Haiti's electoral council has banned the influential party of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from running in next year's legislative elections. Fanmi Lavalas is among the 17 parties barred from February's elections because it submitted improper documents, provisional council spokesman Richardson Dumesle said Thursday. Aristide, who has been living in exile in South Africa after he was overthrown during a 2004 rebellion, called the decision "an electoral coup d'etat" in an interview late Wednesday with Radio Metropole. Lavalas party also was banned from the 2006 presidential elections and it boycotted Senate run-off elections in June after the council disqualified its candidates on a technicality. ...
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The British government says it will not prevent the extradition of an autistic computer hacker accused of breaking into U.S. military computers. Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Thursday he will not intervene in the case of Gary McKinnon. U.S. prosecutors say McKinnon hacked into computers shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. McKinnon claims he was searching for evidence of alien life. His lawyers say he has a form of autism and is at risk of suicide if extradited. Johnson said U.S. authorities had assured him that they would meet McKinnon's health needs. Britain's High Court ruled last month that McKinnon should be extradited but ...
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Americans' day-to-day lives won't change noticeably if President Barack Obama achieves his newly announced goal of slashing carbon dioxide pollution by one-sixth in the next decade, experts say. Except for rising energy bills. And how much they'll go up depends on who's doing the calculating. The White House said will commit the U.S. to a goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 to about 17 percent below 2005 levels at a U.N.-sponsored climate change summit in Copenhagen early next month. That's about 12.5 percent below 2008 levels, according to the Department of Energy. He also set a goal of cutting emissions by 83 ...
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Defense lawyers are alleging misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors in the case against one of five Blackwater security guards accused in the killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. Recent pretrial proceedings that took place behind closed doors led the Justice Department to seek dismissal of charges against Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., one of the five guards accused in the shootings in busy Nisoor Square in September 2007. In a one-paragraph filing a week ago, the department disclosed that it wants to preserve the possibility of filing a new set of charges against Slatten. On Wednesday, Slatten's lawyers said in court papers they want ...
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South Korean soldiers and police executed nearly 5,000 citizens during the early months of the 1950-53 Korean War, fearing they could collaborate with invading North Korean troops, a government commission said Thursday. The victims were members of the National Guidance League, or "Bodo" League, that the then-staunchly anti-communist government created to "re-educate" recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits, with more than 300,000 people on the league's rolls. The Associated Press reported on such civilian massacres in a series of stories last year. ...
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President Barack Obama will commit the United States to substantial cuts in greenhouse gas pollution over the next decade — despite resistance in Congress over higher costs — when he travels to a major climate conference in Copenhagen next month. Obama will attend the start of the conference Dec. 9 before heading to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. He will "put on the table" a U.S. commitment to cut emissions by 17 percent over the next decade, on the way to reducing heat-trapping pollution by 80 percent by mid-century, the White House said. Cutting U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by one-sixth in just ...
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EDITOR'S NOTE: An occasional look at how Washington works — or doesn't. By SHARON THEIMER and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top aides met frequently with lobbyists and health care industry heavyweights as his administration pieced together a national health care overhaul, according to White House visitor records obtained by The Associated Press. The records, obtained Wednesday, disclose visits by a broad cross-section of the people most involved in the health care debate, weighted heavily toward those who want to overhaul the system. The list includes George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, ...
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Thanksgiving Day for soldiers in this valley ringed by towering snowy peaks began with a 6-mile (10-kilometer) slog to aid village schools without desks and windows, and promises to end with five, once scrawny local turkeys soldiers have been fattening up for the past month. "Just another day, another mission," several soldiers said as a 25-man patrol from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron, 10th Mountain Division, set out on a cold morning under brilliantly blue skies. Others let sentiment seep through their matter-of-fact, stoic shells. "We're with our family just like we would be at Thanksgiving back home," said Staff Sgt. Ben McKinnon, of ...
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Police broke up a protest by the environmental group Greenpeace against deforestation on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Thursday, arresting 12 foreign and six Indonesian demonstrators, an activist said. Police began the arrests on Wednesday, when many protesters chained themselves to cranes at a paper mill, disrupting its work, Greenpeace spokesman Martin Baker said. The independent mill works for Asia Pulp and Paper, one of the world's leading pulp and paper producers. The last four activists were forced down from their crane on Thursday, he said. A police official was not immediately able to comment. A similar confrontation near land owned by another ...
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A United Nations human rights official says a three-member U.N. commission has arrived in this West African nation to investigate the September massacre in which troops fatally shot pro-democracy demonstrators and raped women in broad daylight. Sonia Muller-Rappard said the all-African commission arrived in Conakry on Wednesday. The group was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month to determine who was responsible for the massacre. A peaceful pro-democracy rally in the West African country on Sept. 28 took a violent turn when presidential guard troops opened fire on tens of thousands of demonstrators. A Guinean human rights group says 157 people were killed. ...
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