mixed legacy was justified.

Many in the audience, including the relatives of soldiers and civilians killed in the war, were not impressed. Blair’s claim to have no regrets drew an angry outburst. As he left, one man stood up and shouted “You are a liar!” A second added: “And a murderer.”

The president and GOP House members took turns questioning and sometimes lecturing each other for more than hour at a Republican gathering in Baltimore. The Republicans agreed to let TV cameras inside, resulting in an extended, point-by-point interchange that was almost unprecedented in U.S. politics, except perhaps during presidential debates.

With voters angry about partisanship and legislative logjams, both sides were eager to demonstrate they were ready to cooperate, resulting in the GOP invitation and Obama’s acceptance. After polite introductions, however, Friday’s exchange showed that Obama and the Republicans remain far apart on key issues, and neither side could resist the chance to challenge and even scold the other.

Two administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday the Justice Department is drawing up plans for possible alternate locations to try professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices in case Congress or local officials prevent the trial from being held in Manhattan.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deliberation.

The recall affects two products, about 55,000 items in total, sold exclusively by the world’s biggest retailer for $5 each. The action was taken voluntarily by Rhode Island-based jewelry company FAF Inc., which did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which disclosed the recall, had been testing for cadmium in children’s metal jewelry for several weeks in response to an Associated Press investigation that reported high levels of the known carcinogen in the Disney movie-themed pendants and other children’s metal jewelry imported from China.

“On reflection, I could have used a different approach to this investigation, particularly given the sensitivities that people understandably have about security in a federal building,” James O’Keefe wrote Friday on the Web site biggovernment.com.

Landrieu’s spokesman called his explanation “feeble.”

Obama wants to give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each net new worker they hire in 2010. Also, businesses that increase wages or hours for their existing workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay.

No company could reap more than $500,000 from the combined benefits, one of several features meant to tailor the program more to small businesses than to large corporations.

“Our challenge now is to put in place a new system,” said Lawrence H. Summers, telling a crowd at the World Economic Forum that the reforms wouldn’t last forever but should be able to protect a generation from banking excesses.

Summers, the top U.S. official in Davos this year, said there needed to be rules restraining how risky these banks can become. His session came after three days of complaints from senior officials in the banking industry that governments – and the U.S., in particular – risked choking off growth with a glut of new financial regulations.

His former Senate seat, already stained by an ethics scandal, is a major takeover target for Republicans. So is the governor’s office.

Going into Tuesday’s Illinois primary, the first of the 2010 campaign season, Democrats are in disarray, with no political heavyweights in their lineup for the Senate seat that Obama gave up for the White House.

That depth deception may fall by the wayside, however, as skiers and snowboarders can now use an iPhone application to report real-time snow levels and keep resorts honest, the study said.

Economists Jonathan Zinman and Eric Zitzewitz, skiers who took offense to a fluffed-up claim, studied snow reports from 2004 to 2008 and compared them to area government weather stations. They found that ski resorts across the U.S. and Canada reported more fresh snow – 23 percent more, on average – on skier-coveted weekends than during the week. Resorts with more business to gain were the ones most likely to boast of deeper snowfalls, their study said.

Obama made sure to weave that message throughout his stop in Florida, one otherwise intended to promote his economic agenda by announcing $8 billion in high-speed rail awards.

Coming one day after his State of the Union address, and one day before meeting with House Republican leaders with whom he continues to battle, Obama’s emphasis on civility was a nod to political reality. He needs Republicans more than ever to get his agenda passed, and he is getting saddled with more public blame for the partisanship he promised to change.

“I already told them, you know, `I got here with the help of a close group of friends and very little help from anyone down there, so there’ll be issues when I’ll be with you and there are issues when I won’t be with you,'” Brown said Thursday during the half-hour interview. “So, I just need to look at each vote and then make a proper analysis and then decide.”

Asked how McConnell and Kyl responded, Brown said, “They understood. They said, `You can probably do whatever you want, Scott. And, so, just let us know where your head’s at, and we’ll talk it through, and just keep us posted.'”

“This is crazy,” Aafia Siddiqui testified when cross-examined about the accusations at her attempted murder trial in Manhattan. “It’s just ridiculous. … I never attempted murder, no way. It’s a heavy word.”

The 37-year-old Siddiqui claimed that she was shot by two men while trying to escape.