Tag: Weekend News Digest

“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror,” Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. “So today I vetoed it,” Bush said. The bill provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and includes the interrogation requirement. It passed the House in December and the Senate last month.

“This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” the president said.

Medvedev, a 42-year-old who has worked at Putin’s side since the 1990s, will take over the trappings of the presidency from his patron but it was still unclear which of the two men would really be in charge.

Half an hour after polling stations closed, state television broadcast a pop concert in Red Square. It began with a song whose chorus was “Forward, Russia” — Medvedev’s unofficial campaign slogan.

Hooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot – dubbed Kansei, or “sensibility” – responds to the word “war” by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears “love,” and its pink lips smile.

“To live among people, robots need to handle complex social tasks,” said project leader Junichi Takeno of Meiji University. “Robots will need to work with emotions, to understand and eventually feel them.

The attack in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, was the second of the day against pilgrims traveling to the holy city of Karbala. The pilgrimage marks Arbaeen, the 40th day following the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, one of two revered Shiite figures buried there.

The suicide bomber detonated at a tent where pilgrims stop to eat and drink, police said.

The Turkish military said at least 35 Kurdish rebels and two Turkish soldiers died in fighting Saturday. A total of seven soldiers and at least 79 rebels have been killed in Iraq since Turkey launched a ground incursion late Thursday, according to the military. The rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, claimed it had killed 15 Turkish troops.

The incursion is the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraq’s government criticized the offensive on Saturday, saying military force will not solve the Kurdish problem.

A prominent militia commander who stood up against the Taliban was killed in the attack and officials said he may have been the target.

Several hundred people, including Afghan militia leaders, had gathered to watch the competition on the western edge of the southern city of Kandahar. Witnesses reported gunfire from bodyguards after the blast but it was not immediately clear how many of the casualties might have been caused by bullets.

The province’s bold bid for statehood, expected Sunday, and its quest for international recognition set up an ominous showdown with Serbia and Russia. Moscow contends the move will set a dangerous precedent for secessionist groups worldwide.

Revelers took to the streets in giddy anticipation. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci – a former leader of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army – marked the eve of the new nation’s birth by visiting a village where Serbian troops massacred ethnic Albanians in 1998.

Gates, on his seventh trip to Iraq, was to meet the head of the US armed forces in the country, General David Petraeus, to discuss a possible drawdown of American troops, and top Iraqi leaders.

“I will obviously be interested in hearing General Petraeus about his evaluation, where he stands and what more work he feels he needs to do before he is ready to come back with his recommendations,” he told reporters travelling with him on the plane from Germany to Iraq.

In southern Pakistan, the campaign for Feb. 18 parliamentary elections moved back onto the streets with Benazir Bhutto’s widowed husband urging about 100,000 supporters to help him “save” the country. It was the first major campaign rally by the opposition leader’s party since her December assassination.

In the capital Islamabad, riot police used water cannons and tear gas against hundreds of lawyers protesting the detention of the deposed chief justice.

Rebel spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said he had no other information because he had been fighting all day in N’Djamena, the capital of the former French colony in Central Africa, where rebels were battling for a second day to oust President Idriss Deby.

“We defeated the garrison there and took Adre at around 4 p.m.,” Koulamallah said.

But Chad’s Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour said government forces fought off the attack, and claimed that Sudanese troops were involved.

“The whole of the city is in the hands of the rebels. It’s down to mopping-up operations,” according to the military source.

Chadian rebel spokesman Abakar Tollimi said the president could leave his palace, if he so wishes, but later added that there were plans to attack the presidential residence.

Although he oversaw some of the worst bloodshed of the 20th century, Suharto is credited with developing the economy and will be buried with the highest state honors Monday at the family mausoleum.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and others from the country’s political elite prayed over his body. Yudhoyono declared a week of national mourning and called on Indonesians “to pay their last respects to one of Indonesia’s best sons.”