Weekend News Digest

Flights that have carried more than 500 people with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds ended Wednesday after the governor of Florida asked the government to share the financial burden on his state’s hospitals.

“Apparently, some states were unwilling to accept the entry of Haitian patients for follow-on critical care,” US Transportation Command spokesman Captain Kevin Aandahl told AFP.

Haiti’s Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said police arrested the nine as they tried to enter the Dominican Republic with a bus-full of kids.

Border police “saw a bus with a lot of children. Thirty-three children. When asked about the children’s documents, they had no documents,” Lassegue told reporters in Port-au-Prince.

News of the charges came amid dismay over a decision by the United States government to suspend medical evacuation flights and amid accusations about Washington’s role in Haiti from Latin American nations.

Meanwhile aid workers prepared to launch a massive food distribution effort in a bid to ease some of the chaos surrounding the relief effort.

“There’s discussion going on right now on how to deal with this issue quick enough,” Larsen told AFP after a briefing Saturday by World Health Organization (WHO) officials about the influx of desperately-needed medical supplies.

The UN has warned that if heavy rains arrive — perhaps as early as mid-February — while as many as a million Haitians are still homeless it could provoke a public health catastrophe, spreading disease through dense, insanitary makeshift encampments.

The offer came amid government claims that another 24 Huthi rebels were killed.

“If the Huthi (rebels) agree to start implementing the six points … the government does not see a problem in stopping military operations,” Yemen’s Supreme National Defence Council announced.

The Pentagon Friday sparked the latest challenge to China-US relations under President Barack Obama when it approved the 6.4-billion-dollar sale of Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, mine-hunting ships and other weaponry.

China responded furiously with a raft of reprisals, saying it would suspend military and security contacts with Washington and impose sanctions on US firms involved in the deal.

“The new growth model will be low carbon,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, told political and business leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this weekend.

Efforts to deal with climate change could not be blocked “just because we cannot meet the financing needs,” he said.

The build-up to the three-day AU summit in Addis Ababa had been dominated by the expectation that Kadhafi would try to extend his 12-month tenure as head of the 53-member body.

But soon after Ban issued his appeal at the summit’s opening for leaders to stick to the rules, Kadhafi announced that an agreement had been reached for Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika to take the helm for the coming year.

The special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said in a report to Congress that it is too soon to measure the overall success of the program passed at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008.

The quarterly report said that because of TARP, “there are clear signs that aspects of the financial system are far more stable than they were at the height of the crisis in the fall of 2008.”

They are preparing for an offensive on Marjah, one of the Taliban’s big urban strongholds in the southern province of Helmand, but progress is slow with the militants apparently preferring fight to flight.

The Marines will soon be joined by tens of thousands more soldiers, the lion’s share of the 30,000-strong troop surge promised by US President Barack Obama in December to try and turn around the grinding Afghan war.

Scolded by presidents, prime ministers, central bank chiefs and even billionaire investors over regulation and their salaries, the heads of the institutions which dominate the financial markets have had to admit that some kind of reform is necessary.

US President Barack Obama’s plans to limit the size and activities of banks prompted an urgent call at the World Economic Forum for new regulations coordinated on an international level.

The medical care worries have increased after the U.S. military on Wednesday stopped flying critical quake patients to U.S. hospitals for treatment, in a confused dispute over where they should be hospitalized and who should pay the costs.

Nearly three weeks after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed up to 200,000 Haitians and left up to 1 million more homeless, a huge U.S.-led international relief operation has been struggling to help injured and hungry survivors.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was the latest and most senior official to denounce the arms sale plan Washington announced on Friday.

The Obama administration has defended the package worth about $6.4 billion as necessary to boost regional security.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) engineers have reviewed Toyota’s proposal for preventing gas pedals in eight models from sticking and have raised no objections, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has yet to be publicly announced.

Toyota has issued a series of recent recalls covering 5.6 million vehicles in the United states due to sudden acceleration in some vehicles. It is the largest ever recall for Toyota and among the biggest for an automaker in U.S. history.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children. But officials said they lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with earthquake survivors aged from 2 months to 12 years.

The group said its “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” was an effort to help abandoned children by taking them to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

A 5-year-old tetanus victim, a 14-month-old boy critically ill with pneumonia and a baby with third-degree burns were sent to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia by the aid group Partners in Health, based in Boston.

The airlift had been in doubt after the U.S. military stopped medical evacuation flights on Wednesday night because of because of apparent concerns over the long-term costs to U.S. public hospitals of absorbing seriously injured patients.

Gov. Charlie Crist told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Sunday he was puzzled by the suspension, which has been in effect since Wednesday. Civilian flights and other military flights have continued.

Military planes carrying 700 U.S. citizens, legal residents and other foreign nationals landed in central Florida over the past 24 hours, and three of those people required medical care at hospitals, state officials said.

In a group of big egos and many power players attending the annual World Economic Forum, there was even some humility and a realization that overcoming the first global financial crisis is uncharted territory.

The gathering of some 2,500 VIPs in this Swiss alpine resort saw much spirited debate on whether more regulation is needed for the financial industry, how to boost sagging global unemployment, and finding ways to ensure the nascent recovery is kept on course through 2010.

Obama singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address, and his spending plan for the next budget year is expected to include billions of more dollars in federal guarantees for new nuclear reactors. This emphasis reflects both the political difficulties of passing a climate bill in an election year and a shift from his once cautious embrace of nuclear energy.

He’s now calling for a new generation of nuclear power plants.

News of the automaker’s massive vehicle recalls over faulty gas pedals in the U.S. came just days after Japan Airlines, a once proud flag carrier, filed for bankruptcy, saddled with billions in debt.

Sony has lost its lead in consumer gadgets to the likes of Apple Inc. and has suffered its own quality mishaps. Honda, Japan’s No. 2 automaker, is recalling 646,000 cars worldwide because of a faulty window switch.

Sports and government officials say such lapses – where individuals got past guards on the ground – are leading to increased screening efforts at major upcoming events, including the NFL championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints in Miami next Sunday, and the Vancouver Games starting Feb. 12.

Extensive ticket-checking procedures also are being implemented for soccer’s World Cup, which begins June 11 in South Africa. Even entertainment awards shows are taking extra steps, like stricter monitoring of cars arriving at the Golden Globes Awards ceremony two weeks ago.

Caressa Cameron, a broadcast journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University, now plans a second year away from college as she travels extensively to raise money for charity and carry the 89-year-old pageant’s crown.

“I hope to gain inspiration, I hope to gain momentum so that when this 365 days is over, I can shoot through the moon,” Cameron told The Associated Press.

The problems that led to the last crisis have not yet been addressed, and in some cases have grown worse, says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the trouble asset relief program, or TARP. The quarterly report to Congress was released Sunday.

“Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car,” Barofsky wrote.

President Hamid Karzai spoke three days after he and Western backers agreed at a conference in London to create a more comprehensive program to bring Taliban insurgents over to the government’s side in order to reduce violence that has raged in recent years.

Incentives have existed for years for the Taliban to stop fighting, but these have generally been ineffective, attracting only the lowest-level fighters with no guarantees they wouldn’t return to the insurgency or that promised aid would come through.

Toyota plans to reveal details of the fix on Monday morning, according to two dealers who asked not to be identified because the plan had not been announced. One dealer was told by a Toyota executive that the parts could arrive Thursday or Friday.

The automaker told the dealers about the plan Saturday after hearing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it did not object to the fix, the dealers said. A Department of Transportation official, who also requested anonymity because the announcement had not been made, confirmed that the government had no objections.

Legally, the Justice Department could choose a variety of locations in which to bring an indictment. There is no requirement that the trials of professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others be held in the places where the most victims died, experts said.

Politically, though, the administration faces a bigger challenge.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said he was told Friday that its books would be removed from Amazon.com, as would e-books for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. Books will be available on Amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said.

Sargent met with Amazon officials Thursday to discuss the publisher’s new pricing model for e-books. He wrote in a letter to Macmillan authors and literary agents Saturday that the plan would allow Amazon to make more money selling Macmillan books and that Macmillan would make less. He characterized the dispute as a disagreement over “the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.”

Attorney General Dan Sullivan has proposed broad changes to Alaska’s ethics rules that Palin complained helped drive her out. One Sullivan recommendation that might sound familiar: Setting ethical standards for spouses and kids to travel with the governor or lieutenant governor at taxpayer expense.

Another would implement an opinion he issued in August, that the state could pay legal fees executive branch officials rack up fighting ethics complaints, if the official is exonerated by an attorney general, independent investigator or by the state Personnel Board, whose members are appointed by the governor.

Split into boy and girls teams, the students offered the teacher “bed” and “bead.” The boys spelled more words, beating the girls 18-15.

It’s a Friday, but these students aren’t in school. They’re at a youth center where the U.S. Army is keeping soldiers’ children engaged and learning on the 17 Fridays this school year the state of Hawaii has closed public schools to narrow a budget deficit.

Everyone wants a new tub of the gooey, yellow-green ointment. And all have a story about its problem-salving – they use it on squeaky bed springs, psoriasis, dry facial skin, cracked fingers, burns, zits, diaper rash, saddle sores, sunburn, pruned trees, rifles, shell casings, bed sores and radiation burns.

Everything, it seems, except for cows.

The case of a young New Hampshire women who contracted a rare form of anthrax at a drum circle in December has done little to deter fans of the gatherings, which range from informal outdoor jam sessions to professionally run sessions in corporate conference rooms. Some focus on the music of specific cultures, while others promote spirituality, healing or a sense of community.

“I would never give it up,” said Lois Emond, a registered nurse from Hooksett who drums as part of a women’s chorus group. “I’ve been drumming for over 25 years and nothing’s ever happened.”

Testifying in his own defense, a remorseless and resolute Roeder insisted he had committed a justified act for the defense of unborn children by killing Dr. George Tiller, one of the country’s few physicians to offer late-term abortions. It was a bold legal strategy that, if successful, had the potential to radically alter the debate over abortion by reducing the price for committing such an act of violence.

When it failed, those who share Roeder’s passionate, militant belief against abortion were outraged: One said they are getting tired of being treated as a “piece of dirt” unable to express the reasons for such acts in court. So while relieved at the outcome, abortion-rights advocates worry a verdict that should be a deterrent will instead further embolden those prone to violence.

That was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to create a colony for the creatures on a distant island and a more disastrous venture to relocate strays who wandered into what was dubbed the “no-otter zone.”

The otters didn’t cooperate and their subsequent rebound in Southern California created a classic man vs. nature conflict that could alter a two-decade recovery program and raises the question of what species is more endangered: animals or urchin divers.

That’s when Obama needled – well, lambasted – the US Supreme Court for a recent decision he said would “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

Sitting right in front of the president – robed in sober black, hands folded in their laps – were six of the justices, including three who had made it possible (in Obama’s words) for American elections to be “bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”

That personal victory for Rosedithe Menelas and her hungry family was a leap forward as well for the United Nations and aid groups that have struggled to help 2 million people who need food aid after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Under a new targeted approach to aid, Menelas and thousands of other women across Haiti’s capital no longer have to battle with men at food handouts that in recent days have been chaotic and dangerous scrums.

None are getting any jobs today. But that doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm for the U.S. military, despite a checkered history in Haiti for the forces that are now providing a huge humanitarian mission after the Jan. 12 earthquake killed at least 150,000 people.

“The Americans are our friends,” said Jean Rony Doudou, a 28-year-old jobseeker. “They are here to help us.”

Saturday’s celebration was the first in which the dwindling remnants of Iran’s once plentiful Zoroastrian religious minority were joined by thousands of Muslims, reflecting a growing interest in the strict Islamic society for the country’s ancient traditions.

The festival, known as Sadeh, celebrates the discovery of fire and its ability to banish the cold and dark, and it is held in the frigid depths of winter.

Any effort to empower the marginalized Tamil-speaking minority could only anger Sinhalese nationalists, and many observers fear that an opportunity to bring a real peace to this country will be squandered.

With general elections coming later this year, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has indicated he will wait until the next parliament is in place to deal with Tamil demands for greater rights and self-rule in areas where they form a majority.

The medical care worries have increased after the U.S. military on Wednesday stopped flying critical quake patients to U.S. hospitals for treatment, in a confused dispute over where they should be hospitalized and who should pay the costs.

Nearly three weeks after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake killed up to 200,000 Haitians and left up to 1 million more homeless, a huge U.S.-led international relief operation has been struggling to help injured and hungry survivors.

Iran, meanwhile, put on trial 16 anti-government protesters, two of them women, who were arrested in late December on the Shiite mourning day of Ashura, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have spearheaded protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met and invited supporters to demonstrate on the anniversary day, Karroubi’s website Sahamnews.org said.

A man wearing a vest packed with explosives walked up to the post in Khar, the main town in the restive tribal region of Bajaur, and detonated himself, senior administration official Iqbal Khattak told AFP.

“The death toll has gone up to 16 including two paramilitary soldiers,” he said. Another 23 people were wounded, with six in a critical condition, he added. The injured include one security official, Khattak said.

Australian, British and French flags flew at half mast as the coffin was lowered into a grave in a snow-covered new military cemetery built in Fromelles, a quiet village once on the frontlines of the Great War.

Several hundred French villagers gathered alongside Australian and British guests in the bitter cold to remember the sacrifice of the soldiers who died in the disastrous Battle of Fromelles in 1916.

With tens of thousands more international troops being deployed to Afghanistan this year, analysts and officials are warning the deaths of 44 foreign soldiers in January is a sign of things to come.

The record death toll comes as the Kabul government and its international partners shift the war’s emphasis from battleground to development, and start focusing on attempts to convince Taliban infantry to lay down their arms.

That was the judgment of officials who testified Thursday before a Senate committee and in a separate teleconference by relief organizations. The chaotic conditions since the quake risk an outbreak of deadly cholera, one official said.

Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince , was devastated by the 7.0 quake on Jan. 12 . As many as 200,000 people in the country are feared dead.

There, Woodson, of Macon, Ga. , surveyed the town. He saw children playing soccer in an adjacent field, trucks traveling on the main throughway and, several hundred yards away, a glorious range of mountains touching the sky.

He knew that was the best place to drop a bomb from an F-16 – where there was no chance of striking anyone or anything.

At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly stepped up pressure on China to reconsider its opposition to new sanctions on Iran , suggesting that a nuclear-armed Iran would destabilize the Middle East and, with it, China’s energy supplies.

Taken together, the developments appeared to portend rough times ahead for ties between the world’s two largest economies, already strained this month over a threat by Internet giant Google to pull out of the Chinese market.

The administration argues that the boost is needed to ensure that U.S. warheads remain secure and work as designed as the arsenal shrinks and ages nearly 18 years into a moratorium on underground testing and more than two decades after large-scale warhead production ended.

The increase is also required to modernize facilities – some dating to World War II – that support the U.S. stockpile and to retain experts who “will help meet the president’s goal of securing vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide . . . and enable us to track and thwart nuclear trafficking (and) verify weapons reductions,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a Friday Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

With no apparent coordination, Afghan President Hamid Karzai , departing U.N. special representative Kai Eide and members of the Afghan parliament have launched separate initiatives in recent days, allowing the Taliban to choose the forum for talks if and when they decide to come to the table.

Eide’s meeting in Dubai with a low-ranking Taliban commander sometime this month came in for criticism Saturday by Afghan politicians and Western military officials, who disparaged the attempt to launch a process by seeing at best a minor official.

The moves signaled a souring of relations between the world’s two largest economies.

China’s actions, reported by its state-run news agency, came a day after President Barack Obama told Congress he would sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in helicopters, missile defense rockets, mine-hunting ships and other materiel.

They’re the faces of young soldiers whose eyes stare out resolutely from photocopied pages worn and creased by the ritual of unfolding them, smoothing them flat and refolding them.

They’re the faces of men who, haunted by problems at home or memories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the dead children, the fallen comrades and the lingering smell of burnt flesh – pressed guns to their heads and pulled the triggers or tied ropes with military precision and hanged themselves.