Weekend News Digest

Meanwhile, commanders will be shifting their attention to helping Iraqi forces take full control of their own security.

The Pentagon has not released the full details of President Barack Obama’s plan to end America’s combat role in Iraq by Aug. 31 of next year, but the broad contours are taking shape.

“To this very day, there are some Americans who want to stay in Iraq longer, and some who want to leave faster,” Obama said in his announcement Friday, summing up a debate that has divided the country like no other since former President George W. Bush launched the U.S. invasion six years ago.

Obama’s description suggests he arrived at a split-down-the-middle compromise with one of the first and most important tasks of his young presidency.

The upbeat assessment of conditions in the arid, mountainous regions of Bajur and Mohmand follows international criticism of Pakistan for accepting a cease-fire with militants behind a bloody campaign in Swat Valley, just next to the tribal regions.

Many analysts also fear that growing political turmoil between the government and opposition could distract attention from the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban just as Washington wants more concerted action.

Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders Saturday morning, and detailed the worst performance in his 44 years leading the Omaha-based insurance and investment company.

Buffett wrote he’s certain “the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 – and, for that matter, probably well beyond – but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall.”

Leaders from 12 of the largest unions, along with rival federations AFL-CIO and Change to Win, have held three meetings since January aimed at setting aside differences and taking advantage of the most favorable political climate for unions in 15 years.

“We’ve had very positive discussions and we’ve reached some significant agreements,” said David Bonior, the former Michigan congressman who is brokering the discussions.

The fossil is the best-preserved cranium ever found of a pelagornithid, a family of large seabirds believed to have gone extinct some 3 million years ago, said Rodolfo Salas, head of vertebrate paleontology at Peru’s National History Museum.

The museum said in a statement that the birds had wingspans of up to 20 feet (6 meters) and may have used the toothlike projections on their beaks to prey on slippery fish and squid. But studying members of the Pelagornithidae family has been difficult because their extremely thin bones – while helpful for keeping the avian giants aloft – tended not to survive as fossils.

Firefighters were still searching shallow graves and sewers at the border guards’ headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, where the bodies of senior officers were hurriedly dumped by the mutineers. Workers also scoured nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.

Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force, and a woman that authorities believed was his wife.

“The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address. “But I don’t. I work for the American people.”

He said the ambitious budget plan he presented Thursday will help millions of people, but only if Congress overcomes resistance from deep-pocket lobbies.

A Health and Human Services official said Friday the administration will publish notice of its intentions early next week, opening a 30-day comment period for advocates on both sides, medical groups and the public.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the notice has not been completed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged European Union states to work together to deal with the downturn, telling the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper: “We are working intensively on new rules for the international financial markets.”

Brown, speaking at his ruling Labour Party’s National Policy Forum, called for the global mandate of international institutions to be beefed up to deliver growth and jobs.

The U.S. official, David Sedney, said China’s opposition to Washington’s arms sales to the disputed island of Taiwan came up in the two days of discussions in Beijing, but did not overwhelm an agenda that also covered Central Asia, China’s contribution to fighting piracy off the Somali coast, and nuclear weapons.

“The focus was not at all on obstacles. The focus was on how we can move forward,” Sedney, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a news briefing after the talks.

Meanwhile, a Houston judge ruled on Friday that Laura Pendergest-Holt, the only person arrested in the $8 billion Allen Stanford fraud investigation, could walk free after she posted a $300,000 bond.

In an amended complaint filed in a federal court in Dallas, the Securities and Exchange Commission increased its civil charges against Stanford to include a Ponzi scheme where early investors are paid with the money of new clients.

In its third attempt to prop up Citigroup in the past five months, the government will convert up to $25 billion in preferred shares to common stock. Existing shareholders could see their ownership of the bank diluted by 74 percent.

While the latest rescue does not inject more money into Citigroup, it gives the government more of a voting stake and far greater influence over the bank’s operations, short of outright nationalization. The White House said a higher U.S. stake will help achieve a “better outcome” for the bank.

While the tough rhetoric was certain to rev up hard-line Republicans — many of whom regard “socialism” as anathema to American life — it was unclear how much it would change the debate in the Democratic-led Congress, which begins hearings next week on Obama’s $3.55 trillion budget proposal.

John Boehner, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, on Friday called Obama’s new budget proposal and recently passed economic stimulus plan “one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment.”

As many as 95,000 agricultural jobs will be lost, communities will be devastated and some growers in the most economically productive farm state simply are not able to plant, state officials said, calling the current drought the most expensive ever.

Schwarzenegger, eager to build controversial dams as well as more widely backed water recycling programs, called on cities to cut back water use or face the first ever mandatory state restrictions as soon as the end of the month.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s sole ruler for nearly three decades, is holding onto power despite economic and political turmoil that have forced him into a unity government with the opposition.

“There is no going back on the land reforms. Farms will not be returned back to former (white) farmers. That work will continue, but those farms have to be used properly.

The long-range Bear bomber did not enter Canada’s Arctic airspace but the two CF-18 fighters had to order the plane to “back off”, MacKay told a news conference.

He also told reporters that Russia had not warned Canada that the flight was coming, a statement that a Russian government source in Moscow dismissed as farcical.

Wen’s message, mixing confidence and wariness, followed a series of comments over the past week by Chinese officials that suggested the government is ready to unveil new investment plans if needed to revive the world’s third largest economy.

“The financial crisis, (on a scale) rarely seen in 100 years, is still spreading and has not bottomed out yet,” Wen said during a rare online chat.

The Obama administration’s decision to move Marri into the U.S. judicial system marked a significant policy shift from the Bush administration, which had argued that Marri could be held indefinitely without being charged.

Marri is suspected of being an al Qaeda “sleeper” agent sent by Osama bin Laden and by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, to disrupt the U.S. financial system by hacking into bank computers.

Nicole Hodges, a 23-year-old actress in New York City who has been out of work since November, says she has decided to sell her eggs because she desperately needs cash.

“I’m still paying off college. I have credit card bills and, you know, rent in New York is so expensive,” Hodges, who has been accepted as donor and is waiting to be chosen by a couple, told Reuters Television.

A month ago, the Commerce Department had estimated the economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

But downward revisions to inventories, exports and spending led it to issue a much weaker figure on Friday, just shy of the 6.4 percent rate drop seen in the first quarter of 1982, when the economy was in a recession that lasted 16 months.

“I think it’s a major first step. Other than when Hillary Clinton tried and failed, I haven’t seen any other politician take the initiative to seriously get healthcare under control,” said George Oparanozic, a 46-year-old history teacher at a community college, while grading papers a coffee shop in Oak Park, Illinois.

“It looks like it might happen this time,” Oparanozic said, referring to the failed attempt by Hillary Clinton, when she was first lady in the 1990s, to expand health coverage during her husband Bill Clinton’s administration.

In a decree that comes after weeks of consultations about a date for the war-torn nation’s second-ever presidential vote, Karzai said the Independent Election Commission had to conduct the poll according to the constitution.

Without specifically announcing a date, he cited an article of the constitution that says the vote must be held within 30 to 60 days before the end of the presidential term, which is on May 21.

Ban, who arrived early Saturday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, met Kabila in northeastern Kisangani, Ban’s spokesman Yves Sorokobi told AFP.

“The recent developments have offered an opportunity to the Congolese authorities as well as to MONUC (the UN peacekeeping mission in the country) to reinforce our commitment” in the east, he told Kabila, according to Sorokobi.

“Europe will only overcome the crisis if we act together in a coordinated way and if we abide by the Community rules,” said Topolanek, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

“We do not want any new dividing lines; we do not want a Europe divided along a North-South or an East-West line; pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbour policy is unacceptable,” he added in a pre-summit statement.

The conservative press bewails a steady erosion of Christian values. A member of Parliament has called for debate on “systematic and institutional discrimination toward Christians.” Even former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently let slip how aides would brusquely suppress any instinct he had to bring his faith into public view.

Now, a succession of ordinary Christians are finding this rule applies to them, too.

As troops pour into the country and violence rises, another sobering measure has also increased: More Afghan civilians are dying in U.S. and allied operations than at the hands of the Taliban, according to a count by The Associated Press. In the first two months of the year, U.S., NATO or Afghan forces have killed 100 civilians, while militants have killed 60.

President Barack Obama recently announced the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to bolster 38,000 already in the country, increasing the U.S. focus on Afghanistan while a drawdown begins in Iraq. The latest casualty toll among U.S. forces could portend a deadlier year in Afghanistan than the U.S. military has experienced since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.

The enigmatic pattern of inscribed symbols curled symmetrically around the upper part of the rough-edged, yellowish stone tablet and coiled into the middle in a decorative style typical of an extinct Iberian language called Southwest Script.

“We didn’t break into applause, but almost,” says Amilcar Guerra, a University of Lisbon lecturer overseeing the excavation. “It’s an extraordinary thing.”

Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.

“If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed,” Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

The monk, identified as Tapey, was shot Friday afternoon in the Tibetan county of Aba in Sichuan province, according to Free Tibet, the International Campaign for Tibet, and phayul.com, a news site affiliated with the Dalai Lama’s India-based government in exile.

They said Tapey was carried to a van and driven away, possibly to a hospital. No details were available on his condition.

Lithium, the lightest metal. Half the density of water. Used in cell phone, laptop and iPod batteries, and in the years to come, many thousands of electric and hybrid vehicles propelling humanity into a cleaner energy future.

“Lithium is the hope not just for Bolivia but for all inhabitants of the planet,” President Evo Morales said before meeting in Paris last month with Bollore Group, one of several companies vying to extract the metal from remote salt flats in the poor landlocked nation.

The latest delay in trying to ratify the current $64 billion budget proposal highlights the financial squeeze facing Iraq as declining oil revenues cut into reconstruction plans such as new roads and improved utilities – which the Shiite-led government hopes to use as showcases in national elections later this year.

The pinch has also brought calls by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for proposals to diversify Iraq’s oil-dependent economy with expansion of agriculture and other trade. But Iraq’s plans for this year have been dragged down along with the price of oil, which is now less than $45 a barrel after hitting highs last summer of $150 a barrel.

The Ruyan V8, which produces a nicotine-infused mist absorbed directly into the lungs, is just one of a rapidly growing array of electronic cigarettes attracting attention in China, the U.S. and elsewhere – and the scrutiny of world health officials.

Marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking and a potential way to kick the habit, the smokeless smokes have been distributed in swag bags at the British film awards and hawked at an international trade show.

Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi agreed that the long-running territorial dispute should not overshadow broader ties, Nakasone’s press secretary, Kazuo Kodama, said.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said this week that the small islands, claimed as the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China, were his country’s and therefore covered by a security alliance with the United States.

Harper also said the Iranian government’s ideology was “evil,” the newspaper reported in its online edition late on Friday.

“NATO has taken on a United Nations mission and NATO must succeed or I do think the future of NATO as we’ve known it is in considerable doubt,” Harper said in an interview with the newspaper’s editorial board.

The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations also vowed to work with the Group of 20 on reforming international financial institutions.

“We agreed that counter-cyclical and more coordinated macroeconomic policies are the best response to this global financial crisis,” said the draft chairman’s statement to be issued after the summit ends on Sunday.

The veteran Zimbabwean leader will, for the first time at such a party, be joined by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, his new partner in a power-sharing government formed early this month.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s sole ruler for nearly three decades, is holding onto power despite economic and political turmoil that have forced him into a unity government with the opposition.

A previous general strike call by Andry Rajoelina began weeks of unrest that has killed dozens, including 28 when the presidential guard opened fire on an opposition protest earlier this month.

On Saturday, Rajoelina addressed some 5,000 supporters who gathered in the capital in his first rally since breaking off talks with President Marc Ravalomanana earlier in the week.

Japan is reeling from the full force of a simultaneous worldwide slump that has devastated demand for Japanese cars and high-tech goods, putting the country on course for its worst recession since World War II.

“What’s unique about the current crisis is the steepness of the decline,” said Hideo Kumano, economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said a letter of apology from Williamson “doesn’t seem to have respected the conditions” set by the Vatican on February 4, under which the bishop was to “distance himself absolutely and publicly” from his positions concerning the Holocaust.

In a letter to the Vatican released Thursday, Williamson apologised to those he offended with his remarks but stopped short of withdrawing them.

“I am very happy to be back in Serbia,” Milan Milutinovic told journalists after arriving on a regular flight from Amsterdam. “I feel quite tired and my feeling are mixed,” he said, without elaborating.

A UN court on Thursday acquitted Milutinovic, president of Serbia from 1997 to 2002, of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo.

Karzai’s decree may also intensify tensions with the United States , which backed an Independent Election Commission decision scheduling the vote for Aug. 20 so that an additional 17,000 U.S. troops could be deployed to bolster security.

Some 60,000 troops from the United States and 40 other countries are currently helping Afghan security forces battle the al Qaida -backed Taliban insurgency, and getting reinforcements in place within the next three months presents Washington and its NATO allies a huge challenge.

It was an ironic reception for a new commander-in-chief whose presidential campaign was built initially on his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it if elected.

“I am deeply troubled by the suggestion that a force of 50,000 troops could remain in Iraq ,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey , D- Calif. “This is unacceptable.”

“Please, before you enter, close your eyes,” she said. Grabbing a hand, she led the visitor across the dusty marble threshold in silence. “Now,” she said, “Open them.”

Ten-foot-tall relief panels depicting the life of a king lined the walls, and a 12-foot-tall stone statue of a winged bull loomed ahead.

Osborne’s attorneys will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that DNA testing is not something states can choose to allow when they have doubts about a conviction, but a constitutional right.

They note that 232 prisoners around the country have been exonerated by such tests, and that Alaska is the only state that hasn’t even tried to use the ever-evolving technology to see if it might have gotten a conviction wrong.

“You can see God’s message and the good in that message is for all human beings,” Ishmael Muhammad, the religion’s national assistant minister, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “If we don’t change, then we sentence ourselves to death.”

Muhammad, 44, said the Nation of Islam has been on an “evolutionary course.” He appeared at an annual Saviours’ Day event in a Chicago suburb, where Minister Louis Farrakhan was expected to address a crowd of thousands on Sunday.

The question now is whether four members of an assisted suicide ring facing criminal charges in a Georgia man’s death actively helped him kill himself that way or merely gave him guidance about how to end his life on his own.

The distinction is still being hammered out by state, district and federal courts, legal experts say.

Prosecutors released the surveillance video Friday in the assault case against Deputy Paul Schene, who is accused of using excessive force on the girl. Schene, 31, pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault in Superior Court on Thursday.

The incident last November began after the girl was brought in for an auto theft investigation, according to court documents. The footage shows the attack beginning after the girl enters the cell at suburban SeaTac City Hall and kicks off one of her shoes toward the deputy.

“The PTL Club,” which aired from 1974 to 1987, featured Jim Bakker offering upbeat sermons from a couch and Tammy Faye, wearing her trademark heavy mascara, singing about Jesus. Most episodes were taped at their empire – which included a hotel, campground and theme park – just south of Charlotte.

PTL, which stood for “Praise The Lord,” came crashing down in 1987 when Jim Bakker went to prison for fraud after a sex scandal. The couple divorced and Tammy Faye remarried and changed her last name to Messner. She died in 2007 from colon cancer.

“I have to bring them with me,” she said. “I don’t have a choice.”

Pagan is among thousands of former service members who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to later receive orders to return to service. They’re not in training, they’re not getting a Defense Department salary, but as long as they have time left on their original enlistment contracts, they’re on “individual ready reserve” status – eligible to be recalled at any time.

Nearly 60 percent gave the worst grades to Wall Street executives for honesty and ethical practices, according to research conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Corporate executives fared slightly better, getting poor grades from 49 percent of those polled.

By contrast, some of the debris caused when China used a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy one of its defunct weather satellites will stay in orbit for another 80 or 90 years, said Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the command’s chief.

“Every bit of debris created by that (U.S.) intercept has de-orbited,” Chilton told a symposium on air warfare hosted by the U.S. Air Force Association in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday.

“We want US lawmakers to understand that uranium mining is highly pollutant and that there is currently no scientific answer to the question of radioactive waste containment,” Bruno Chareyron of France’s CRIIRAD laboratory, which measures radioactivity in the environment, told AFP Friday.

“We want them to know that the information they are given by the mining companies is not wholly reliable,” he said.

The US Authors Guild had warned that the new Kindle feature could pose a “significant challenge” to the publishing industry and hinted at possible legal action by saying they were studying the matter closely.

“Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given,” Amazon said late Friday in an announcement posted online.

“I am sure everyone will go there sooner or later,” said Lieutenant Steven Morris, 34, clad in desert camouflage as he watched his fellow marines warm up in the morning cold before combat training.

Obama, calling Afghanistan the central front in the fight against terrorism rather than Iraq, has approved the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to take on Taliban insurgents, including 8,000 marines.

ASNE president Charlotte Hall said that although plans for the April 26-29 meeting in Chicago were well under way the ASNE’s leadership “concluded that the challenges editors face at their newspapers demand their full attention.”

“Even though the learning opportunities at the convention would have been valuable, the greatest priority is leading our own newsrooms as we shape the future of the business,” Hall said.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office was still trying to determine what prompted Dannie Baker, 60, to leave his house in Miramar Beach in northern Florida early Thursday and shoot the victims.

“We don’t know the motives of the attack, we are investigating,” said Tammy Godwin, executive assistant to the sheriff. “There were no indicators, no complaints of bad noise or something.”