Huckabee could impact Tuesday's results By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080203/ap_on_el_pr/huckabee;_ylt=Anqva7xSg76wn6u_Nhj1pVys0NUE
Mike Huckabee hasn't won a Republican presidential contest in a month. The result: money is tighter, his staff is smaller and he can't seem to get the attention he once did.
Still, he says he's sticking around for the long haul — well past Tuesday's coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses if need be.
"I'll stay in until someone has 1,191 delegates," the former Arkansas governor insisted Sunday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Kennessaw, Ga. He was referring to the number of convention delegates needed to win the party nod. "A year ago, nobody said I'd still be here. Look who's still on his feet."
With 21 states holding contests Tuesday and offering more than 1,000 delegates, Huckabee's continued presence could be a major factor in what essentially has become a two-man race between Republican front-runner John McCain and Mitt Romney.
A Southerner and one-time Baptist preacher, Huckabee hopes to perform strongly, if not win, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri to reinvigorate his campaign.
In those states, Huckabee could end up helping McCain — he calls him a friend — by peeling away votes and delegates from Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is competing there after essentially ceding big-prize Northeast battlegrounds.
Huckabee and Romney draw much of their support from the same pool of conservative voters, while McCain tends to attract voters of all ideological stripes. Romney, himself, has raised the possibility that Huckabee might be continuing his bid solely "to try and split that conservative vote."
Huckabee dismisses any notion that he's a stalking horse for McCain and that he is trying to derail Romney. "I would really take umbrage to that. Maybe that it's Romney's staying in the race to take votes from me," he told the AP.
That comment aside, Huckabee virtually ignored McCain in appearances last week and instead criticized Romney's equivocations or reversals on gay rights, abortion rights and gun rights.
"Here's a man who didn't hit political puberty in the conservative ranks until 60 years old," Huckabee said at one point. He added: "You can't just have a change of opinion on fundamental issues over and over and wait until you're running for president to do it."
At a campaign appearance Sunday in Georgia, Huckabee said if anyone should get out of the race now, maybe it should be Romney.
"Why don't you give it up and go back to Wall Street," he said in Macon. "This ol' Arkansas boy is not for sale."
Romney laughed when asked about Huckabee's remarks, saying: "It sounds a little extreme I think at this stage. He's a fine person. I'd never suggest anybody get out of the race. That's their own decision."
In the AP interview, Huckabee contended he can still rack up enough delegates to win the nomination, but he declined to go into detail, and ignored polls that show him trailing McCain and Romney in many states.
"Frankly, I kind of resent this idea that it's mathematically impossible ... because votes haven't been counted yet in 92 percent of the electorate," Huckabee said, adding that "things are still on target for us.
Huckabee's campaign has been marked by peaks and valleys.
He toiled at the back of a crowded GOP pack for most of last year. But aided by fellow Christian evangelicals and his stellar communications skills, Huckabee broke through last fall and defeated Romney in the leadoff Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3.
He hasn't had the same luck anywhere else.
Huckabee barely competed in New Hampshire and Michigan — and lost both. So, too, did he fall in fiercely contested South Carolina. By Florida, Huckabee's money was drying up and his staff was thinning; he made little effort there.
Now Huckabee is having trouble being taken seriously.
He mostly sat on the sidelines at a California debate last week while McCain and Romney fought it out. "I didn't come here to umpire a ball game between these two. I came here to get a chance to swing at a few myself," Huckabee complained.
Some aides insist Huckabee is trying to emerge as the more conservative alternative to McCain. Other backers aren't convinced.
It's possible Huckabee has motives beyond winning the nomination. Among them: taking down Romney, solidifying his position as a new leader of the religious right and setting himself up for life after the campaign trail.
Huckabee's votes come almost exclusively from the Christian evangelical wing of the party. Some supporters suspect he's staying in the race to ensure that he has a say when the party creates its platform at the national convention in September, and to emerge as an emboldened leader of the religious right.
He disputes such talk.
"I've never thought of my campaign as being all about just being the evangelical candidate," Huckabee said.
Speculation also abounds that he is positioning himself for a vice presidential slot. And with no job to fall back on, and with books to sell and speaking engagements to line up, it's possible Huckabee believes his stock will rise higher the longer he stays in the race.
"I'm running for president," he contends, refusing to entertain such talk.
Report: Muslim Teen's Family Invited Men to Rape Her
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327936,00.html
A 15-year-old girl from Pakistan was forced into prostitution in the U.K. by her mother-in-law, The Sunday Times of London reported.
The teen, whose name was not disclosed, arrived in the U.K. expecting to be married to a handsome and successful older man, the paper reported. Instead, she was married to a 40-year-old, unemployed, disabled man with the mental age of a 5-year-old.
The marriage was reportedly not recognized by the British Home Office, but was considered valid under sharia — or Islamic — law.
As if that weren't bad enough, the girl's mother-in-law then decided to take advantage of the teen's youth and good looks by offered her to men looking for sex, The Sunday Times reported.
According to the paper, the family "invited" men to rape her.
The girl eventually escaped her husband's family's home and is now living in a shelter.
Her story is just one of hundreds of cases of abuse highlighted in a recent government report by the U.K.'s Center for Social Cohesion which looks at the growing trend within the Islamic and Asian communities in the U.K.
Vladimir Putin: A Look at the Man Behind the Curtain
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327529,00.html
Washington, D.C. — In the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's little terrier, Toto, pulls aside a curtain to reveal that the awesome “wizard” is really a little man frantically pulling levers to create an illusion of power. Moscow is not quite the “Emerald City,” but Vladimir Putin is certainly acting like the wizard — and seems intent on trying to re-create the “Iron Curtain.” Worse still, leaders here in the United States and in Western Europe appear to be as fearful as Dorothy's craven lion in looking at what is really going on behind the curtain.
In December, the editors of Time magazine glossed over Mr. Putin's repression of political dissidents, interference in the affairs of other nations and willingness to support Iranian nuclear ambitions to choose the Russian strongman as their “Person of the Year.” Since then, the former KGB officer has made it clear to anyone who cares to look that he intends to remain in power once his term as president expires in May. The old Soviet leaders of yesteryear would be proud to see the political machinations taking place in Moscow.
Mr. Putin is barred by the Russian constitution from seeking a third consecutive term as president. Undaunted by such a statutory trifle, he has decided to run as a United Russia Party candidate for a seat in the Russian Duma. Once elected to the parliament, it is foregone that he will then become Prime Minister — a post from which he can continue to exercise control over international and domestic affairs of state. To ensure success in this venture he has hand-picked, as his presidential successor, Dmitri Medvedev, currently Russia's deputy prime minister and head of the country's state-run natural gas monopoly, Gazprom. If all goes as planned, Mr. Putin would be able to reclaim the Russian presidency in 2012.
Apparently not satisfied that this outcome is all but guaranteed, Mr. Putin has also had Russia's Central Electoral Commission jump into the fray. The commission, headed by Vladimir Churov, a Putin crony, is supposed to ensure that multi-party and multi-candidate elections in post-Soviet Russia are carried out fairly. But if the commission ever did, it doesn't now.
Last week, the Russian Election Commission denied a place on the March 2, 2008 presidential ballot for Mr. Putin's principal opponent, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Mr. Kasyanov, a close associate of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, is known for his efforts to implement economic reforms, and as a vocal critic of Mr. Putin's consolidation of power in Moscow. In rejecting the ballot application, the Electoral Commission ruled that 13 percent of the signatures on Mr. Kasyanov's filing petitions were “invalid.” Kremlin authorities have since threatened Mr. Kasyanov's supporters with the loss of their jobs or incarceration if they protest the decision.
The Election Commission has also decided that only 70 observer-monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would be permitted to observe the election, and that their visas would not be issued until February 28, three days prior to the election. In 2004, the OSCE sent 387 observers a month in advance to cover the Russian presidential elections. But that was then — and this is now.
Moscow's blatant interference in the electoral process prompted Curtis Budden, a spokesman for the OSCE, to plaintively note that the European watchdog group might not bother to send any observers in March [because] “We are not satisfied with their conditions since they don't allow meaningful observation.” Prior to last December's parliamentary elections, Moscow imposed similar restrictions and the OSCE refused to send observers and subsequently criticized the elections as unfair.
In what may prove to be a final effort to capture the attention of western policy makers, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told reporters this week that “something is wrong with our elections, and our electoral system needs a major adjustment.” Just to make sure we all would know what's “wrong,” he added that the upcoming election result was “predictable from the outset” and “predetermined by the enormous role that Vladimir Putin has played.”
That's not all that was “predictable” or “predetermined.” Though Mr. Gorbachev's remarks were broadcast around the world — they were all but ignored in European capitals and Washington. Russian television viewers never got to see them at all.
Last December, on the eve of the elections for the Duma, Mr. Putin made a televised appeal in support of his United Russia party candidates. “Please, do not think that everything is predetermined and the pace of development we have attained, the direction of our movement toward success will be maintained automatically by itself,” said Mr. Putin. “This is a dangerous illusion.”
It turns out that Vladimir Putin, like the Wizard of Oz, is a master of illusion. Where is Toto when we need him?
Huckabee: Enough With God Questions
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/candidates_youth_vote/2008/02/02/69636.html
Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee complained Saturday that he always gets "the God questions" when he'd rather be talking about public policy, and denied there's any conflict between his faith and the right things to do as president.
Huckabee addressed a youth-oriented audience by satellite, one of four candidates who agreed to participate in the forum sponsored by MTV, The Associated Press and MySpace. The former Baptist preacher was asked almost right off if he would be capable of making decisions in the Oval Office that might be at odds with his religion.
"There's not this glaring conflict," he said. "Faith helps me to understand what is right."
Religious conservatives have provided much of Huckabee's support and he's not been shy about courting them, an effort that continues in the last stretch before the more than 20 presidential nomination contests across the country Tuesday.
"I always get asked the God questions," he said, adding that "it's really been frustrating" that people don't want to know more about his work as Arkansas governor.
Paul told the forum he opposed U.S. intervention in Sudan's Darfur region and placed little faith in the ability of the United Nations to relieve the crisis there. He was asked what he'd do to stop the crisis from turning into a genocide on the scale of that experienced in Rwanda.
"I don't believe in using force in that manner," he said. "Under the Constitution, we're not allowed to do that."
He said he might support some interim aid, steered through international agencies, to address "these social problems in Africa."
Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton also agreed to take part. Huckabee opened the forum, speaking from Montgomery, Ala., and Paul spoke from Victoria, Texas.
The U.N. estimates that 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination, in 2003.
Huckabee: A Vote for Romney is a Vote for Hillary
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/huckabee_romney_hillary/2008/02/02/69580.html
Mike Huckabee is firing back at Mitt Romney, who says a vote for Huckabee would be a vote for John McCain.
"A vote for Mitt Romney may be a vote for Hillary Clinton. Because the fact is I've got a far more conservative record than Mitt Romney ever dreamed of having," said Huckabee. "Where people can come up with branding him a conservative is really, I think, tantamount to requiring an extrarodinary amount of imagination."
According to CBS News, Huckabee said any MBA could look at Romney's presidential campaign and immediately see that it has been a poor investment. He hinted that Romney would have cut losses and ended his own campaign by now if it was a business.
"I know what he did when he ran companies like that. He broke them apart, turned people loose and fired them. And sold off the companies. Rather than suggest that we end our operation, I'd say maybe its time for him to turn out the lights and lock the doors."
Gay Marriage Ban Makes Florida Ballot
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Gay_Marriage_Ban_florida/2008/02/02/69574.html
TALLAHASSEE — A citizen initiative to ban gay marriage will be on the November ballot, the only one of more than 50 active petition drives that qualified Friday at the deadline for signature verification.
Hometown Democracy, which would have required voter approval of local growth plan changes, was the only other proposal that appeared to have a chance before the 5 p.m. deadline, but it missed the mark.
Officials, though, ran out of time before they could process all signatures due to a deluge of petitions submitted in the past month and the diversion of county election workers to preparing for and carrying out Tuesday’s presidential primary election.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if there were enough unprocessed signatures to have placed Hometown Democracy on the ballot.
Each proposed state constitutional amendment required 611,009 signatures. That’s 8 percent of Florida voters who cast ballots in the last presidential election. The 8 percent criteria also had to be met in at least 13 of Florida’s 25 congressional districts.
The same-sex marriage ban was certified with 649,346 signatures — 38,337 more than the minimum. Hometown Democracy, which was opposed by developers, businesses and many local officials, failed by 65,182 signatures.
Hometown Democracy’s backers said they will continue their drive and seek certification for the 2010 ballot possibly within the next couple months. Petitions are good for four years.
Secretary of State Kurt Browning rejected a request by the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club, which supports Hometown Democracy, to delay ballot certification until all signatures submitted before Friday’s deadline are checked and counted if they are valid.
“The Florida Constitution requires ballot placement to occur on Feb. 1, and the Division of Elections has a rule that requires the state to base placement on the total number of signatures received by the state before 5 p.m.,” said Browning spokesman Sterling Ivey.
In a request to Browning and Gov. Charlie Crist, Sierra officials said a delay would be justified because of the primary, which moved up this year from March, as well as problems in the state’s electronic counting system and the verification process in some counties.
Opponents of Hometown Democracy, including developers and other business interests, jumped the gun and declared the proposal, which would require voter approval of changes in local growth plans, was dead, at least for this year.
Sponsors of the single-gender marriage ban announced in December they had obtained enough verified signatures. State officials then lowered the count due to a glitch in the Division of Elections’ electronic reporting system, which had double counted some signatures.
Browning shut down the system and stopped posting daily updates on division’s Web site. The last official posting on Jan. 14 showed the gay marriage amendment was 21,989 signatures short. Hometown Democracy needed 109,479 more signatures.
The next closest proposal as of Jan. 14 had less than half of the necessary signatures.
After finding out it was short, Florida4Marriage.org submitted 92,000 more signatures, said the group’s leader, Orlando lawyer John Stemberger.
Hometown Democracy submitted nearly 800,000 signatures, said the group’s leader, Palm Beach lawyer Lesley Blackner.
Some of Hometown Democracy’s opponents proposed an alternate growth management initiative, but Floridians for Smarter Growth acknowledged before the deadline that it didn’t have enough signatures. Its petitions, though, contributed to the glut that kept Hometown Democracy off the ballot.
Michael Caputo of Floridians for Smarter Growth said its backers, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, have not yet decided whether to seek certification for the 2010 ballot.
Caputo acknowledged the campaign he’s managing was designed to keep Hometown Democracy off the ballot this year so opponents would have more time to organize for 2010.
Blackner said the law gives county supervisors of election too much discretion and some have given signature verification a low priority. She also blamed the Legislature’s decision to move Florida’s presidential primary from March to January.
Another anti-Hometown Democracy group called Save Our Constitution tried to get voters to revoke their signatures under a recently passed law.
It has submitted more than 10,000 revocations, said co-chairman Barney Bishop, chief executive of Associated Industries of Florida.
Mary Cooney, public service director for elections in Broward County, acknowledged the election has played a role, but she said temporary workers were hired to help with the verification. Staffers were unable, though, to keep up with the number of petitions coming in and some missed the deadline, she said.
Kenyan churches take action in fear of genocide
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/kenyan.churches.take.action.in.fear.of.genocide/16627.htm
With ethnic tensions rising in violence-stricken Kenya despite peace efforts, local churches are stepping in to help prevent the country from descending into genocide.
"Everyone, including politicians, expects the churches to play a big role in terms of reconciliation, healing, resettlement and trust building," said Canon Peter Karanja, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK). "We will need sustained and committed engagement of our international ecumenical partners if we are to fulfill that role."
Karanja's statement came just as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal on Friday between Kenya's rival parties to end post-election violence which has killed more than 800 people and displaced more than a quarter of a million.
The agreement, signed by both opposition leader Raila Odinga and incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, calls for illegal militias to be disbanded and for investigation of all crimes connected to the violence, including those allegedly committed by the police.
Violence had erupted after the Dec. 27 presidential election when Odinga accused Kibaki of rigging the poll to his advantage. The conflict has pitted Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe against other tribes supporting Odinga.
Despite the peace deal, violence in the country once hailed as one of Africa's most stable countries has not quelled. On Sunday, tribal gangs with machetes and bows and arrows faced off in the western town of Sotik.
A day earlier, gangs hunted each other through the streets of Eldoret. And not far from that western town, a mob burned down to the ground the Great Harvest Evangelical Church where at least two people were sheltering. Those inside managed to escape unharmed, a witness said, according to Reuters. The pastor of the church is a Kikuyu.
Kenya's opposition leader, Odinga, called on Sunday for the African Union to send peacekeepers to help stem what he called "appalling" violence, as reported by The Associated Press.
Already mission groups are having to leave the country due to the violence. The U.S. Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has pulled out several missionaries from Kenya while the synod's mission group re-evaluates the situation in the country. The missionaries were relocated to Ethiopia where they will stay indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Kenyan churches are seeking a long-term healing effort that will require the sustained engagement of international ecumenical partners. While still praying for the mediation process led by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to bear fruits, the churches are conducting an interreligious forum and face-to-face encounters between Christian leaders belonging to different ethnic communities. The first encounter took place on Jan. 30 in Nairobi and involved some 25 bishops from different denominations from both the Kalenjin and Kikuyu communities.
"As the country is on the verge of genocide," said NCCK's Karanja, "the churches are taking action at different levels."
Urging prayer in the meantime, Anglican Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi said, "We need your prayers for people to come back to their senses. We must bring Kenya back where it ought to be."
An ecumenical delegation is visiting Kenya from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3 as part of the World Council of Churches "Living Letters" initiative in solidarity with churches facing situations of violence.
Al-Qaeda: 'We attacked Israeli Embassy'
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/315716.aspx
Arab satellite television al-Jazeera carried an unverified announcement Saturday by an al-Qaeda affiliate claiming responsibility for Friday's shooting attack on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania.
According to an Associated Press report, a gun battle ensued after at least one gunman opened fire on the embassy in the capital city of Nouakchoot.
Several bystanders were wounded during the fire fight, including three French citizens at a disco and restaurant next to the embassy.
Al-Jazeera reported that an al-Qaeda affiliate in Islamic North Africa, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, issued a statement saying the attack was a retaliation against Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip.
The same terror cell claimed responsibility for simultaneous bombings of U.N. offices in Algiers and a government building on December 11, which killed 37 people. The group also claimed responsibility for killing several soldiers in Mauritania in December.
On Christmas Eve, four French tourists were gunned down while picnicking on the side of the road, which the Mauritania government blamed on an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror cell.
A year ago, a senior al-Qaeda operative released a video calling for an attack on Israel's embassy in Nouakchott, according to a transcript by Ben Venzke, head of the U.S.-based IntelCenter.
Israel has had diplomatic relations with predominately Muslim Mauritania since 1999.
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