http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/a-nixon-for-obama/index.html
April 21, 2008,  4:49 pm
A Nixon for Obama
By Michael Luo

If the children who have inhabited the White House are America’s
princes and princesses, Senator Barack Obama already got a head start
in collecting royal blessings with Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement
earlier this year.

But soon after Ms. Kennedy made her very public endorsement at the end
of January, one of her predecessors of Republican lineage made her own
private one.

Yes, Julie Nixon Eisenhower is an Obama-can.

Just before the crush of states that voted on Feb. 5, Ms. Eisenhower,
one of two daughters of President Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat,
made a $1,000 contribution to Mr. Obama, according to campaign finance
records. Two weeks later, she gave another $1,000. And early last
month, she donated another $300, reaching the contribution limit for
individuals for the primary.

Back in 1968, just prior to her father entering the White House, Ms.
Eisenhower, then 20, married Dwight David Eisenhower II, the grandson
of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a ceremony at Marble Collegiate
Church in New York officiated by Norman Vincent Peale. Nixon had been
Eisenhower’s vice president, and the pair met as children.

In her decision to give to Mr. Obama, Ms. Eisenhower might have been
influenced by her sister-in-law, Susan Eisenhower, who wrote an Op-Ed
for the Washington Post in February entitled, “Why I’m Backing Obama,”
alluding to how her grandfather, who with Nixon as his running mate,
delivered the White House to Republicans after a 20-year drought, was
able to attract cross-over support from Democrats.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, who wrote a biography of her mother and is
active in civic causes in the Philadelphia area, has given
sporadically over the years to Republican candidates and committees,
according to campaign finance records. She gave $1,000 to President
Bush and another $1,000 to the Republican National Committee, for
instance, in the 2004 election cycle. In the 2000 presidential race,
she donated $1,000 to Senator John McCain’s unsuccessful run.

But what about her older sister, Tricia?

Politics may be contributing to a family feud. The two Nixon offspring
clashed several years ago over the administration of the Richard Nixon
Library, before pair settled a lawsuit in court-ordered mediation.
Patricia Nixon Cox is married to Edward F. Cox, a New York lawyer who
briefly ran against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for her Senate seat
in 2005 and was Senator John McCain’s New York state chairman for the
primary.

Staying true to her Republican roots, Ms. Cox gave $4,600 to Mr.
McCain last year.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bA2LgJviH9w

http://www.kfoxtv.com/politics/15953961/detail.html?treets=elp&tml=elp_natlbreak\
&ts=T&tmi=elp_natlbreak_1_08030504222008

Clinton Projected Winner In Pennsylvania
Party Switchers Make Mark

POSTED: 6:04 am MDT April 22, 2008
UPDATED: 7:05 pm MDT April 22, 2008

PHILADELPHIA -- The Associated Press has projected
Hillary Rodham Clinton the winner of the Pennsylvania
Democratic primary election.

CNN and NBC also projected Clinton the winner against
rival Barack Obama.

Early precinct votes from across Pennsylvania showed
the former first lady running ahead in the western
part of the state, including Pittsburgh. She's also
ahead in the area around Scranton with large numbers
of blue-collar voters.

Obama is ahead in Philadelphia and the populous
surrounding suburbs.

The last of the big states to vote, Pennsylvania had
158 delegates at stake, the largest prize remaining in
a primary season that ends on June 3.

Exit polls found that one in 10 voters, half of them
former Republicans, changed their party registration
to vote in the state's Democratic race. And one in
five voters said they decided for whom to vote within
the final week of the six-week Pennsylvania campaign.
About one in 10 said they made up their mind Tuesday.

The electorate was overwhelmingly white, while a
little more than half of voters were women. About
three in 10 were age 65 or over. A quarter had
household family income of more than $100,000 last
year and about as many reported having a postgraduate
degree.

Three in 10 Pennsylvania Democratic voters were union
members or had one in their household. And four in 10
had a gun owner in their household. About one in five
voters said the race of the candidates was among the
top factors in their vote. About as many said that
about the candidates' gender.

Pennsylvania Democrats had a sour view of the economy.
Four in 10 said the country is in a serious recession
and at least as many called it a moderate recession.
Only about one in 10 said the economy is not in
recession. At least half of voters said the economy
was the most important issue facing the country. About
half as many said Iraq was the top issue. Health care
trailed in importance.

With 158 delegates at stake, Pennsylvania offered the
largest prize remaining in a primary season that ends
on June 3.

Obama began the night with a delegate lead,
1648.5-1509.5, out of 2,025 needed to win the
nomination.

Both rivals sought to shape expectations in advance.
Obama said he expected to lose, but narrowly, and
worked to limit any gains Clinton made in the delegate chase.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/BUSINESS/8683\
03815/1001

Americans hoard food as industry seeks regs

By Patrice Hill
April 23, 2008


A farmer harvests his corn crop near Morris, Ill.

Farmers and food executives appealed fruitlessly to
federal officials yesterday for regulatory steps to
limit speculative buying that is helping to drive food
prices higher. Meanwhile, some Americans are stocking
up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in
anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading
from overseas.

Their pleas did not find a sympathetic audience at the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where
regulators said high prices are mostly the result of
soaring world demand for grains combined with high
fuel prices and drought-induced shortages in many
countries.

The regulatory clash came amid evidence that a rash of
headlines in recent weeks about food riots around the
world has prompted some in the United States to stock
up on staples.

Costco and other grocery stores in California reported
a run on rice, which has forced them to set limits on
how many sacks of rice each customer can buy.
Filipinos in Canada are scooping up all the rice they
can find and shipping it to relatives in the
Philippines, which is suffering a severe shortage that
is leaving many people hungry.

While farmers here and abroad generally are benefiting
from the high prices, even they have been burned by a
tidal wave of investors and speculators pouring into
the futures markets for corn, wheat, rice and other
commodities and who are driving up prices in a way
that makes it difficult for farmers to run their
businesses.

"Something is wrong," said National Farmers Union
President Tom Buis, adding that the CFTC's refusal to
rein in speculators will force farmers and consumers
to take their case to Congress.

"It may warrant congressional intervention," he said.
"The public is all too aware of the recent credit
crisis on Wall Street. We don't want a lack of
oversight and regulation to lead to a similar crisis
in rural America."

Food economists testifying at a daylong hearing of the
commission said the doubling of rice and wheat prices
in the past year is a result of strong income growth
in China, India and other Asian countries, where
people entering the middle class are buying more food
and eating more meat. Farm animals consume a
substantial share of the world's grain.

U.S. wheat stocks are at the lowest levels in 60 years
because worldwide consumption of wheat has exceeded
production in six of the past eight years, said U.S.
Agriculture Department chief economist Gerald Bange.
Adding to tight supplies was the back-to-back failure
of two years of wheat crops caused by drought in
Australia, a major wheat exporter, he said.

In addition, the diversion of one-third of the U.S.
corn crop into making ethanol for vehicles has
increased prices for corn and other staples such as
soybeans and cotton as more acreage is set aside for
ethanol production.

Farmers also have raised prices because they have been
hard hit by spiraling energy costs, which not only
raised the price of diesel fuel to records of over $4
a gallon but drove up the cost of nitrogen fertilizer,
which is made from natural gas.

"Commodity prices across the board are at levels not
experienced in many of our lifetimes," said CFTC
Chairman Walter Lukken. "These price levels, along
with record energy costs, have put a strain on
consumers as well as many producers and commercial
participants that utilize the futures markets to
manage risks."

The upswing in prices has been exaggerated by the
massive influx of investors and speculators seeking to
profit from rising prices for corn, wheat, oil, gold
and other commodities. Big Wall Street firms and hedge
funds have taken huge positions in futures markets
that once were dominated by relatively small operators
such as farmers and grain-elevator owners.

Small investors, who see fast-rising commodities as
good hedges against inflation and a falling dollar,
also are getting a piece of the action by investing in
index funds that are tied to commodity prices.

"During such turbulent times, it is tempting to shoot
first and ask questions later," Mr. Lukken said, but
he contended the commission should be "cautious" about
doing anything to curb speculation. He and other
regulators argued that speculators add volume and
liquidity to the markets, which makes them operate
more efficiently and helps farmers and other players.

Commissioner Michael V. Dunn said the soaring demand
for food and fuel worldwide might be leading to
permanently higher food prices, both domestically and
abroad.

"We may already be working under or fast approaching a
new paradigm of higher agricultural prices," he said.
"There is not a silver bullet or single solution to
address the problems we are currently facing."

FARM TRADE

Federal market regulators say the soaring price of
most commodities over the past year reflects increased
demand rather than investor speculation.

Rice 122%

Wheat* 95

Soybeans 83

Crude oil 82

Corn 66

Gasoline 41

Gold 37

Sugar 30

Coffee 24

Milk 5

Live cattle -7

Lumber -14

* On the Chicago Board of Trade

Source: Commodity Futures Trading Commission

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080424/ap_on_re_mi_ea/syria_israel

Assad confirms Israeli peace offer
By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 5 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syrian President Bashar Assad said
Thursday that Israel has expressed willingness to
withdraw from the Golan Heights, but direct talks
would not begin before a new U.S. administration takes
office.

Israel declined to comment on the reported message,
which Syria says was passed through Turkish mediators,
but a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said
the country is "interested in peace with Syria."

In an interview with Qatar's Al-Watan newspaper, Assad
said the United States was the only party qualified to
sponsor direct Syrian-Israeli negotiations.

But he said those talks would not be possible right
now because the Bush administration, "does not have
the vision or will for the peace process. It does not
have anything."

"Maybe with the coming administration in the United
States we can talk about direct negotiations," he told
Al-Watan. Syrian officials confirmed that Assad gave
the interview and did not dispute its contents.

Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said Israel is also
interested in restarting talks.

"We know what the Syrians expect from negotiations and
the Syrians knows what Israel wants from the
negotiations," Regev said.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the
1967 Mideast war. The two countries last held peace
negotiations in 2000, but talks collapsed over the
extent of Israel's proposed withdrawal.

Assad said Syria received news a week ago that Olmert
had "assured the Turkish prime minister of his
readiness to return the Golan." He said he would
discuss mediation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan when he visits Damascus on Saturday.

It was not clear how much of the strategic plateau
Olmert said he was willing to return, and Assad did
not say what conditions Olmert had put on a
withdrawal.

Turkey has close relations with both Israel and Syria
as well as with the United States.

In recent days, both Assad and Olmert said their
countries had exchanged messages. Olmert told Israeli
newspapers the messages clarified what each would
expect from a future peace deal.

Details of the reported offer were not clear. Israel
has demanded Syria agree to a full peace deal and halt
support for militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah
and the Palestinian Hamas.

Olmert has never committed himself publicly on a
return of the Golan, saying only he is willing to
resume peace talks with Syria if it drops its support
for Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Syria-Israel contacts are taking place despite
tension between the two neighbors over an Israeli air
raid on a Syrian military facility in September. Some
foreign reports say the target was a nuclear
installation being built with North Korean assistance.

Damascus says the facility was military, but not a
nuclear one.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem
contributed to this story.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/black-congressman-denounces-b-clin\
tons-remarks/

  April 24, 2008,  7:53 pm
Black Leader in House Denounces Bill Clinton�s Remarks

By Mark Leibovich

The third-ranking Democrat in the House of
Representatives and one of the country�s most
influential African-American leaders sharply
criticized former President Bill Clinton this
afternoon for what he called Mr. Clinton�s �bizarre�
conduct during the Democratic primary campaign.

Representative James E. Clyburn, an undeclared
superdelegate from South Carolina who is the
Democratic whip in the House, said that �black people
are incensed over all of this,� referring to
statements that Mr. Clinton had made in the course of
the heated race between his wife, Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton, and Senator Barack Obama.

Mr. Clinton was widely criticized by black leaders
after he equated the eventual victory of Mr. Obama in
South Carolina in January to that of the Rev. Jesse
Jackson in 1988 � a parallel that many took as an
attempt to diminish Mr. Obama�s success in the
campaign. In a radio interview in Philadelphia on
Monday, Mr. Clinton defended his remarks and said the
Obama campaign had �played the race card on me� by
making an issue of those comments.

In an interview with The New York Times late Thursday,
Mr. Clyburn said Mr. Clinton�s conduct in this
campaign had caused what might be an irreparable
breach between Mr. Clinton and an African-American
constituency that once revered him. �When he was going
through his impeachment problems, it was the black
community that bellied up to the bar,� Mr. Clyburn
said. �I think black folks feel strongly that that
this is a strange way for President Clinton to show
his appreciation.�

Mr. Clyburn added that there appeared to be an almost
�unanimous� view among African-Americans that Mr. and
Mrs. Clinton were �committed to doing everything they
possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could
never win.�

Mr. Clyburn was heavily courted by both campaigns
before South Carolina�s primary in January. But he
stayed neutral, and continues to, vowing that he would
not say or do anything that might influence the
outcome of the race. He said he remains officially
uncommitted as a superdelegate and has no immediate
plans to endorse either candidate.

At one point before the South Carolina primary, Mr.
Clyburn publicly urged Mr. Clinton to �chill a little
bit.�

Asked Thursday whether the former president heeded his
advice, Mr. Clyburn said �Yeah, for three or four
weeks or so. Or maybe three or four days.�

A Clinton campaign spokesman, Jay Carson, declined to
specifically address Mr. Clyburn�s statements.

�Look, President Clinton has an impeccable record on
race, civil rights and issues that matter to the
African-American community, the strongest of any
president in our time,� Mr. Carson said. He added that
in making his radio remarks on Monday, the former
president was �simply reacting to a deeply offensive
accusation that runs counter to principles he�s held
and worked for his entire life.�

I don't know about the political calculus of the Clintons, but they
should've accepted the VP nomination two months ago instead of
continuing to tarnish their legacy in my opinion.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/04/25/mcauliffe_said_michigan_shouldnt_co\
unt.html

McAuliffe Said Michigan Shouldn't Count
What A Party!: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents,
Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other
Wild Animals Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Hillary Clinton's
finance chairman, is one of the biggest proponents for
counting Michigan's primary results even though the
state violated Democratic Party rules by moving up its
contest. However, Mark Nicholas finds an amazing
passage in McAuliffe's own memoir, What A Party!, that
shows he took a very different position as DNC
Chairman four years ago.


"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen.
Carl Levin] told me definitively.

"If I allow you to do that, the whole system
collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you
make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously
and you lost."

He kept insisting that they were going to move up
Michigan on their own, even though if they did that,
they would lose half their delegates. By that point
Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table
in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the
occasional expletive.

"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.

"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not
get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston
will be watching it on television. I will not let you
break this entire nominating process for one state.
The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff,
Carl, you go ahead and do it."

We glared at each other some more, but there was
nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards
and Levin knew it.

April 25, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zimbabwe27apr27,1,5799683.st\
ory

Mugabe's party fails to win back parliament in
Zimbabwe recount

A senior official in the ruling ZANU-PF party says
many of the president's allies have given up hope of
keeping power.

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:41 PM PDT, April 26, 2008
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe saw his hold on power weaken Saturday as
his party failed to make any inroads in a recount of
parliamentary balloting and some loyalists expressed
pessimism about his chances in a presidential runoff.

The Zimbabwe Election Commission announced the results
of 18 of 23 parliamentary seats whose vote tallies are
being recounted, nearly a month after bitterly
disputed elections appeared to give the opposition the
edge over the 84-year-old president. The ruling
ZANU-PF party needed to take back nine seats to regain
control of parliament, but none of the 18 results were
overturned.

"It's really a heavy blow," said a senior ZANU-PF
official and key Mugabe ally who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "Now that there is no change in the
recount, I believe that this now gives people second
thoughts."

Although some in Mugabe's inner circle appeared
determined to cling to power at all costs, the senior
official said many in the party saw no hope of victory
if a second round of voting was held in the
presidential election and had given up hope of
retaining power. Most saw as their best chance a
government of national unity.

Official results in the presidential vote might be
released Monday. Ruling party officials have already
conceded publicly that opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai garnered more votes than Mugabe in the
election. The opposition maintains that Tsvangirai won
outright with no need for a runoff, a position not
supported by independent electoral monitors.

Since the March 29 elections, hundreds of opposition
activists and supporters have been beaten and
seriously injured. Hundreds more have been arrested.

"I don't think anything will change the direction of
the presidential elections. This is what we are seeing
on the ground," the ZANU-PF official said, adding that
widespread hunger had made it almost impossible for
Mugabe to win. "If there's a rerun, whether or not
there will be violence, I don't think that will give
us the upper hand, whatever methods we are going to
use in campaigning."

But he warned that top military and security officials
remained deeply skeptical about Tsvangirai, and that
there was a real threat of a military coup or descent
into violent civil unrest.

"The only way to solve the problem without bloodshed
is that both parties must agree to form a government
of national unity. In the absence of that . . . rest
assured there will be serious violence in this
country. I don't know how things will end," he said.

The official said wavering support for Zimbabwe in the
Southern African Development Community, a regional
body, had also weakened resolve in the ruling party.
Southern African countries last week refused to allow
a Chinese ship with a cargo of weapons to unload and
transport the cargo to Zimbabwe, which is landlocked.

"The SADC community is now changing, and that is also
discouraging people," the official said. "People are
saying, 'Without the support of SADC, how can we fight
on?' "

A retired army officer with close ties to the ruling
party said many ZANU-PF figures believed that the
campaign of violence against the opposition could not
save Mugabe and that he would lose more support in a
presidential runoff.

"More importantly, the situation with food is getting
worse and worse," the war veteran said. "The whole
political atmosphere is uncertain. It is so repressive
and so terrifying that people believe it cannot be
sustained for too long."

Jonathan Moyo, an independent lawmaker who was once
close to Mugabe, said the failure to win back control
of parliament had crushed the will of the ruling
party, but he said it was difficult to predict what
might come next.

"They have clearly lost control. What has happened has
shattered the confidence of the ruling party," he
said. "The majority of people in ZANU-PF are silent.
They have gone into hiding. There's a deafening
silence from the usual noisemakers in ZANU-PF.

"They're now thinking about the consequences of doing
and saying things. They are no longer sure that
ZANU-PF will prevail."

Moyo said there was now a broad consensus that the
best outcome was a negotiated transition, with Mugabe
stepping down.

Other possibilities were that a presidential runoff
could be held, or that Tsvangirai could boycott a
runoff and the authorities would then declare Mugabe
the winner.

"And then we would have a political stalemate," Moyo
said, "because a Mugabe victory will not be accepted
by anyone."

robyn.dixon@...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9912.html

Wright to Obama: 'Coming after you'
By MIKE ALLEN | 4/28/08 11:58 AM EST

The pastor insisted Obama 'didn�t denounce' him and
'didn�t distance himself' from Wright�s controversial
remarks, but 'did what politicians do.'
Photo: AP

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that he will try
to change national policy by �coming after� Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.) if he is elected president.

The pastor also insisted Obama �didn�t denounce� him
and �didn�t distance himself� from Wright�s
controversial remarks, but �did what politicians do.�

Wright implied Obama still agrees with him by saying:
�He had to distance himself, because he's a
politician, from what the media was saying I had said,
which was [portrayed as] anti-American.�

Wright, who was Obama�s pastor for 20 years and
performed his wedding, made the explosive comment
during a chaotic question-and-answer session at the
National Press Club in Washington, following the
pastor�s remarks about the black church in America.

�I said to Barack Obama last year, �If you get
elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you,
because you'll be representing a government whose
policies grind under people,� Wright said.

The minister was speaking as part of a tour that is
drawing heavy news coverage and causing a huge
headache for Obama�s presidential campaign.

Obama, seeking to distance himself from remarks by
Wright that some have taken as anti-American, has
emphasized that Wright has retired.

But Wright talks of their relationship in the present
tense. �I'm a pastor; he's a member,� he said. �I'm
not a �spiritual mentor.� �

In the Democratic debate on April 16, Obama referred
to Wright as �somebody who is associated with me that
I have disowned,� then clarified that to say he had
disowned the comments.

But Wright objected to a question saying Obama had
denounced him.

�Whoever wrote that question doesn't read or watch the
news,� Wright said. �He did not denounce me. He
distanced himself from some of my remarks, like most
of you, never having heard the sermon, all right? �

�He didn't distance himself. He had to distance
himself, because he's a politician, from what the
media was saying I had said, which was [portrayed as]
anti-American. � He did, as I said, what politicians do.�

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/29nebraska.html
April 29, 2008
Lincoln Journal
An Irascible Firebrand, Quieted by Term Limits
By SUSAN SAULNY

LINCOLN, Neb. � The senior senator of Nebraska's unicameral
Legislature is going out just the way he came in nearly four decades
ago: obstinately, and with a whole lot to say in his T-shirt and jeans.

It is time to retire from lawmaking, or so the new rules about term
limits dictate.

"I have to remind people as they show great sadness that I'm not
dying, I'm just getting out of the Legislature," said the senator,
Ernie Chambers, 70. "But a lot of people are going to be very happy
when my absolute last day arrives. In fact, there will probably be so
much joy in this corner of the world that it will be picked up on the
Richter scale. I'm not liked at all."

Liked or not, Mr. Chambers, a black, divorced, agnostic former barber
from Omaha with posters of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass decorating
his office, managed to rise to an ultimate level of power in a mostly
rural, white conservative state on little more than sheer
determination to do so.

In many ways, he could be the model of the antipolitician: he does not
like coalition-building, negotiating or even socializing. He belittles
and berates his colleagues. His office does not use call waiting. His
name is not on his locked door in the majestic Capitol building here,
and visitors have been known to pound their fists numb trying to get
an audience.

And he refuses to wear anything more formal than his Levi's.

Yet, from the office of Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, on down,
there is praise for Mr. Chambers as being one of the most effective
elected officials in the state � one who is already a part of history
books in the Nebraska schools. First elected in 1971 to represent the
north side of Omaha, a minority district, he is the state's only black
senator and widely regarded as the dean of the body. That is, until now.

He is packing up, largely against his will. He firmly believes that
term limits came about in an effort to end his admittedly pesky tenure.

"They mentioned my name and said we've got to get rid of him," Mr.
Chambers said in an interview, referring to the proponents of a
petition drive for term limits. But on second thought, he added: "I
wouldn't have wanted to die on the floor. That would have given my
enemies too much pleasure."

Nonetheless, friends and beleaguered colleagues agree that the
Nebraska Legislature is not going to be the same without him. An
occasional opponent on the issues, Senator Don Priester, addressed Mr.
Chambers in front of the entire body. "You taught me a lot of life
lessons on this floor over my last 16 years," Mr. Priester said,
adding, "You have continually challenged, cajoled, and used stories to
bring us out and to think, and to question whether or not we have
practiced what we preach."

Mr. Chambers is regarded as a master of process, procedure and the
filibuster, and his power derived from being as much a bill-killer as
law-maker. Some thought him a bully. He would filibuster anything he
did not like unless concessions were made to appease him, or he might
nitpick at the details of a bill until it fell apart under the weight
of his scrutiny.

His tenure made him the senior member by a wide margin; the
next-longest-serving senator has been in office about half as many years.

He took special interest in American Indians, poor urban blacks, small
farmers and women's rights. He was unbending in his opposition to the
death penalty, nibbling away at it over the years and managing to
secure bans for minors and those with mental difficulties.

In perhaps his biggest strategic victory, he opposed the Legislature's
switching from the electric chair to lethal injection as a means of
execution, leaving Nebraska as the sole state with the chair as its
only method of execution. In February, the Nebraska Supreme Court
ruled electrocution unconstitutional, effectively suspending
executions in the state.

Whether Mr. Chambers is correct or not in his assessment of how term
limits came to be, supporters of the law frequently mentioned him as a
reason to vote for the state constitutional amendment. But he is not
the only casualty. A large group of senators were forced out two years
ago. By early next year, 15 other veterans will be gone, including Mr.
Chambers.

"There's nobody else they feared enough to get term limits for," he
said. "They'd get rid of everybody else to get rid of me."

Regardless, it is a huge turnover in a body known for its slow
deliberation and consistency. It is probably also one of the most
intimate institutions, being the only one-house, nonpartisan
legislature in the nation, and also the smallest with only 49 members.
The Nebraska limits, which were approved by voters in 2000, bar
senators from serving more than two consecutive four-year terms, but
they can return after sitting out one term.

In the last days, any disapproval of Mr. Chambers or his tactics is
well hidden. There was nothing but effusive praise everywhere.

There were flowers, even tears.

A lot of the memorializing and back-slapping was directed toward the
one man who wanted none of it, Mr. Chambers.

"I feel no sentimentality, no nostalgia," he said.

He fled the floor before the customary goodbyes began. He was not
there when the body voted unanimously to name the judicial conference
room in his honor or as more than a dozen of his colleagues offered
personal testimonials about why he deserved the rare tribute.

On one of Mr. Chambers's last days actually legislating, Mr.
Heineman's office called to invite him to be part of the governor's
escort procession onto the floor of the Legislature. Mr. Chambers's
answer was a resounding no.

"I don't do things like that," Mr. Chambers grumbled after the call.
"No ceremonies. That's not what I'm here about. I tell you, I'm a loner."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080429/ap_on_go_co/medicaid_protest_1;_ylt=AvYT7x89\
Z849hzBKqLGlxz3BF4l4

  Disabled group members arrested at McCain's office

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Tue Apr 29,
6:38 PM ET

WASHINGTON - At least 20 disabled activists, most of
them in wheelchairs, were arrested outside Sen. John
McCain's offices Tuesday after being refused a meeting
with the GOP presidential nominee-to-be over a bill to
expand Medicaid coverage to more people who want
in-home care.

"If he should be president, it would be ironic that he
comes from a party that talks a lot about family
values," said Bob Kafka, national organizer for ADAPT,
a group advocating for passage of the bill. Without
the legislation, many disabled and elderly people
don't have the choice to apply coverage to anything
other than institutional care, he said.

"Families are devastated because they don't have a
choice to keep people at home," Kafka said.

McCain was not in his office during the protest. He
was campaigning Tuesday in Florida on his health care
plan.

The bill, stuck in committee since last year, would
amend the Social Security Act to allow people who are
eligible for Medicaid coverage of nursing home costs
to spend it instead on home-based, or community care.

Sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., it also would grant extra money to
states that participate in the program, according to a
summary of the bill.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack
Obama of Illinois, rivals for the Democratic
presidential nomination, are co-sponsors of the bill,
but McCain is not.

Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said about 20
people from the group were arrested outside McCain's
office in the Russell Senate Office Building on
Tuesday and charged with unlawful assembly.

McCain's Senate chief of staff said the protesters
turned down an offer to meet immediately with McCain's
aides. Mark Busey said he didn't know McCain's
position on the legislation but would ask. The chances
are slim, however, that the senator himself would be
meeting with members of the group.

"We are more than happy to let them know when he will
be back in the Washington area at public events, town
halls and the like," Busey said in a telephone
interview. "Right now we do not know when he's going
to be here for a meeting."

___

The bill is S. 799.

___

On the Net:

Bill text: http://thomas.loc.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_us/palace_takeover;_ylt=AhgSF5YnnAV\
pHy4zXEnDLbys0NUE

  Native Hawaiians occupy palace grounds in downtown
Honolulu

By MARK NIESSE, Associated Press Writer 20 minutes ago

HONOLULU - A Native Hawaiian group that advocates
sovereignty locked the gates of a historic palace
Wednesday in downtown Honolulu, saying it would carry
out the business of what it considers the legitimate
government of the islands.

State deputy sheriffs weren't allowing anyone else to
enter Iolani Palace grounds as unarmed security guards
from the Hawaiian Kingdom Government group blocked all
gates to the palace, which is adjacent to the state
Capitol.

Arrest warrants were being prepared and would probably
be served on the 60 or so protesters later in the day,
officials said. Protest leaders said they were
prepared to be arrested and would go peacefully.

Protest leader Mahealani Kahau said the group doesn't
recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state. Supporters planned
to keep the protest peaceful and if evicted would
return later, she said.

The group is one of several Hawaiian sovereignty
organizations in the islands, which became the 50th
U.S. state in 1959.

The palace, the official residence of the Hawaiian
Kingdom's last two monarchs, is a major downtown
tourist attraction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_el_pr/superdelegates

  DNC chairman under Bill Clinton: Unite behind Obama

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes
ago

WASHINGTON - A leader of the Democratic Party under
Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack
Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to "heal the
rift in our party" and unite behind the Illinois
senator.

Joe Andrew, who was Democratic National Committee
chairman from 1999-2001, planned a news conference
Thursday in his hometown of Indianapolis to urge other
Hoosiers to support Obama in Tuesday's primary,
perhaps the most important contest left in the White
House race. He also has written a lengthy letter
explaining his decision that he plans to send to other
superdelegates.

"I am convinced that the primary process has devolved
to the point that it's now bad for the Democratic
Party," Andrew said in a telephone interview with The
Associated Press.

Bill Clinton appointed Andrew chairman of the DNC near
the end of his presidency, and Andrew endorsed the
former first lady last year on the day she declared
her candidacy for the White House.

Andrew said in his letter that he is switching his
support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote
to continue this process, and a vote to continue this
process is a vote that assists (Republican) John
McCain."

"While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary
season would invigorate our party, the polls show that
the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting
us," Andrew wrote. "John McCain, without doing much of
anything, is now competitive against both of our
remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him
and distracting Americans from the issues that really
affect all of our lives."

Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to
switch his support, but he decided to do so after
watching Obama's handling of two issues in recent
days. He said Obama took the principled stand in
opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton
and McCain supported, even though it would have been
easier politically to back it. And he said he was
impressed with Obama's handling of the controversy
surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright.

Wright's outspoken criticisms of the United States
have threatened Obama's candidacy. Obama initially
refused to denounce his former pastor, but he did so
this week after Wright suggested that Obama secretly
agrees with him.

"He has shown such mettle under fire," Andrew said in
the interview. "The Jeremiah Wright controversy just
reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy
confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for
our party."

Andrew's decision puts Obama closer to closing
Clinton's superdelegate lead. Clinton had a big
advantage among superdelegates, many of whom like
Andrews have ties to the Clintons and backed her
candidacy early on. But most of the superdelegates
taking sides recently have gone for Obama, who has won
more state contests.

Obama now trails her by just 19 superdelegates,
244-263. This week, he picked up eight superdelegates
while she netted three.

Superdelegates are nearly 800 elected leaders and
Democratic Party officials who aren't bound by the
outcome of state contests and can cast their ballot
for any candidate at the national convention. They are
especially valuable in this race since neither Clinton
nor Obama can win enough pledged delegates to secure
the nomination through state-by-state elections.

Obama now leads in the delegate count overall 1732.5
to 1597.5 for Clinton. A candidate needs 2,025
delegates to win the nomination. About 230
superdelegates remain undecided, and about 60 more
will be selected at state party conventions and
meetings throughout the spring.

Other party leaders are encouraging superdelegates to
pick a side by late June to prevent the fight from
going to the national convention in August. Andrews
wrote in his letter that he is calling for "fellow
superdelegates across the nation to heal the rift in
our party and unite behind Barack Obama."

It's the second endorsement for Obama this week that
could be influential in Indiana. Rep. Baron Hill, who
represents a crucial swing district in the state,
endorsed Obama on Wednesday. Clinton has the backing
of Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who has a vast organization
in the state and has been campaigning aggressively
with the former first lady.

Obama and Clinton are running close in Indiana and
both need a victory there � Obama to help rebound from
a loss to Clinton in Pennsylvania and to prove he can
win Midwestern voters and Clinton so she can overcome
Obama's lead in the race overall.

___

On the Net:

http://www.barackobama.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq

Senate panel votes to block money for Iraq
reconstruction

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes
ago

WASHINGTON - A Senate panel has agreed unanimously to
block the Defense Department from funding Iraq
reconstruction projects worth more than $2 million and
to begin to force Baghdad to cover the costs of
training and equipping its security forces.

The provision, included in a 2009 defense policy bill
approved this week by the Senate Armed Services
Committee, comes as Democrats draft a similar
provision within separate legislation that would cover
this year's war spending.

The efforts are part of the latest push on Capitol
Hill to get Iraq to spend more of its own money and
spare U.S. taxpayers. Democrats and many Republicans
say it is unfair that Iraq is looking at pulling in as
much as $70 billion in oil revenues this year while
Americans grapple with soaring fuel prices at the
pump.

"We want to send a very powerful message to the Iraqis
and to the administration as to the cost of this war
and the absurdity that a country which is exporting 2
million barrels a day of oil, for which we are paying
when it gets to the pump now $3.50 a gallon" is not
fully paying to rebuild itself, said Sen. Carl Levin,
D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

The White House said Thursday that for American troops
to be withdrawn eventually from Iraq, money must be
spent to help rebuild the country and train Iraqi
troops.

"I think it's important that the Iraqis actually are
spending a lot more on their reconstruction than maybe
is commonly understood out there," said White House
deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. "In their most
recent budget, they'll outspend the United States 10
to 1 on reconstruction. ... We are pretty much out of
the business of very large reconstruction projects in
Iraq."

Fratto did not say whether the administration would
threaten to veto the legislation. Lawmakers involved
in drafting the bill said it was unlikely,
particularly because of the bipartisan support it
attracted.

"They didn't reject it," said Sen. Ben Nelson of
closed-door negotiations this week with the National
Security Council. Nelson, D-Neb., sponsored the
provision along with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and
Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

The defense policy bill, which will be considered by
the full Senate later this month, would only affect
Defense Department spending in 2009, which is
estimated at $612.5 billion. It is unclear how much of
that money could potentially be used for
reconstruction and therefore might be affected by the
proposed restriction.

Levin said an attempt will be made on the Senate floor
to expand to the State Department the prohibition on
using taxpayer money for major Iraqi reconstruction.
The State Department handles most of the large
rebuilding efforts.

"The intention here is to stop the funding of
infrastructure by whatever department," he said.

The defense authorization legislation specifically
supports smaller rebuilding projects, but would
require the administration to work with Baghdad to
obligate its own money first. It also says the U.S.
must initiate negotiations with Iraq on a broader
agreement to share the costs of combat operations in
Iraq.

Instead of flatly prohibiting aid to the Iraqi
security forces, the bill says the U.S. "shall take
actions to ensure that Iraqi funds are used" to cover
those costs, including the salaries of the forces and
any payments to Sunnis who are part of the Awakening
Movement.

Overall, the defense policy bill would authorize
$542.5 billion in annual defense spending, as well as
$70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Besides the reconstruction provision, the
authorization bill would ban all private security
contractors from working in "highly hazardous public
areas where the risks are uncertain and could
reasonably be expected to require deadly force,"
according to a committee summary.

Levin said the Defense Department already imposes such
a rule on its contractors, but the State Department
"was the problem." He said he did not know how many
contractors the new law would affect if enacted, but
said he thought the number would be fairly small.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Defense
Appropriations subcommittee, said Thursday that this
year's war spending bill will likely include a
provision restricting U.S. money on Iraq
reconstruction as well. He said he is recommending
that the bill include $170 billion for combat
operations � money that would cover the war until the
next administration takes over in January. His
proposal also would ban permanent bases in Iraq, set
limits on aggressive interrogations and require that
service members sent to Iraq be fully trained and
equipped, he said.

Congressional officials said the administration this
week pushed the Senate Armed Services Committee to let
the president waive any restrictions on reconstruction
funds if he determined it was necessary to protect
national security. Despite support for the idea by the
committee's No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Warner of
Virginia, Collins and the panel's Democrats said
allowing such waivers would have made the legislation
too soft.

Warner told reporters Thursday that he supports the
authorization bill as it is written, which sends a
"loud message" that "the American people expect no
less than an increased sharing of the responsibilities
and the financial burdens."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10010.html

What Obama wishes he could say
By JOHN F. HARRIS & JIM VANDEHEI | 5/1/08 11:58 AM EST

Obama and his supporters have so far refrained from
rummaging through the Clintons' dirty laundry.

Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
uproar, Barack Obama�s strongest answer to Hillary
Rodham Clinton is one he won�t give: Senator, do you
really want to get in a contest with me over who has
more unsavory personal associations?

For all the coverage about the rising heat between
Clinton and Obama, this year�s nomination race still
is a mild affair by historical standards � restrained
by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots
of things they could say but shouldn�t.

There is one theme, however, that runs through
not-for-attribution conversations with both sides:
Each candidate thinks the other has unmitigated gall.

The Clintons, to hear associates tell it, are more
contemptuous than they ever acknowledge publicly about
what they believe is Obama�s breathtaking arrogance �
the way he blithely dismisses the ideological
showdowns and policy achievements of the 1990s as �old
politics,� the way he thinks his thin r�sum� leaves
him qualified to lead the country. Lately, the
contempt level on the Obama side toward his rivals
likewise has been soaring.

More precisely, things that many people around the
candidate have always believed about the Clintons �
about their trail of controversies, about their style
of politics � have in recent weeks seemed much more
relevant. That�s made the temptation to say them in a
more public fashion more powerful.

A couple weeks ago, we wrote a column about what
Clinton would say if she said what she really thought.

Fairness dictates that we take a crack at the other
side of the question: What arguments has Obama taken
off the table, even though he thinks they are true?

Like the earlier column, sourcing on this one must
stay pretty opaque. And like the earlier column, this
one is intended as a reflection, not a validation, of
the views expressed in a collection of
not-for-attribution conversations with political
associates about the behind-the-scenes thinking of the
Obama camp.

The one line from the what-Clinton-thinks column that
most agitated Obama supporters was our assertion that
Clinton, for better or worse, was a known commodity.
Her �baggage� has already been �rummaged through.�

To which Obama supporters say: Oh yeah?

All manner of Clinton controversies, Obama partisans
argue, have not been fully ventilated.

This includes old issues, like Hillary Clinton�s legal
career, which includes lots of cases that never got
much public attention even during the Whitewater era.

It also includes new ones, like recent stories raising
questions about the web of personal and financial
associations around Bill Clinton. Since leaving the
presidency, he has traveled the globe to exotic places
and with sometimes exotic characters, raising money
for projects such as his foundation and presidential
library and making himself a very wealthy man.

Which gets us back to gall. In the fantasies of some
of his high-level supporters, Obama would peel off the
tape to say something like this:

You want to talk hypocrisy? How about piously
criticizing me for Jeremiah Wright when you have a
trail of associations that includes golden oldies like
Webb Hubbell? (�90s flashback: He was one of Hillary
Clinton�s legal partners and closest friends, whom she
installed in a top Justice Department job before
prosecutors sent him to prison.) It also includes
modern hits like Frank Giustra. (In case you missed
it: There was a January New York Times story, which
did not get the attention the reporting deserved,
highlighting how this Canadian tycoon and major Bill
Clinton benefactor was using his ties to the
ex-president to win business with a ruthless
dictatorship in Khazakstan.)

Obama has never pressed Clinton to talk about Marc
Rich, even though the former fugitive financier who
won a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton gave
money to her first Senate campaign.

He has never mentioned her brothers, even though Hugh
and Tony Rodham once defied Bill Clinton�s own top
foreign policy advisers by entering into a strange
investment in hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic
of Georgia (they later dropped the deal) and Hugh
Rodham took large cash payments for trying to broker
presidential pardons.

Obama is likewise galled to be lectured by Clinton for
not being sufficiently committed to universal health
coverage. Why is it, his team asks, that Democrats
have done so little to advance a long-time progressive
goal for the past 15 years? The answer has everything
to do with Hillary Clinton�s misjudgments when she was
leading the reform effort in 1993 and 1994.

Most irritating of all to Obama partisans is what they
see as her latest pose: that she is selflessly staying
in the race despite the long odds against her because
of devotion to the Democratic Party and the belief
that she is a more appealing general election
candidate.

It is an article of faith among most people around
Obama that the Clintons were a disaster for the party
throughout the 1990s. When Bill Clinton came to town
in 1993, Democrats were a congressional majority, with
258 seats in the House. When he left in 2001, they
were a minority with 46 fewer seats. There were 30
Democratic governors when he arrived, 21 10 years
later.

As for electability, the Obama side believes � for all
his trouble winning lower-income whites in recent
primaries � that it is ludicrous to believe she is the
stronger candidate in the fall.

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found nearly 60
percent of voters think Clinton is dishonest. Think
about that: Only four in 10 voters do not think she
lies when she needs to. A majority hold an unfavorable
view of her.

Will those numbers improve if she wins the nomination
and Republicans resurrect the scandals, the Bill
Clinton sexual affairs and her Bosnia fib with the
same intensity they brought to the Wright uproar?
Unthinkable.

Now that the Democratic superdelegates are facing
their moment of decision in this close race, you might
think it would be time for politesse to give way to an
unvarnished discussion about both candidates' real
strengths and liabilities.

The Obama side is frustrated with the news media for
not carrying more of its argument. His operatives
thought a Newsday story looking exhaustively at her
legal career � including the revelation that as a
young lawyer she attacked the credibility of a
12-year-old rape victim � would provoke a herd of
other coverage. It did not happen.

If he really wanted, Obama could generate all the
coverage he wanted about Clinton�s past by leveling
accusations in his own words. But that is not going to
happen.

Politically, he correctly believes that he would be
called out as a hypocrite if he practiced the
conventional art of attack politics after preaching
against it.

And, to view his motives in the best light � a benefit
of the doubt extended by his own team � he believes
this campaign would also undermine his governing
strategy if elected. He has told associates it would
be impossible to win support for a progressive agenda
unless he assumes the presidency as a uniting figure
who can transcend the personality-obsessed brand of
combat that has dominated Washington for the past
generation.

�I told this to my team, you know, we are starting to
sound like the other folks, we are starting to run the
same negative stuff,� he told a crowd in North
Carolina this week. �It shows that none of us are
immune from this kind of politics. But the problem is
that it doesn�t help you.�

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0167944520080502?feedType=nl&feedNam\
e=ustopnewsevening

Brown's party loses London as routed in UK elections
Fri May 2, 2008 7:34pm EDT

By Tim Castle and Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Labour Party suffered its
worst local election defeat on record and lost control
of London on Friday, forcing Prime Minister Gordon
Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next
national poll.

Conservative Boris Johnson, a
journalist-turned-lawmaker prone to gaffes, wrested
the prized post of London mayor from Labour's maverick
Ken Livingstone, who has run the sprawling metropolis
of some 7.5 million people since 2000.

The election results were a major blow to Brown, who
enjoyed a brief honeymoon with voters after he took
over from Tony Blair, but has since been beset by
economic turmoil, industrial unrest, administrative
blunders and an image problem.

Contrite Labour ministers and lawmakers said the
government had failed to address Britons' fears of
rising food and energy prices, higher mortgages and a
possible housing market slump.

The question now is whether the rout was just mid-term
blues from which Labour can recover before the next
general election, due by mid-2010 at the latest, or
whether the tide has turned towards the Conservatives.

Accepting the post, Johnson said he hoped his victory
represented a turning point for the party which has
been in opposition since Blair swept to power in 1997.

"I do not for one minute believe that this election
shows that London has been transformed overnight into
a Conservative city but I do hope it does show that
the Conservatives have changed into a party that can
again be trusted," he said.

According to BBC predictions the Conservatives won 44
percent of the national vote in the local elections
versus 25 percent for the Liberal Democrats and just
24 percent for Labour -- its worst share since
comparable records began in 1973.

"People are sending a clear and strong message.
There's a lot of dissatisfaction. If we deal with it
we can turn things around, if we don't we'll go down,"
Labour lawmaker Geraldine Smith told Reuters.

With all the results counted from local councils in
England and Wales, Labour had lost 331 councilors and
the Conservatives had gained 252. Analysts said
anything more than 200 losses for Labour would be a
very bad result.

"It's clear to me that this has been a disappointing
night, indeed a bad night for Labour," Brown told
reporters. "My job is to listen and to lead and that
is what I will do."

BROWN EYES RELAUNCH

Despite the upset, most Labour lawmakers said the
party would be foolish to start casting around for a
new leader and Brown was preparing a fight back with
plans to unveil a new legislative program, possibly as
early as next week.

The Treasury will also be under pressure to come up
with new measures to restore Labour's credibility on
the economy -- hard won over the past 10 years when
Brown was finance minister but squandered in recent
months after a mistake over tax rates.

But the gloomy economic news continued to roll in.
British house prices suffered their biggest annual
fall in 15 years in April, according to Britain's
largest mortgage lender, HBOS Plc.

"If the economic crisis continues through 2010,
Brown's dead in the water," MORI pollster Robert
Worcester told Reuters.

The Conservatives, the once dominant party of Margaret
Thatcher and Winston Churchill, were in buoyant mood
after more than a decade in the political wilderness.

They scored victories in the north of England where
they have struggled and in Labour heartlands in Wales.
Labour lost Reading council, its last remaining
stronghold in the wealthy southeast of England.

"I think this is a very big moment for the
Conservative Party, but I don't want anyone to think
that we would deserve to win an election just on the
back of a failing government," said Conservative
leader David Cameron.

(Additional reporting by David Clarke, Sumeet Desai,
Jodie Ginsberg, Michael Holden, Paul Majendie and
Astrid Zweynert; Editing by David Clarke and Ibon Villelabeitia)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/02/britain.johnson.ap/index.html?eref=rs\
s_world

  London's new mayor is eccentric, offensive

LONDON, England (AP) -- London's new Mayor Boris
Johnson divides opinion like few others, a maverick
lawmaker loved for his eccentric wit but often
maligned for his abrasive tongue.

Ken Livingstone, left, will relinquish the London
mayor's office to Conservative candidate Boris
Johnson.

The uncombed, rumple-suited former magazine editor
boasts none of the professional sheen of New York's
Michael Bloomberg but will lead a booming city that
rivals Manhattan as the world's leading economic
center and will be host of the 2012 Olympic Games.

His victory over incumbent Mayor Ken Livingstone, a
left-winger and member of Prime Minister Gordon
Brown's governing Labour Party, will be seen as a boon
for opposition Conservative chief David Cameron.
Johnson's victory gives the Conservatives their first
major political office since their crushing 1997
national election defeat.

But some Cameron supporters warn that Johnson could
prove to be a Trojan horse, if his unguarded remarks
and buffoonish image undermine the opposition's claim
that it is now ready to lead Britain.

Johnson cuts a curious figure, either waddling through
posh London streets or clumsily pedaling his bicycle
to Parliament.

Silhouettes of his iconic poses -- scratching his
unruly thatch of blond hair, ambling along a road with
hands stuffed in wrinkled pockets, gesticulating
wildly to make a debating point -- were used on
campaign billboards. Video Watch a report on the
mayoral race �

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is best known for
appearances on the satirical news panel show "Have I
Got News for You" but has also won notoriety for
offending minority communities.

He caused deep offense after labeling members of the
Commonwealth "piccaninnies," a derogatory term for
black people; referred to Africans as having
"watermelon smiles"; and likened his party's internal
conflicts "to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of
cannibalism and chief-killing."

Johnson's first key test is likely to hinge on how he
handles relations with China. As mayor, he will be
expected to attend at least part of the Beijing
Olympics, and his party will hope he is able to avoid
offending the hosts.

"Chinese cultural influence is virtually nil, and
unlikely to increase," Johnson wrote in one of his
several books on subjects ranging from sports cars to
ancient Rome.

Johnson's scorn has also been directed at gay
marriage, which became legal in Britain in 2005. In
his book "Friends, Voters, Countrymen," he said that
if homosexuals could marry, then why not "three men,
as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."

Ex-party leader Michael Howard ordered Johnson to
visit the northern city of Liverpool in 2004 to
apologize when he wrote an editorial accusing the
city's people of "wallowing" in victimhood after
Liverpudlian Ken Bigley, who had been taken hostage in
Iraq, was beheaded.

Last year, Johnson angered lawmakers in the southern
coastal city of Portsmouth when he wrote that the area
was "arguably too full of drugs, obesity,
underachievement and Labour MPs."

The legislator has even set himself at odds with his
own party with his often provocative comments.

In 2006, he refused to support attempts to make school
meals healthier, part of a campaign to tackle
childhood obesity in Britain, saying instead that he
sympathized with parents who were surreptitiously
passing junk food to their children at lunchtimes.

"I say, let people eat what they like. Why shouldn't
they push pies through the railings?" Johnson said,
bucking the trend for lawmakers to back a campaign
launched by a TV chef.

Johnson, who was born in New York, is the
great-grandson of Turkish journalist and government
minister Ali Kemal. A lawmaker in Britain's House of
Commons, he represents the genteel southern district
of Henley, famed for its annual yachting regatta. He
plans to step down as a legislator within 12 months.

The new mayor holds a classics degree from Oxford
University and edited the right-leaning Spectator from
1999 until 2005, surviving the embarrassment of an
alleged affair with one of his writers. With typical
panache, he called the adultery reports "an inverted
pyramid of piffle."
advertisement

Johnson also attended the prestigious Eton College
with Cameron, and both men were photographed posing in
the white-tie-and-tails uniform of the boarding
school's exclusive Bullingdon dining club.

Although Cameron has downplayed his elitist
upbringing, Johnson has cultivated his role as a
befuddled toff, fielding tricky questions with a
ruffle of his thick mop of blond hair and a typically
anachronistic shout of "crikey!"

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-03-voa18.cfm

Obama Leads in Democratic Caucuses on Guam
By VOA News
03 May 2008

U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama has an early
lead in Saturday's nominating caucuses in the tiny
U.S. territory of Guam.

With nearly one-quarter of the vote counted, Obama has
won about 55 percent of the ballots in Guam, ahead of
his rival Hillary Clinton. The caucuses are choosing
delegates to the Democratic Party's national
convention.

Even before ballot-counting finished, it was clear
that more than twice as many Democrats voted in Guam
caucuses this year than in 2004, the last U.S.
presidential election year.

Guam, an island in the western Pacific, is nearly
13,000 kilometers from the U.S. capital in Washington.
Its 175,000 residents cannot vote in the U.S.
presidential election in November, but they have a
small share of votes at the Democratic convention.

Clinton and Obama campaigned in the mainland U.S.
Saturday, preparing for Tuesday's primary elections in
North Carolina and Indiana, where a close vote is
expected.

Guam will cast nine delegate votes out of a total of
more than 4,000 (4,047) at the Democrats' convention
in Denver in late August. Saturday's caucuses selected
four delegates. The territory also has five so-called
"superdelegates" - prominent officeholders or party
officials who automatically have a vote at the party's
meetings.

Meanwhile, voter surveys are showing that Obama's
once-sizable lead in North Carolina has decreased.
This week, he and Clinton have debated their
conflicting views on whether the United States should
temporarily suspend federal taxes on gasoline this
year, to help American motorists hit by a sharp rise
in energy costs.

Clinton and Senator John McCain, who will be the
Republican Party's presidential nominee, both want to
lift the gasoline tax, but Obama has charged this is
an election-year gimmick that will result provide
little if any savings for consumers.

Obama leads Clinton in the number of delegates pledged
to support him for the party's nomination, but he
trails her slightly in that tally of "superdelegates,"
who are not elected in state primaries or caucuses and
are free to vote for either candidate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050402147.\
html?wpisrc=newsletter

Bolivia's Richest Region Votes Solidly for Autonomy
Referendum Is Major Rebuke to President Morales

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia, May 4 -- Bolivia's wealthiest
region voted Sunday to distance itself from the
central government, directly defying President Evo
Morales with a measure that aims to give local
authorities more power over resources.

Morales had urged his supporters to ignore the
referendum, but turnout was unofficially reported at
61 percent. Multiple exit polls suggested Sunday about
85 percent of Santa Cruz voters voted in favor of the
proposal, but final results were not expected before
Monday.

The measure directs Santa Cruz authorities -- mainly
business leaders who detest Morales's socialist
initiatives -- to take more control of locally
produced tax revenue, police forces and property
ownership administration.

The measure, considered the most serious challenge yet
to Morales's presidency, intensified long-standing
regional divisions that have made social unrest a
defining feature of the political landscape. Scattered
clashes between voters and Morales's supporters
erupted throughout the day, but the massive disorder
that some had feared did not occur.

"It's a historic day, and tomorrow we have more work
to do," said Branko Marinkovic, a leader of the Santa
Cruz autonomy movement. "We have to determine a new
course for Bolivia, and it won't be an easy task."

Because the national government considers the
referendum illegal, its true effect remains unclear.
Morales, who had likened it to a nonbinding opinion
poll, on Sunday night dismissed it as "a failure."

"This poll, which is illegal and unconstitutional, was
not the success that they hoped for," Morales said
during a televised speech, which was delivered while
thousands filled the streets of Santa Cruz in a
massive victory celebration. ". . . Between the
abstention rate of 39 percent, the votes 'no' and the
blank ballots, that is practically 50 percent."

Political analysts predicted that the voters' approval
of the measure, however, will give regional leaders
traction that could force negotiations in an
ideological stalemate over divisions of power. Or it
could make an eventual collision even more jarring.

Five more of the country's nine regional governments
have scheduled or are considering similar referendums
in the coming months, which autonomy supporters
contend could dramatically change the country's
political outlook. The six regions together account
for most of the country's revenue and natural
resources.

"This is a movement that is just taking root but will
help define the country for years and years," said
Vanesa Alvarado, who traveled to Santa Cruz on Sunday
with a group of autonomy supporters from the region of
Tarija, which plans an autonomy vote next month.
"We're watching everything that happens here so that
we can be experts on the process when we go back home
and have our own referendum."

On Sunday night, Morales suggested that he is willing
to talk with regional leaders about addressing some of
their concerns within the framework of a new
constitution. For more than two years, Morales's
efforts to rewrite the constitution have been mired by
infighting.

"Santa Cruz is showing that the autonomy movement is
not just made up of a few people, but has wide social
support," said Gonzalo Ch�vez, a political analyst in
La Paz. "Now they have to develop and organize the
legal and institutional framework to put that support
to work. It will take time. But step by step, I think,
Bolivia is in the process of building a new type of
political system, a more federal system where the
regions have more power."

Many of the people who elected Morales, however, argue
that the changes are unfairly undercutting
presidential democracy. Shortly after Marinkovic, the
movement leader, cast his ballot here, protesters in
La Paz burned an effigy of him in one of several
demonstrations throughout the country against the
autonomy push. In Plan 3000 -- a poor neighborhood on
the outskirts of this city -- Morales supporters
confiscated ballot boxes and set them afire in the
street.

Like Morales, many of those protesters were born in
the country's western highlands and claim Aymara or
Quechua Indian ancestry. Many autonomy leaders,
however, are of European descent. Some protesters said
they believe the autonomy drive is fueled by racism
against Morales, who has said he aims to redress 500
years of discrimination by giving Bolivia's indigenous
populations more power.

Fernando Villarroel, 17, gathered with several dozen
other opponents of the referendum on a street in Plan
3000. They spoke of the vote as a clearly drawn class
struggle. The leaders of the autonomy movement -- such
as Marinkovic and Rub�n Costas, the elected prefect,
or governor, of the district -- are considered by many
in the indigenous communities of Bolivia to be members
of a wealthy elite who cannot be trusted.

"We're going to burn all the ballots that we can,
because this is illegal. We can't let the rich take
over this country again," Villarroel said.

Jhonny Osinaga, 43, who stood nearby over the bonfire
of ballots, added: "The autonomy leaders are a mafia
who will only stick their hands in our pockets to take
what little money we have. They'll get in power and
charge us more for gas and electricity. We have no
choice but to fight."

In most parts of the city, where support for autonomy
was overwhelming, the mood was more festive than
angry. Voters lingered outside polling places in the
city's affluent zones, buying ice cream from roadside
vendors and listening to music from car speakers.
Santa Cruz residents often call themselves "camba," a
term that aims to give cultural identity to the
mixed-ethnicity natives of the region. Almost
universally, they view Morales's efforts to elevate
indigenous culture within Bolivia as divisive and
racially exclusionary.

"A lot of people in other parts of Bolivia see us in a
bad light, because there's a lot of rancor that is
carried over from colonial times," said Dennis
O'Connor D'Arlach, 28, a lawyer who voted for
autonomy. "But we're mestizos here. We don't harbor
ethnic hatred. This is the 21st century. We have to
move on from that."

"I voted for Morales, but now I'm voting for
autonomy," Hilda Altamirano, a hairstylist in Santa
Cruz, said after casting her ballot. "I thought he'd
bring a change and help distribute the wealth of the
country more fairly, but he only pays attention to the
members of his own party. So I still want change. I
want a government that's fair."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_kurdish_rebels;_ylt=Ajb5\
pTS7p6gXdsw7sI0lt4Ss0NUE

Kurdish rebels threaten suicide attacks against US
By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer
46 minutes ago

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq - Kurdish rebels could launch
suicide attacks against American interests to punish
the U.S. for sharing intelligence with Turkey after
Turkey bombed rebel bases, a spokeswoman for a wing of
a rebel group warned.

Turkey's military said more than 150 Kurdish rebels
were killed in Friday's air strikes against bases of
the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, on Mount Qandil
on the border of Iran and Iraq. Peritan Derseem, a
senior official of the rebel group's Iranian wing,
PEJAK, claimed that only six people were killed in
latest Turkish strikes.

The PKK fights for autonomy in Turkey's southeast and
also has a wing fighting for Kurdish rights in Iran.

Derseem blamed the United States for helping Turkey in
an interview late Sunday.

She said some rebels want to join suicide squads to
avenge the deaths of their comrades but that
"combatants are under the control of the
organization," which she said is against such attacks.
That may change, Derseem hinted.

"We have changed our stand toward the United States
government and we are standing against them now," she
said. "Maybe some day ... individual combatants might
launch suicide attacks inside Iraq and Turkey, and
even against American interests."

Kurdish rebels have staged several suicide attacks
against Turkish targets in the past in Turkey.

The United States has labeled the rebel group a
terrorist organization and supports Turkey's fight
against the group. The conflict has killed nearly
40,000 since it began in 1984.

Derseem claimed that her group was acting
independently from the main branch of the PKK.

"We have common goals with the PKK and the two parties
follow the principles of Chairman Abdullah Ocalan,"
who is imprisoned on a prison island near Istanbul,
Turkey. "But we have our own decision making."

The Turkish military has launched several air assaults
on Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq in recent
months. In February, it staged a ground offensive that
lasted eight days. Since then, clashes between rebels
and Turkish troops have erupted along Turkey's border
with Iraq.

Until the most recent air raid, the military had not
announced an operation that penetrated into Iraq as
far as Mount Qandil.

"They want to annihilate us. But we will not
surrender," said Derseem. "We have been hiding in
caves and nearby mountains."

The rebels said the Turkish jets fired more than 50
missiles at the site and demolished some buildings,
including a meeting hall, a library and a media
center.

Iranian artillery units have also been shelling Mount
Qandil in recent weeks, Derseem said. Craters said to
be left by Iranian shelling were visible on a mountain
path leading to the rebel camp.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSBKK1919620080505?feedType=nl&feedName\
=ustopnewsevening

Myanmar believes 13,000 dead, missing from cyclone
Mon May 5, 2008 6:42pm EDT

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military junta believes
at least 10,000 people died in a cyclone that ripped
through the Irrawaddy delta, triggering a massive
international aid response for the pariah state in
southeast Asia.

"The basic message was that they believe the
provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000
missing," a Yangon-based diplomat told Reuters in
Bangkok, summarizing a briefing from Foreign Minister
Nyan Win. "It's a very serious toll."

The scale of the disaster from Saturday's devastating
cyclone drew a rare acceptance of outside help from
the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such
approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami.

The secretive military, which has ruled the former
Burma for 46 years, has moved even further into the
shadows in the last six months due to the widespread
outrage at its bloody crackdown on protests led by
Buddhist monks in September.

The official toll on state media stands at 3,394 dead
and 2,879 missing, although those figures only cover
two of the five declared disaster zones, where U.N.
officials say hundreds of thousands are without
shelter or drinking water.

The casualty count has been rising quickly as
authorities reach hard-hit islands and villages in the
Irrawaddy delta, the former "rice bowl of Asia" which
bore the brunt of Cyclone Nargis's 190 km (120 miles)
per hour winds.

After getting a "careful green light" from the
government, the United Nations said it was pulling out
all the stops to send in emergency aid such as food,
clean water, blankets and plastic sheeting.

"The U.N. will begin preparing assistance now to be
delivered and transported to Myanmar as quickly as
possible," World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Paul
Risley said.

FOREIGN AID

The United States, which has imposed sanctions on the
junta, said it had provided $250,000 in immediate
assistance and a disaster response team was on
standby.

"At this moment as I understand it the Burmese
government has not given them permission to go into
the country," State Department spokesman Tom Casey
told reporters.

Two Indian naval ships loaded with food, tents,
blankets, clothing and medicines would sail for Yangon
soon, Indian's Ministry of External Affairs said.

The U.N. office in Yangon said there was an urgent
need for plastic sheeting, water purification tablets,
cooking equipment, mosquito nets, health kits and
food.

It said the situation outside Yangon was "critical,
with shelter and safe water being the principal
immediate needs."

The junta leaders, bunkered in their remote new
capital of Naypyidaw, 400 km (240 miles) north of
Yangon, said they would go ahead with a May 10
referendum on a new army-drafted constitution that
critics say will entrench the military.

The last major storm to ravage Asia was Cyclone Sidr
which killed 3,300 people in Bangladesh last November.

PRICES SOAR

In the former capital Yangon, food and fuel prices
soared and aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency
supplies and assess the damage in the five declared
disaster zones, home to 24 million people.

Clean water was scarce. Most shops had sold out of
candles and batteries and there was no word when power
would be restored.

Long queues formed at the few open petrol (gas)
stations. The price of a gallon of petrol has doubled
on the black market, while egg prices have tripled
since Saturday.

"How many people are affected? We know that it's in
the six figures," Richard Horsey, of the U.N. disaster
response office, told Reuters after an emergency aid
meeting in Bangkok on Monday before the state TV
announcement.

"We know that it's several hundred thousand needing
shelter and clean drinking water, but how many hundred
thousand we just don't know."

In Yangon, many roofs were ripped off even sturdy
buildings, suggesting damage would be severe in the
shanty towns that lie on the outskirts of the city of
5 million people.

At the city's notorious Insein prison, soldiers and
police killed 36 prisoners to quell a riot that
started when inmates were herded into a large hall and
started a fire to try to keep warm, a Thailand-based
human rights group said.

State television showed military and police units on
rescue and cleanup operations in Yangon, but residents
complained the junta's response was weak.

"Where are the soldiers and police? They were very
quick and aggressive when there were protests in the
streets last year," a retired government worker told
Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley)

(Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Ed Cropley
and Jon Boyle)

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN3055017520080506?feedType=RSS&feedNa\
me=topNews

Obama wins North Carolina, Clinton leads Indiana
Tue May 6, 2008 7:41pm EDT

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama beat rival Hillary
Clinton in North Carolina on Tuesday, moving a step
closer to securing the Democratic presidential
nomination after a grueling struggle.

Clinton led Obama in early returns in Indiana as the
two Democrats, who have been locked in a see-saw
battle for months, appeared headed to a split of the
two states.

The New York senator was ahead of Obama by 57 percent
to 43 percent with about 18 percent of votes counted
in Indiana.

The two states, with a combined 187 delegates to the
August nominating convention at stake, were the
biggest prizes left in the race to pick the party's
presidential candidate for November's election. After
Tuesday, only six contests remain.

A pair of losses would be disastrous for Clinton, the
former first lady who is struggling to overtake Obama
in the White House race.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has an almost unassailable
lead in pledged delegates who will help select the
Democratic nominee to face Republican John McCain in
November.

If Obama wins in both Indiana and North Carolina, it
would end Clinton's slender hopes of catching him in
either delegates or popular votes won in the
nomination battle and spark renewed calls for her to
step aside.

A split decision in Tuesday's contests would leave the
race largely unchanged before the last six contests,
with 217 delegates at stake.

But neither candidate can win enough delegates to
clinch the race before the state-by-state voting ends
on June 3, leaving the decision to the nearly 800
superdelegates -- party insiders free to back any
candidate at the Democrats' nominating convention in
August.

Exit polls showed the economy was the top issue for
two-thirds of Indiana voters and about 6 of every 10
voters in North Carolina. Clinton, who would be the
first woman U.S. president, narrowly led among those
voters in Indiana, while Obama led in North Carolina.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president,
won 9 out of 10 black voters in North Carolina, who
made up about one third of the state's primary voters,
exit polls showed.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Jeff Mason;
Editing by Frances Kerry)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit
Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at
http:/blogs.reuters.com/trail08/ )

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/06/politics/main4073609.shtml

Clinton Wins Indiana, Obama Takes N.C.
CBS News Projects Democrats Will Split Tuesday's Big
Primaries

EVANSVILLE, Ind., May 6, 2008

(CBS/AP) CBS News projects that Hillary Rodham Clinton
will win the Indiana Democratic primary and Barack
Obama will win in North Carolina.

Clinton pulled off an Indiana win in what was a
virtual must-win Midwestern state. With 85 percent of
the votes being reported in the state, she was leading
Obama 52 percent to 48 percent.

At a rally in Indianapolis, Clinton said that her
Indiana victory had "broken the tie."

"And thanks to you, it's full speed to the White
House," she said to the cheering crowd.

Obama's North Carolina victory mirrored earlier
triumphs in Southern states with large black
populations: Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South
Carolina among them. With 85 percent of the votes in
North Carolina being reported, Obama was leading
Clinton 56 percent to 42 percent.

At his own rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama
struck a conciliatory tone by acknowledging Clinton's
Indiana win, which CBS News has projected.

"I want to start by congratulating Senator Clinton in
what appears to be her victory in the great state of
Indiana," he said.

Obama went on to tout his North Carolina victory as a
win in a "big state, in a swing state," and vowed to
compete to win it in the general election.

CBS News exit poll results show that most voters in
both states made up their minds a while ago. Only 18
percent in Indiana and 14 percent in North Carolina
decided in the last three days. Twenty-five percent in
Indiana and 20 percent in North Carolina decided in
the last week.

Late deciders backed Clinton in Indiana by a margin of
59 percent to 41 percent for Obama. In North Carolina,
Obama won late deciders by a much smaller margin of 49
percent to 48 percent.

As it has been throughout the Democratic primaries,
the economy was the most important issue in both
states with 67 percent of voters in Indiana describing
it as such and 61 percent in North Carolina. In
Indiana, 49 percent of voters said Clinton would be
more likely to improve the economy and 47 percent said
that Obama would. In North Carolina, 53 percent said
that Obama would be more likely to improve the economy
and 42 percent said that Clinton would.

Nearly half of voters in both states said the
situation with Obama's former pastor Reverend Wright
was important in their vote, while half said that it
was not. In Indiana, 46 percent said that it was
important and 51 percent said that it was not, while
in North Carolina, 47 percent said the Wright
situation was important in their vote and 51 percent
said that it was not.

In both states, more voters thought that Clinton
attacked Obama unfairly than vice-versa. Sixty-four
percent of Indiana voters and 67 percent of North
Carolina voters thought Clinton attacked her opponent
unfairly, while only 44 percent in Indiana and 40
percent in North Carolina thought that Obama unfairly
attacked Clinton.

Looking ahead to the general election, CBS News early
exit polls showed that the majority of voters said
that they would not be satisfied if the Democratic
candidate they did not support were to become the
nominee. Only 35 percent of Clinton voters in Indiana
and 34 percent in North Carolina said they would be
satisfied with Obama. Forty percent of Obama voters in
Indiana and 45 percent in North Carolina would be
satisfied if Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee.

Obama was seen as the candidate with the best chance
at beating presumptive Republican nominee John McCain
in the general election. Forty-seven percent of voters
in Indiana thought that Clinton could McCain, while 50
percent thought that Obama could win in November. In
North Carolina, 39 percent thought that Clinton could
beat McCain and 55 percent thought that Obama could
beat the Arizona senator.

Obama had 1,830 delegates to 1,680 for Clinton in the
latest CBS News delegate count. 2,025 are needed for
the nomination.

In Indiana, Clinton was leading Obama with 38
delegates to Obama's 29. In North Carolina, Obama was
ahead 35 to 23.

Both races were dominated in the final days by
Clinton's call for a summertime suspension of the
federal gasoline tax, an issue that she created after
scoring a victory in the Pennsylvania primary two
weeks ago.

Obama ridiculed the proposal as a stunt that would
cost jobs, not the break for consumers she claimed.
The two rivals dug in, devoting personal campaign time
and television commercials to the issue.

Indiana had 72 delegates at stake, and Clinton
projected confidence about the results by arranging a
primary-night appearance in Indianapolis.

North Carolina had 115 delegates at stake, and Obama
countered with a rally in Raleigh.

The rivals made their final appeals in Indiana as the
polls opened, the former first lady at the famed
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Obama greeting early
morning diners at a restaurant.

Clinton declined to offer a prediction about the
outcome. Obama wouldn't either, except to say, "I
think it's going to be close."

Obama leads Clinton in delegates won in primaries and
caucuses. Despite his defeat two weeks ago, he has
steadily whittled away at her advantage in
superdelegates in the past two weeks and trails 257 to
271.

Clinton saved her candidacy with her win in
Pennsylvania, and she campaigned aggressively in
Indiana in hopes of denying Obama a victory next door
to his home state of Illinois. Indiana is home to
large numbers of blue-collar workers who have been
attracted to the former first lady, and she sought to
use her call for a federal gas tax holiday to draw
them and other economically pinched voters closer.

Inevitably, the issue quickly took on larger
dimensions.

Obama said it symbolized a candidacy consisting of
"phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of
actually solving problems."

Clinton retorted, "Instead of attacking the problem,
he's attacking my solutions," and ran an ad in the
campaign's final hours that said she "gets it."

To a large extent, the gasoline tax eclipsed the
controversy surrounding Obama's former pastor. After
saying several weeks earlier he could not disown the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his fiery sermons, Obama did
precisely that when the minister embarked on a media
tour.

At a news conference in North Carolina last week,
Obama equated Wright's comments with "giving comfort
to those who prey on hate."

The balance of the primary schedule includes West
Virginia, with 28 delegates on May 13; Oregon with 52
and Kentucky with 51 a week later; Puerto Rico with 55
delegates on June 1, and Montana with 16 and South
Dakota with 15 on June 3.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nomination
already in hand, campaigned in North Carolina and
assailed Obama for his vote against confirmation of
Chief Justice John Roberts.

"Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his
background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone
who can work across the aisle to get things done,"
McCain said. "But ... he went right along with the
partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote
against this highly qualified nominee."

Clinton also voted against Roberts, but McCain, as if
often the case, focused his remarks on Obama.

Obama's campaign responded that the Republican would
pick judges who represent a threat to abortion rights
and to McCain's own legislation to limit the role of
money in political campaigns.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_delegates

  Obama wins most delegates in Tuesday's primaries

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Wed May
7, 1:32 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama won the most delegates
in Tuesday's primaries, moving within 200 delegates of
securing the Democratic nomination for president.

Obama won at least 94 delegates in the North Carolina
and Indiana primaries, according to an analysis of
election returns by The Associated Press. Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton won at least 75 delegates, with 18
still to be awarded.

Sixteen of the outstanding delegates were from North
Carolina and two were from Indiana.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led with
1,840.5 delegates, including separately chosen party
and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton
had 1,684.

Obama was 184.5 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed to
secure the Democratic nomination.

There are 217 delegates at stake in the final six
contests. Also, about 270 superdelegates are yet to be
claimed.

Superdelegates are the party and elected officials who
will automatically attend the national convention and
can support whomever they choose, regardless of what
happens in the primaries and caucuses.

Obama is on pace to reach a majority of the pledged
delegates won in primaries and caucuses in two weeks,
when Kentucky and Oregon vote. Obama had a
171-delegate lead among pledged delegates.

Obama has argued for months that superdelegates should
support the candidate who wins the most pledged
delegates. Clinton argues that superdelegates should
exercise independent judgment.

Clinton leads in superdelegate endorsements, 270.5 to
256, though Obama has been chipping away at her lead
since the Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5. Both
candidates picked up a superdelegate endorsement
Tuesday.

Nearly 800 superdelegates will attend the national
convention. About 220 remain undecided and about 50
others will be named at state party conventions and
meetings throughout the spring.

The AP tracks the delegate races by calculating the
number of national convention delegates won by
candidates in each presidential primary or caucus,
based on state and national party rules, and by
interviewing unpledged delegates to obtain their
preferences.

Most primaries and some caucuses are binding, meaning
delegates won by the candidates are pledged to support
that candidate at the national conventions this
summer.

Political parties in some states, however, use
multistep procedures to award national delegates.
Typically, such states use local caucuses to elect
delegates to state or congressional district
conventions, where national delegates are selected. In
these states, the AP uses the results from local
caucuses to calculate the number of national delegates
each candidate will win, if the candidate's level of
support at the caucus doesn't change.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_re_eu/russia_medvedev_inauguration

  Medvedev takes Russian presidency from his mentor
Putin

By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 22
minutes ago

MOSCOW - Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia's
president on Wednesday, pledging to bolster the
country's economic development and civil rights, in
what may signal a departure from his predecessor's
heavy-handed tactics.

Medvedev took the oath of office in the Kremlin's
golden-hued Andreyevsky Hall, bringing to an end
Vladimir Putin's eight years as president. But Putin
is sure to continue to wield huge influence in the
country.

Little more than two hours after becoming president,
Medvedev nominated Putin to be prime minister.

Medvedev has pledged to continue the policies pursued
by Putin, and some observers see him as more likely to
be a handmaiden than an independent leader.

But in his inaugural address, Medvedev referred to
civil rights issues several times � a possible
indication that his presidency would take a different
course from his mentor's.

Under Putin, Russia's economy soared from
near-disaster to astonishing prosperity. But the role
of civil society came under question, as opposition
groups were marginalized and non-governmental
organizations came under heavy pressure.

In his address, Medvedev said that one of his most
important tasks would be "the development of civil and
economic freedom."

The March election of Medvedev was seen by many as one
of the most marked signs of Russia retreating from
democracy. Most of the prominent opposition aspirants
to the post were kept off the ballot.

But Medvedev highlighted civil rights on Wednesday.

"Human rights and freedoms ... are deemed of the
highest value for our society and they determine the
meaning and content of all state activity," he said.

The 42-year-old president, formerly a first deputy
prime minister and chairman of the state-controlled
natural gas giant Gazprom, also pledged to fight
endemic corruption, a problem that Putin has been
unable to stifle.

"I'm going to pay special attention to the fundamental
role of the law. We must achieve a true respect in
law, overcome the legal nihilism which is hampering
modern development," Medvedev said.

He pledged to help make life "comfortable, confident
and secure" for Russians and to modernize industry and
agriculture, encourage the development of new
technologies and attract investment.

Russia's economic boom has been driven largely by
soaring world prices for its vast oil and gas exports.
Concerns are high that the country is vulnerable to a
downturn in commodities prices unless it diversifies
its economy and expands its manufacturing and services
sectors.

Putin, in a short address to the crowd of Russian
dignitaries and foreign ambassadors in the lavish
hall, declared that when he became president in 2000,
"I made a commitment to work openly and honestly, to
faithfully serve the people and the state. And I did
not violate my promise."

He also took an apparent swipe at critics, saying
Medvedev's election and the transfer of power were
conducted in "strict adherence to the laws and
principles of democracy."

The nomination of Putin as prime minister is expected
to be voted on Thursday in the parliament, where
approval is a virtual certainty.

His transfer to the premiership has raised wide
question about how much power Medvedev will actually
wield and even whether Putin would try to undermine
him.

Medvedev obliquely touched on the issue in his
address, thanking Putin for his support and saying,
"I'm sure it will be this way in the times ahead."

The inauguration ceremony, although awash in pomp,
including goose-stepping guards, was low on drama and
lasted less than a half-hour.

Putin arrived first, shown in live TV broadcasts as he
strode across one of the Kremlin's squares, bid brief
farewell to presidential guards regiment and entered
the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Medvedev came next, in a black Mercedes limousine. He
was shown making a long and solemn walk through two
sprawling reception halls before entering the
Andreyevsky Hall � which had also been a throne room
in czarist times.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050701425.\
html?hpid=topnews

McGovern, former Clinton backer, endorses Obama

By DENNIS GALE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 7, 2008; 12:01 PM

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Former Sen. George McGovern, an
early supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, urged her
to drop out of the Democratic presidential race and
endorsed her rival, Barack Obama.

After watching the returns from the North Carolina and
Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern said
Wednesday it's virtually impossible for Clinton to win
the nomination. The 1972 Democratic presidential
nominee said he had a call in to former President
Clinton to tell him of the decision, adding that he
remains close friends with the Clintons.

"I will hold them in affection and admiration all of
my days," he said of the Clintons.

McGovern's announcement comes a day before Clinton was
scheduled to travel to South Dakota to campaign. The
state holds its primary June 3 with 15 pledged
delegates at stake.

McGovern said he had no regrets about endorsing
Hillary Clinton months ago, even before the Iowa
caucuses.

"She has run a valiant campaign. And she will remain
an influential voice in the American future," he said.


But Obama has won the nomination "by any practical
test" and is very close to a majority of the pledged
delegates, said McGovern, who is 85. Obama moved
within 200 delegates of clinching the nomination with
his split decision on Tuesday of a win in North
Carolina and a narrow loss in Indiana.

It's time to unite the Democratic Party, he said.

"Hillary, of course, will make the decision as to if
and when she ends her campaign. But I hope that she
reaches that decision soon so that we can concentrate
on a unified party capable of winning the White House
next November," he said.

McGovern is not a superdelegate, one of the prominent
Democrats who has a vote at the national convention.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_on_re_eu/russia_putin

  Russian parliament confirms Putin as prime minister

By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 51
minutes ago

MOSCOW - Loyal lawmakers confirmed Vladimir Putin as
prime minister Thursday, capping a carefully
engineered recast of Russia's leadership a day after
he handed the presidency to his protege Dmitry
Medvedev.

The State Duma approved Putin in an overwhelming
392-56 vote after Medvedev told lawmakers that Putin
had restored the world's respect for Russia and
improved the lives of its citizens in eight years as
president.

Medvedev said he would sign a decree making Putin
prime minister later in the day.

Putin's unprecedented move from the Kremlin to the No.
2 post will keep him politically prominent for the
foreseeable future and could serve as a springboard
back to the presidency. It has Russians wondering who
will really hold the country's reins.

The switch comes after months of political maneuvering
by the popular Putin to maintain a role in ruling
Russia after stepping down. Barred by term limits from
running in the March presidential vote, he anointed
Medvedev as his favored successor in December and
pledged to serve as his prime minister.

Medvedev formally nominated Putin in one of his first
acts as president Wednesday. His confirmation was
never in doubt in the Duma, the lower parliament
house, where his United Russia party holds 315 of the
450 seats.

Presenting his nominee to a rare full house at the
Duma on Thursday, Medvedev said lawmakers' applause
"means that Vladimir Vladimirovich needs no special
recommendation" and credited his mentor with
recharging Russia's economy and raising its global
stature.

"Russia is respected once again," Medvedev said.

Medvedev suggested Putin would have a strong influence
on Russian policy for years to come. He said Putin had
been involved in setting goals for the country's
development through 2020 and "as Cabinet chairman will
play a key role in their realization."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone

  UN halts aid to Myanmar after junta seizes supplies

52 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar - A U.N. official says the World Food
Program is suspending cyclone aid to Myanmar because
its government seized supplies flown into the country.

He says the WFP has no choice but to suspend the
shipments until the matter is resolved.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said Friday that all "the
food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has
been confiscated." The shipment included 38 tons of
high-energy biscuits.

Risley said it is not clear why the material was
seized.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for
further information. AP's earlier story is below.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) � The United Nations blasted
Myanmar's military government Friday, saying its
refusal to let in foreign aid workers to help victims
of a devastating cyclone was "unprecedented" in the
history of humanitarian work.

While the junta dithered and appeared overwhelmed by
last Saturday's disaster, more than 1 million homeless
people waited for food, shelter and medicine. Many
crammed into Buddhist monasteries or just camped out
in the open.

Entire villages were submerged in the worst-hit
Irrawaddy delta, with bodies floating in salty water
and children ripped from their parents' arms. At least
62,000 people are dead or missing, state media
reported, and aid groups warned that thousands of
children may have been orphaned and the area is on the
verge of a medical disaster.

On Friday, Japan said it will give aid worth $10
million through the U.N. to Myanmar, adding to the
massive amounts of aid that has been pledged by
foreign governments.

But while accepting international aid, the
isolationist regime of this Southeast Asian nation has
refused to grant visas to foreign aid workers who
could assess the extent of the disaster and manage the
logistics.

"The frustration caused by what appears to be a
paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern
humanitarian relief efforts," said Paul Risley, a
spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program in Bangkok.
"It's astonishing."

He said the WFP submitted 10 visa applications around
the world, including six in Bangkok, but none has been
approved.

"We strongly urge the government of Myanmar to process
these visa applications as quickly as possible,
including work over the weekend," he said.

The junta said in a statement Friday it was grateful
to the international community for its assistance �
which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid
supplies � but the best way to help was just to send
in material rather than personnel.

One relief flight was sent back after landing in
Yangon on Thursday because it carried a
search-and-rescue team and media representatives who
had not received permission to enter the country, the
junta said. It did not give details, but said the
plane had flown in from Qatar, apparently referring to
a U.N. flight.

The announcement came as critical aid and experts to
go with it were poised in neighboring Thailand and
elsewhere to rush into Myanmar, one of the world's
poorest nations.

"Believe me the government will not allow outsiders to
go into the devastated area. The government only cares
about its own stability. They don't care about the
plight of the people," said Yangon food shop owner
Joseph Kyaw, one of many residents angry at the regime
for doing little to help them recover from the storm's
destruction.

Among those waiting in Thailand were members of the
USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Air Force
transport planes and helicopters packed with supplies
also sat waiting for a green light to enter Myanmar,
also known as Burma.

Myanmar allowed the first major international aid
shipment Thursday � four U.N. planes carrying
high-energy biscuits, including one which was
apparently turned back. On Friday, state-owned
television showed a cargo plane from Italy with water
containers, food and plastic sheets at Yangon
international airport.

It is not clear how much of the aid is reaching the
Irrawaddy delta. The U.N. estimates 1.5 million people
have been "severely affected" and voiced "significant
concern" about the disposal of dead bodies.

A Norway-based opposition news network, the Democratic
Voice of Burma, provided graphic details of misery. In
the village of Kongyangon, someone had written in
Burmese, "We are all in trouble. Please come help us"
on black asphalt, a video from the opposition group
showed. A few feet away was another plea: "We're
hungry," the words too small to be seen by air
rescuers.

According to state media, 22,997 people died and
42,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis, which hit the
country's Irrawaddy delta on Saturday. Shari
Villarosa, who heads the United States Embassy in
Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually
exceed 100,000 because of illnesses.

Grim assessments about what lies ahead continued: The
aid group Action Against Hunger noted that the delta
region is known as the country's granary, and the
cyclone hit before the harvest.

"If the harvest has been destroyed this will have a
devastating impact on food security in Myanmar," the
group said.

Anders Ladegaard, secretary-general of the Danish Red
Cross, called the relief operation "a nightmare."

"There are problems to the aid inside (Myanmar) and
there are problems to get the aid out to the delta
area. There are almost no boats and no helicopters,"
Ladegaard said by satellite telephone to Danish
broadcaster DR.

In Yangon itself, the price of increasingly scarce
water shot up by more than 500 percent, and rice and
oil jumped by 60 percent over the last three days, the
group said.

Hardships in the country's largest city have prompted
some embassies, including that of the U.S., to send
diplomats' families out of the country.

Although the military regime had begun allowing in the
first major international aid shipments, it snubbed a
U.S. offer to help cyclone victims.

By doing so, the junta refused to take advantage of
Washington's enormous ability to deliver aid quickly,
which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

With roads in the Irrawaddy delta washed out and the
infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region
are accessible only by air, something few other
countries are equipped to handle as well as the U.S.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej told reporters
Friday that he will try to go to Myanmar on Sunday to
persuade the junta to accept U.S. help.

But the junta told Samak his Myanmar counterpart is
too busy to meet with him, said a Thai army general,
speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not
authorized to speak to the media.

But a Taiwanese Buddhist leader who just returned from
Yangon said Friday that Myanmar had mobilized soldiers
and civilians to transport aid to cyclone victims.

"They try to handle the relief work by themselves as
much as possible because they don't have the time to
deal with external criticism," Master Hsin Tao said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080510/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone

  Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals'
names

32 minutes ago

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military regime
distributed international aid Saturday but plastered
the boxes with the names of top generals in an
apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last
week's devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise.

The United Nations sent in three more planes and
several trucks loaded with aid, though the junta took
over its first two shipments. The government agreed to
let a U.S. cargo plane bring in supplies Monday, but
foreign disaster experts were still being barred
entry.

State-run television continuously ran images of top
generals � including the junta leader, Senior Gen.
Than Shwe � handing out boxes of aid to survivors at
elaborate ceremonies.

One box bore the name of Lt. Gen. Myint Swe, a rising
star in the government hierarchy, in bold letters that
overshadowed a smaller label reading: "Aid from the
Kingdom of Thailand."

"We have already seen regional commanders putting
their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia,
saying this was a gift from them and then distributing
it in their region," said Mark Farmaner, director of
Burma Campaign UK, which campaigns for human rights
and democracy in the country.

"It is not going to areas where it is most in need,"
he said in London.

State media say 23,335 people died and 37,019 are
missing from Cyclone Nargis, which submerged entire
villages in the Irrawaddy delta. International aid
organizations say the death toll could climb to more
than 100,000 as conditions worsen.

The U.N. estimates that 1.5 million to 2 million
people have been severely affected and has voiced
concern about the disposal of bodies.

With phone lines down, roads blocked and electricity
networks destroyed, it is nearly impossible to reach
isolated areas in the delta, complicated by the lack
of experienced international aid workers and
equipment.

But the junta has refused to grant access to foreign
experts, saying it will only accept donations from
foreign charities and governments, and then will
deliver the aid on its own.

Farmaner said the world needs to move to deliver aid
directly to victims in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"People we are speaking to in Burma say aid must be
delivered anyway even if the regime doesn't give
permission," he said. "We have had a week to convince
the regime to behave reasonably, and they are still
blocking aid. So the international community needs to
wake up and take bolder steps."

However, aid providers are unlikely to pursue
unilateral deliveries like airdrops because of the
diplomatic firestorm that it could set off.

So far, relief workers have reached 220,000 cyclone
victims, only a small fraction of the number of people
affected, the Red Cross said Friday. Three Red Cross
aid flights loaded with shelter kits and other
emergency supplies landed Friday without incident.

But the government seized two planeloads of
high-energy biscuits � enough to feed 95,000 people �
sent by the U.N. World Food Program. Despite the
seizure, the WFP was sending three more planes
Saturday from Dubai, Cambodia and Italy, even though
those could be confiscated, too.

"We are working around the clock with the authorities
to ensure the kind of access that we need to ensure it
goes to people that need it most," WFP spokesman
Marcus Prior said in Bangkok, Thailand.

Richard Horsey, a spokesman for U.N. humanitarian
operations, said an international presence is needed
in Myanmar to look at the logistics of getting boats,
helicopters and trucks into the delta area.

"That's a critical bottleneck that must be overcome at
this point," he said in Bangkok.

He warned there was a great risk of diarrhea and
cholera spreading because of the lack of clean
drinking water and sanitation.

"We are running out of time here. This could be a huge
problem and this could lead to a second phase which
could be as deadly as the cyclone," he said.

Heavy rain forecast in the next week was certain to
exacerbate the misery. Diplomats and aid groups warned
the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000
because of illnesses and said thousands of children
may have been orphaned.

Survivors from one of the worst-affected areas, near
the town of Bogalay, were among those fighting hunger,
illness and wrenching loneliness.

"All my 28 family members have died," said Thein
Myint, a 68-year-old fisherman who wept while
describing how the cyclone swept away the rest of his
family. "I am the only survivor."

Officials have said only one out of 10 people who are
homeless, injured or threatened by disease and hunger
have received some kind of aid since the cyclone hit
May 3.

The government's abilities are limited. It has only a
few dozen helicopters, most of which are small and
old. It also has about 15 transport planes, primarily
small jets unable to carry hundreds of tons of
supplies.

"Not only don't they have the capacity to deliver
assistance, they don't have experience," said
Farmaner, the British aid worker. "It's already too
late for many people. Every day of delays is costing
thousands of lives."