Bush Explains Bill Veto in Radio Address
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/335665.aspx
Read below for the President's weekly radio address, verbatim:
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning.
This week, I addressed the Department of Homeland Security on its fifth anniversary and thanked the men and women who work tirelessly to keep us safe. Because of their hard work, and the efforts of many across all levels of government, we have not suffered another attack on
our soil since September the 11th, 2001.
This is not for a lack of effort on the part of the enemy. Al Qaida remains determined to attack America again. Two years ago, Osama bin Laden warned the American people, "Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished." Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists. Unfortunately, Congress recently sent me an intelligence authorization bill that would diminish these vital tools. So today, I vetoed it. And here is why:
The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror -- the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives. This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us prevent a number of attacks. The program helped us stop a plot to strike a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, and a plot to crash passenger planes into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London. And it has helped us understand al Qaida's structure and financing and communications and logistics. Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.
The main reason this program has been effective is that it allows the CIA to use specialized interrogation procedures to question a small number of the most dangerous terrorists under careful supervision. The bill Congress sent me would deprive the CIA of the authority to use these safe and lawful techniques. Instead, it would restrict the CIA's range of acceptable interrogation methods to those provided in the Army Field Manual. The procedures in this manual were designed for use by soldiers questioning lawful combatants captured on the battlefield. They were not intended for intelligence professionals trained to question hardened terrorists.
Limiting the CIA's interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual would be dangerous because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the Internet. Shortly after 9/11, we learned that key al Qaida
operatives had been trained to resist the methods outlined in the manual. And this is why we created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al Qaida operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland. The best source of information about terrorist attacks is the terrorists themselves. If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the Field Manual, we could lose vital information from senior al Qaida terrorists, and that could cost American lives.
The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists. This would end an effective program that Congress authorized just over a year ago.
The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six-and-a-half years is not a matter of chance. It is the result of good policies and the determined efforts of individuals carrying them out. We owe these individuals our thanks, and we owe them the authorities they need to do their jobs effectively.
We have no higher responsibility than stopping terrorist attacks. And this is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.
Thank you for listening.
Female Medic in Afghan Earns Silver Star
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/335852.aspx
CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan - A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.
After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.
Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.
"We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag," Brown said.
She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.
"I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire," Brown said.
Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in front-line combat roles -- in the infantry, armor or artillery, for example. But the nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no real front lines, has seen women soldiers take part in close-quarters combat more than previous conflicts.
Four Army nurses in World War II were the first women to receive the Silver Star, though three nurses serving in World War I were awarded the medal posthumously last year, according to the Army's Web site.
Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot.
"So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."
For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.
"I did not really have time to be scared," Brown said. "Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary."
The military said Brown's "bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat."
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of Nashville, Tenn., received the Silver Star in 2005 for gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq.
Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.
Olmert Approves New Construction in West Bank Settlement
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336274,00.html
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday approved new construction in a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem, setting off another crisis in embattled peace negotiations ahead of the arrival of a key U.S. mediator.
The construction decision came as tempers flared in Jerusalem, three days after a Palestinian resident of the city shot and killed eight students at a rabbinical seminary, dampening already low expectations for peace negotiations that are aiming for a treaty yet this year.
Israeli Housing Minister Zeev Boim said the new building would include 350 apartments in Givat Zeev, a West Bank settlement just outside of Jerusalem, and 750 homes in Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, the section Israel captured and annexed in the 1967 Mideast war, now claimed by Palestinians as their capital.
Boim told Israel Radio that the Givat Zeev construction began eight years ago but was suspended because of fighting with the Palestinians.
"When violence subsided, demand grew again and contractors renewed their permits to build there," he said. The Pisgat Zeev construction, he added, "is inside Jerusalem's city borders." The Israeli annexation of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its hotly contested holy sites, is not recognized internationally.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the new plans, saying they undermine already troubled peace efforts. "Why do they insist on doing this and humiliating Abu Mazen in front of the Palestinian public," he said, using the nickname of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Erekat said he has appealed to the U.S. to pressure Israel to halt the projects. Palestinians charge that Israeli settlement expansion is sabotaging their efforts to build a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Olmert and Abbas promised U.S. President George W. Bush last November to work for a peace treaty this year, renewing negotiations that were frozen during seven years of violence. But the talks have already been interrupted several times because of arguments over Israeli construction in disputed areas.
The bloody Jerusalem attack added another negative layer to the already complex negotiations. Abbas had already suspended the talks because of Israel's Gaza offensive last week to try to stop daily Palestinian rocket barrages on southern Israel, agreeing to renew them only under direct pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The seminary attack came just hours after Palestinians in Gaza set off a bomb on the border, killing two soldiers, a Bedouin and a Jew. The Jewish soldier, who died of his wounds Sunday, was buried in a funeral ceremony conducted partly in sign language, because both his parents are deaf.
On Thursday, a U.S. envoy, Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, is scheduled to arrive in the region for his first joint meeting with Israelis and Palestinians.
Bush appointed Fraser in January to monitor implementation of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan — which among other things calls on Israel to freeze all settlement activity. The plan also calls on the Palestinians to dismantle violent groups — a step Israel says has not been fulfilled.
The latest construction dispute involves three of the four main core issues that have defied solution in more than a decade of on-again, off-again peace negotiations — borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the future of Jerusalem. The fourth issue is a solution for Palestinian refugees.
Givat Zeev is in one of the three major settlement blocs that Israel intends to retain in any peace agreement. Bush has signaled support for the Israeli position, and the Palestinians have expressed willingness to consider swapping land where settlement blocs stand for equal amounts of Israeli land.
Most of the 270,000 West Bank settlers live in the major blocs, and an additional 180,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods Israel built in east Jerusalem after 1967. Israel does not consider the east Jerusalem neighborhoods to be settlements, but the Palestinians and international community do.
Terror Plots Targeting Beijing Olympics, Jetliner Foiled in China
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336250,00.html
BEIJING — Chinese police broke up a terror plot targeting the Beijing Olympics, and a flight crew foiled an apparent attempt to crash a Chinese jetliner in a separate case, officials said Sunday.
Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the far western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, suggested the plotters' planned "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics."
"Their goal was very clear," Wang told reporters at a meeting of Xinjiang delegates in Beijing.
Wang cited no other evidence or sources of the information and earlier reports on the raid had made no mention of Olympic targets.
Wang said the group had been trained by and was following the orders of a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. The group has been labeled a terrorist organization by the United Nations and the United States. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.
China says its main terror threat comes from ETIM. Although the group is not believed to have more than a few dozen members, terrorism experts say it has become influential among extremist groups using the Internet to raise funds and find recruits.
Chinese forces reported raiding an ETIM training camp last year and killing 18 militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Wang said security forces would take pro-active measures to crush terrorism, religious extremism, and separatism.
"These guys are fantasizing if they think they can disrupt the Olympics," said Wang, known for his hardline stance on crushing dissent. "They don't have the strength."
Speaking at the same meeting, Xinjiang's governor said a flight crew prevented an apparent attempt to crash a China Southern flight from Urumqi to Beijing on Friday. Nur Bekri did not specifically label the incident a terrorist act, saying it remained under investigation. No passengers were injured and police were investigating, he said.
The incidents may give greater force to China's arguments that extreme measures are necessary to ensure social stability and the safety of the August Olympics, already the focus of negative publicity from the regime's critics.
While deadly violence is less common in China than in many countries — Beijing bans virtually all private gun ownership — officials were quick to assert that a deadly hostage drama involving 10 Australian travel agents last week was not an embarrassment in the run-up to the Olympics.
The hostage-taker was shot and killed by a police sniper after an almost three-hour standoff in the northern tourist hub, Xi'an. The hostage-taker's motive was not known.
Chinese forces have for years been battling a low-intensity separatist movement among Xinjiang's Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people who are culturally and ethnically distinct from China's Han majority. Iron-fisted Chinese rule has largely suppressed the violence, however, and no major bombing or shooting incidents have been reported in almost a decade.
China has ratcheted up anti-terror preparations ahead of the Games, with the nation's top police official last year labeling terrorism the biggest threat facing the event.
Although terrorism experts say the threat is not high given China's tight social controls, they warn that Beijing's counterterrorism capabilities are weak, especially in intelligence gathering and analysis.
Earlier reports said police found guns, homemade bombs, training materials and "extremist religious ideological materials" during the January raid in Urumqi, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15 arrested. Authorities have not identified those killed and arrested or their specific targets.
The Global Times newspaper published by the Communist Party had earlier said the group planned bombings and other "violent terrorist incidents" for Feb. 5, the last business day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Few details were available about the alleged attempt to crash the China Southern Airlines flight Friday morning. Bekri indicated that more than one person was involved, but did not specify whom police suspected in the attempt, saying it remained under investigation.
"From what we presently know, this was an attempt to crash the plane," Bekri said.
"Because this incident just occurred, questions as to who these people were, where they came from what their goal was, what kind of background, we are currently investigating. Once we've investigated clearly, I believe you will then know," Bekri said.
He said the crew responded and the plane made an emergency landing in the western city of Lanzhou with no damage or injuries. He said it continued to its original destination, Beijing, after about one hour.
A man who answered the phone at China Southern's Urumqi office said the incident was under investigation and he had no further details. He hung up without giving his name.
An airline spokesman reached at its southern hub of Guangzhou refused to answer questions about the incident and said all press inquiries had to be faxed to corporate headquarters.
While Bekri refused to further characterize the incident, he prefaced his remarks with a harsh denunciation of Uighur separatists, saying "high-pressure tactics" were the only way of dealing with the problem.
"Those in Xinjiang pursuing separatism and sabotage are an extremely small number," Bekri said.
"They may be Uighurs, but they can't represent Uighurs. They are the scum of the Uighurs," Bekri said.
Germans Seek China Tie to Blood Thinner Heparin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/world/europe/08heparin.html?ref=europe
FRANKFURT — The German authorities said Friday that they had asked all German producers of the blood thinner heparin to check whether their ingredients came from China, after allergic reactions to the drug there were linked to two Chinese suppliers.
In cases where China did supply the raw ingredient, manufacturers were asked to test for any irregularities. The German authorities recalled the suspect heparin on Wednesday after receiving reports of allergic reactions in about 80 patients.
Heparin manufactured with Chinese ingredients has been linked to 19 deaths in the United States. Federal drug regulators there said sophisticated tests had found what might be a counterfeit ingredient in the heparin associated with the deaths and serious allergic reactions in more than 700 patients.
That unknown substance mimics real heparin and was found in concentrations of up to 20 percent in some of the suspect drug, according to the United States Food and Drug Administration. But the agency said it had not yet established whether the contaminant was responsible for the allergic reactions.
The suspect heparin in the United States was made by Baxter International, with ingredients from a Chinese company called Changzhou SPL. The discovery that the ingredients for the German-made heparin came from two different Chinese plants has led investigators to suspect that the problem may lie farther back in the supply chain.
The German authorities identified the two plants as Changzhou Quianhong Bio Pharma Company, and the Yantai Dongcheng Biochemicals Company. Both are among the top 10 Chinese exporters of heparin, according to a report last September by the China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products. Officials in the sales departments of both Chinese companies said Friday that they were unaware of the problems in Germany.
The suspect heparin was manufactured by Rotexmedica, a subsidiary of the French company Groupe Panpharma. Rotexmedica, based in Trittau in northern Germany, said Friday that it would not comment on the recall because its executives were busy consulting with regulators. Rotexmedica has issued a worldwide recall for its heparin-containing products, which are mostly exported from Germany, said Ulrich Hagemann, an official in the pharmaceutical safety department of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices.
The European Medicines Agency, which is based in Britain, has looked through databases in Europe and concluded that there had been no allergic reactions to heparin in any European countries except Germany.
He said the reactions in Germany were far less severe than those in the United States, and had been traced to three specific batches of heparin produced by Rotexmedica. Those batches as well as other batches containing raw materials from the same sources were recalled March 5, and there have been no other patient reactions since.
Heparin is an injectable blood thinner given to prevent and treat blood clots. It is also used in kidney dialysis and open heart surgery. Adverse reactions have included lowered blood pressure, shortness of breath and an elevated heart rate.
The German authorities first got word of a possible problem on Feb. 14, Mr. Hagemann said, when three hospitals reported that three patients had “severe allergic reactions” to a heparin-containing product. Since allergic responses to these medicines are known to happen from time to time, this information alone was not enough to trigger a recall.
But toward the end of last week a group that provides home kidney dialysis told regulators that 80 people had suffered reactions to the products. Subsequent analysis of the reports suggested that not every patient was having a reaction to heparin-linked products, Mr. Hagemann said, but the initial information was enough to start the recall.
“At that point, we had to look at all heparin-containing products of Rotexmedica,” he said. A separate heparin-containing product produced by Rotexmedica, which is more finely processed, appears not to be affected, he added.
Although the German firm has no link to Baxter, those German batches are now being analyzed to see if they have the same chemical impurity as the contaminated Baxter heparin in the United States, Mr. Hagemann said. The German federal agency is still waiting for reports from state health authorities on whether any companies in their jurisdictions purchased active ingredients from China.
Much of the world’s heparin originates in China, where the raw material for the drug is gathered from pigs. In the first half of last year, China exported heparin to 42 countries and regions, according to Chinese officials. China exported the most heparin, about 13 tons, to Germany.
Iran: Ready to Negotiate With Europe Over Nuclear Program
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336249,00.html
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday that Tehran is ready to negotiate with Europe over the Islamic republic's nuclear program if there were practical results.
The foreign minister's comments made at a conference on Iran's nuclear activities came just days after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to rule out any nuclear negotiations with Europe saying the issue would only be discussed with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency.
"We have always supported negotiations that are purposeful, meaningful and effective," said Mottaki when he was asked if Iran was ready to negotiate Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy affairs chief.
Mottaki said negotiations could be in any fields including the West's wrongdoings such as "expansionism, invasion and occupation."
At the prodding of the U.S. and its European allies, the U.N. Security Council passed a third round of sanctions on Iran Monday ordering assets to be frozen of additional Iranian officials and companies with links to the country's nuclear and missile program, and for the first time banned trade with Iran in some goods that have both civilian and military use.
The U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France, along with Germany, however, also promised an improved package of incentives for Iran to restart negotiations with Solana if uranium enrichment is suspended.
Mottaki said that the new round of sanctions lacked "technical and legal," justification and would discredit the Security Council.
An IAEA report in February said that while Iran had cooperated in clearing up many of the past questions over its nuclear program, it had not responded properly to intelligence forwarded by the U.S. and its allies purportedly showing nuclear weapons technology.
Iran has dismissed the intelligence as fabricated and insisted the report vindicated its nuclear program and left no justification for any Security Council sanctions.
Anti-Musharraf Parties Agree to Form New Pakistan Government, Restore Judges
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336271,00.html
BHURBAN, Pakistan — Pakistan's election winners set a collision course with President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday, agreeing to form a coalition government and promising that parliament would restore senior judges fired last year by the U.S.-backed leader in a bid to secure his continued rule.
In the capital, Islamabad, police fired tear gas at protesters at the residence of the Supreme Court chief suspended by Musharraf one year earlier, a move that triggered the political turbulence still dogging Pakistan's return to democracy.
Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and Nawaz Sharif, whose government was ousted in Musharraf's 1999 military coup, announced their pact after talks at a resort town in the foothills of the Himalayas.
"We are bound together in the spirit of democracy," Zardari said at a news conference.
He dedicated the agreement to Bhutto, who was slain in a suicide attack in December, and sought to reassure Western backers who had supported Musharraf for his help in pursuing al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
U.S. officials worry that al-Qaida is regrouping in Pakistan, and Zardari said it was clear that Musharraf's eight-year rule "has not worked."
"We will not disappoint you," Zardari said, though he didn't elaborate on his counterterrorism strategy.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, followed by Sharif's party with 90. The former ruling party aligned with Musharraf got just 51.
The two largest parties, both moderate and secular, have vowed to tackle mounting economic problems including inflation and power outages as well as Islamic extremism. However, they have devoted much of their energy to finding ways to cut back Musharraf's powers, which include the right to dismiss the government.
Sunday's agreement expanded on an earlier declaration by the two leaders, made soon after their Feb. 18 election victory, that they would work on forming a government together.
Sharif told the news conference his party would be part of a federal coalition led by the People's Party. Zardari agreed that the new parliament would pass a resolution within 30 days of its formation to reinstate dozens of judges fired by Musharraf last year — a key demand of Sharif.
In a written statement, the two agreed that the judiciary would be restored "as it was on Nov. 2," suggesting that Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would return to the helm of the Supreme Court.
But Zardari muddied the issue by saying that the current judges, who stepped up after the purge, would not be "disturbed."
"I think we'll have to take a ... stance on this whereby we have a collective wisdom and accommodate everybody," Zardari said.
Musharraf first suspended Chaudhry on March 9, 2007, eroding his popularity and triggering lawyers' protests that grew into a powerful pro-democracy movement.
The Supreme Court reinstated Chaudhry in July and was poised to rule on the disputed legality of Musharraf's October re-election as president when he declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, drawing fierce criticism at home and abroad.
On Sunday, lawyers began a week of fresh protests and said they would keep up the pressure until the judges are back in their posts.
About 600 demonstrators marched on the residence in Islamabad where Chaudhry has been under house arrest for four months, chanting "Go Musharraf go" and "We want freedom."
Police in riot gear fired tear gas after some protesters tried to cut through barbed wire at concrete barricades that block the entrance to the house.
Several thousand people, including labor union members and journalists, gathered peacefully in the southern city of Karachi also demanding that Musharraf step down.
"This is the verdict of the people of Pakistan," read one banner, referring to the outcome of the elections.
Musharraf has accused Chaudhry of corruption and conspiring against his effort to guide Pakistan back to democracy.
Some commentators predict that he will quit if the judges return — they could revisit his disputed re-election or move against him for his six-week crackdown in November and December.
Sharif, who like Bhutto returned from long exile last year, said Musharraf was "an illegal and unconstitutional president" and that his party would not let its long struggle be "in vain."
Musharraf shed much of his authority when he stepped down as army chief during the emergency. His successor has said he wants to keep the army out of politics.
But others forecast that the former commando, who has survived several assassination attempts, will struggle on in the hope that the current coalition crumbles.
"He's fighting a rearguard action," said Shafqat Mahmood, a prominent political commentator.
"I think he will fail and in the end there will be no honorable exit for him and he will go dishonorably" under the threat of impeachment in parliament, where the coalition is close to having the necessary two-thirds majority, Mahmood said.
Aides to the increasingly beleaguered president were not available for comment on Sunday.
Earlier this week, Musharraf said he would convene parliament shortly and on Saturday appealed to the election winners to "put the politics on the back burner and run the government."
Thousands of Afghan Students Protest Danish Prophet Muhammad Cartoon, Dutch Movie
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336253,00.html
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Thousands of Afghan students chanted slogans and burned Danish and Dutch flags Sunday in the latest in a series of protests over perceived insults against Islam.
The protesters in the eastern city of Jalalabad denounced an upcoming Dutch film that reportedly criticizes Islam's holy book, the Koran. They also condemned Danish newspapers' recent republications of a cartoon that depicted the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
The several thousand demonstrators shouted slogans against Denmark and the Netherlands. They also chanted "Death to America" and "Long live Al Qaeda."
"We don't want Dutch and Danish forces in Afghanistan. If our government does not kick them out, we will continue our demonstrations until they leave Afghanistan," said one protester, university student Qari Ibrahim. "If these forces do not leave, we are prepared to carry out suicide attacks against them."
Denmark has 780 troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The Netherlands has 1,650.
Similar protests have broken out in at least half a dozen other Afghan cities including the capital, Kabul, where 200 lawmakers shouted "Death to the enemies of Islam" outside the country's parliament Tuesday.
Last month Denmark's leading newspapers reprinted a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad after Danish police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the artist, whose drawing was one of 12 that triggered deadly riots across the Muslim world in 2006.
The reprinting triggered another wave of demonstrations in Islamic countries.
The protesters were also angry over right-wing Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders' upcoming short film, which reportedly portrays the Koran as fascist.
Afghanistan is a Muslim nation where criticizing the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran are crimes that are punishable by death. Islam generally opposes any physical depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
Venezuela Reopening Embassy in Colombia
http://www.newsmax.com/international/venezuela_colombia/2008/03/09/79048.html
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuela said Sunday that it is reopening its embassy in Colombia and will allow back Colombian diplomats it expelled last week.
The two countries have been easing tensions created by Colombia's March 1 attack on leftist rebels across the border in Ecuador.
Venezuela "has decided to re-establish the normal functioning of its diplomatic relations with the government of the Republic of Colombia," the government said in a statement. "The Venezuelan government will proceed to send diplomatic personnel immediately to Bogota."
Serbia to Call Early Elections After Collapse
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/335689.aspx
BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's government collapsed Saturday over an impasse between the nationalist prime minister and the pro-Western president on how Kosovo's independence affects the Balkan country's pursuit of EU membership.
"The government, which does not have united policies, cannot function," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said as he announced the fall of his Cabinet. "That's the end of the government."
Kostunica said he will convene a session of the caretaker government Monday, which will propose to President Boris Tadic to dissolve the Parliament and call new elections for May 11.
Tadic said in a statement that he will call early elections because they are a "democratic way to overcome the political crisis."
But he disputed Kostunica's claim that their clash was over Kosovo, the Serbian medieval heartland which proclaimed independence last month with the backing of the United States and several EU countries.
"Kosovo is of course an integral part of our country," Tadic said.
"I believe the issue is that the Serbian government does not have a united position over European and economic perspectives of Serbia and its citizens," he added.
Kostunica said the government "will function in a reduced capacity until the elections are held."
He insists that EU governments recognizing Kosovo must rescind their decisions before Serbia resumes initial membership talks with the 27-nation bloc. Within his government, Kostunica accuses pro-Western ministers of failing to support his efforts to preserve Kosovo as part of Serbia.
Tadic opposes tying Serbia's EU membership to the issue of Kosovo, which has been recognized as an independent state by several leading EU nations, including Britain, France and Germany.
"All parties want Serbia to join the EU, but the question is how - with or without Kosovo," Kostunica said. "There was no united will to clearly and loudly state that Serbia can continue its path toward the EU only with Kosovo."
Pro-Western minister Mladjan Dinkic said Kostunica's decision was "honorable, democratic and the only possible solution."
"Anything else would be an agony," Dinkic said. "It is now honest to ask the citizens which way Serbia will go in the future."
New elections could determine whether Serbia continues toward the EU and Western institutions or takes a more isolationist approach reminiscent of Yugoslavia in the 1990s under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. The predominantly ethnic Albanian province had been under U.N. control since 1999, when NATO launched an air war to stop a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
But Serbia, which considers the territory its historic and religious heartland, has rejected Kosovo's move as illegal under international law.
The Serbian government's cabinet, made up of Kostunica's conservatives and pro-Western democrats, was formed in May, following months of strained negotiations in the wake of the last parliamentary elections in January 2007.
The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party said new elections are "a good solution."
"Serbia has been in a crisis for a long time," said senior party official Aleksandar Vucic.
Liberal Party leader Cedomir Jovanovic said the elections should offer a "clear chance to break up with the past policies that have divided the people and pushed it away from the world."
Jovanovic called for a new policies on Kosovo and said future government leaders should "tell the truth" about Kosovo and immediately arrest the remaining Serb war crimes fugitives.
Capture of Gen. Ratko Mladic and other suspects still at large from the wars of the 1990s is the condition set by the EU for Serbia's further integration into the bloc.
In Kosovo, deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuqi expressed hope Serbia's voters will leave the past behind in the new elections.
"For Kosovo it is very important to have a government in Serbia that is pro-Western and works for cooperation," he said.
Mentors Help Divorce-Proof Marriages
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/334379.aspx
Before they were married, Quel and Stacy Williams of Lorton, Virginia, fought hard because both were strong-willed and stubborn.
They were in their 30s and were very much used to getting their own way. "So we had each lived our lives our certain way and wanted to continue doing things our way," Quel said.
Even though neither Quel nor her fiance Stacy knew how to compromise very well, they were still planning to wed.
But a friend told them they really needed to first go to Potomac, Maryland, and meet with Mike and Harriet McManus, marriage mentors expert at teaching skills to divorce-proof a marriage.
Divorce-Proofing a Marriage
For months in 2002, the McManuses mentored the couple.
And Quel believes she and Stacy would have divorced for sure by now without the coping skills their mentors taught them.
"Because I cannot think of how we would have learned those tools without it," Quel said.
Stacy said the mentoring time taught him how to answer questions about marriage like, "what are the ways to make it last? To make it work? How do you do the 10 years, the 15 years, the 30 years?"
The McManuses through their organization Marriage Savers do much more than just mentor individual couples.
They've helped some 1,500 churches train 4,000 marriage mentors, who then counsel those getting ready to wed, newlyweds and couples in crisis.
Mike McManus said it's tapping a hugely untapped resource.
"We have in our pews in every church in America couples who have been through terrible times and they've just never been seen as a resource to the couples in current crisis," he said.
Older Couples, Pastors Can Help
With just a few hours training, the McManuses say older couples and pastors can be taught techniques and methods that divorce-proof marriages.
"We can help churches virtually eliminate divorce in the churches that adopt these reforms," McManus stated. "For entire cities, the divorce rate can come down 50 percent or more."
One of these reforms is churches insisting anyone they marry first get several weeks of premarital counseling. As Harriet McManus put it, "Before you tie the knot, let us show you the ropes."
A major part of this is taking a premarital inventory that can highlight potential danger zones for the couple, like finances or communication problems. Most churches now offer these inventories.
And then there's putting marriage mentors together with young couples like the Williams.
'Community Marriage Policy' Pledge
The McManuses bundled these ideas together in something they call a Community Marriage Policy, in which many of the houses of worship in one town or county all take a solemn pledge.
Mike McManus described what they all swear to: "They will work together across denominational lines to build kind of a compact, a covenant, that they will not do anymore quickie weddings, that they will require couples to go through serious preparation."
Kansas City is just one of 220 communities where houses of worship have enacted a Community Marriage Policy.
Since then, the divorce rate in Kansas City is down more than 50 percent.
Tom Hurt pastors the Oregon City Evangelical Church in Clackamas County, Oregon. He says a Community Marriage Policy there has helped all the churches work off the same page: to "not have people jump from one church to the next, where , 'Okay, that pastor won't marry me quickly, so I'll go to the guy down the street and he'll marry me quickly.'"
Some 10,000 pastors and priests have signed Community Marriage Policies since Mike and Harriet McManus came up with the idea back in the mid-1990s.
Pastor Hurt is among the 173 who signed the one in Clackamas County. It's a county of rugged beauty, much of it tucked up against Oregon's Cascade Mountains or sprawling across the fertile Willamette Valley. But it's also a big bedroom community for Oregon's largest city, Portland. The marriage rate there was going down and the divorce rate was going up when psychologist Steve Stephens put Tom and Liz Dressel together with Mike and Harriet McManus.
Divorce Makes You Less Happy, More Frustrated
The Christian therapist has written a number of books to help makes marriages last -- books like "Lost in Translation: How Men and Women Can Understand Each Other" and "20 Rules and Tools For a Great Marriage."
"God hates divorce. Why does He hate divorce? Because divorce breaks people," Dr. Stephens told CBN News. "Divorce doesn't work. It won't make you happy, I guarantee you -- except in very rare situations, a divorce is going to make you less happy, it's going to make you more frustrated, financially it devastates you."
Dr. Stephens knew the Dressels were as desperate as he is to fight divorce in Clackamas County.
The Dressels were on the verge of divorce themselves back in the 1970s. Liz went to several secular therapists in attempts to save the flailing marriage.
"I went there asking for communication skills, and they kept suggesting I get divorced," she said.
But Liz says she was a little too ornery to just give up.
"We had three kids to raise and I thought, 'This man is not getting out of it. Some way we are going to make it through.'"
Eventually, the two found the hope and skills they needed through church and para-church groups.
Tom said, "We took every class, every retreat that had the word marriage in it, and each one was a building-block, a foundation-stone."
Divorce Rates Drop after 'Marriage Savers' Counseling
In 2001, the Dressels found Mike and Harriet McManus had packaged some of the best marriage help altogether and a community could put it all into action under a Community Marriage Policy. With the help of Dr. Stephens, their own pastor Tom Hurt, and many others, they brought the McManuses to Clackamas County, had a time of training and rounded up 173 churches to sign a Community Marriage Policy. And the results have already been stunning.
"The divorce rate has dropped 17 percent," Tom Dressel said.
The Dressels and Dr. Stephens point out most folks take driver's ed to learn how to drive, but get no such training to prepare them for the much more complicated world of marriage.
"What I find is that a lot of young people, they just don't know how to be married. They weren't given good examples," Dr. Stephens said.
And that's where marriage mentors can be so helpful for young or troubled couples. They can bring back some of that wisdom of past years when most folks lived with extended family around.
As Harriet McManus put it, "The young couples then had the wonderful resources of extended family. You know, you had Uncle Albert and Aunt Hildie who lived right under your roof, and maybe Grandma and Grandpa lived there, too."
Dr. Stephens said mentoring another couple doesn't have to take a lot of time.
"You could just go out to breakfast with them once a month, encourage them, send them notes, recommend books to them. Talk about issues. Tell them 'if you are ever in a big fight, if you are ever frustrated, give me a call.' That to me is what Christian community is all about," Dr. Stephens said.
The Power of Marriage Mentors
The McManuses and Dressels told CBN News mentors end up getting much love and respect from those they mentor.
Quel and Stacy Williams still talk with great affection about the McManuses six years after their months of intense mentoring.
"We call them our spiritual parents," said Quel Williams.
Stacy said just knowing the McManuses are still watching is a reason to keep his marriage healthy and strong. "In a sense, you don't want to let them down," he said.
And Harriet McManus pointed out, mentors she's helped train tell her frequently the mentoring has actually ended up improving the quality of their own marriages.
"After mentoring several couples, they feel their marriage in quality has moved up to a 7, 8 or 9," she said.
Mike McManus said many more churches need to wake up to the need to fight for marriage and against the divorce epidemic.
"We have had one divorce for every two marriages every year since 1970. That's 42 million divorces affecting 40 million children," he said.
Dr. Stephens said the crisis is just as bad inside the Church. "And to me it breaks my heart that we see in churches just as high a divorce rate as we do outside the church. That's not right."
And he pointed out the future of the Church is on the line if the high divorce rate continues. "In situations where Mom and Dad divorce, what I found is that about 75 percent of the time, the children leave the faith."
Mike McManus believes Community Marriage Policies can do much to end the crisis. "It is possible to rewrite the history of marriage and divorce in America with this initiative."
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