President Barack Obama decided Wednesday not to release photographs of al-Qaida terror network leader Osama bin Laden after he was shot and killed. The president's decision ended three days of debate on the issue within his administration.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president made the decision not to release the photos of Osama bin Laden's body for several reasons.
Carney read excerpts from the transcript of an interview Mr. Obama gave to CBS television earlier Wednesday. According to Carney, the president said he is concerned that making the gruesome images public could damage U.S. national security. "It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool. That is not who we are. We do not trot out this stuff as trophies," he said.
Carney said the president told the interviewer that there is no doubt among al-Qaida members that bin Laden is dead. The White House spokesman quoted Mr. Obama as saying, "You will not see Osama bin Laden walking on this Earth again."
Carney told reporters that the president has held his position on the issue very firmly, and that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed with his decision to not to disclose the pictures.
But CIA Director Leon Panetta, whom Mr. Obama has chosen to be the next defense secretary, said publicly, several times before the decision was announced, that the photographs should be released.
Whether the president should make the pictures public also caused some disagreement on Capitol Hill.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that keeping the photographs from the public would be a mistake. Another Republican Senator, Kelly Ayotte, said that doing so will foster doubts that bin Laden is really dead. "We have seen that in many instances around the world, there can be conspiracy theories about these types of events. And so, I think it is important in terms of closure that, while nobody wants to see disturbing photos, the closure aspect of it, I think, is very important," he said.
But many other lawmakers, Republicans among them, support Mr. Obama's decision.
Republican Mike Rogers is Chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "If you are a sergeant in a town in Ghazni, Afghanistan and you are trying to get some local elder to cooperate about what is happening in your village, are you going to do it if this inflames? We have a trophy of Osama bin Laden? I worry about that," he said.
President Obama made a similar decision in May, 2009, when he reversed an earlier decision and decided against releasing photographs of the abuse of detainees at U.S. military prisons. In that case, he also based his decision on the potential for the images to incite violence.
Mr. Obama is scheduled go to New York on Thursday, to lay a wreath at the National September 11 Memorial, on the site of the World Trade Center. About 2,800 people were killed in 2001, when the 110-story twin towers were destroyed in an al-Qaida attack.
The president will not speak publicly at the event. He will meet with the families of the victims and emergency workers who died that day.
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Some Pakistanis are shocked and angry over the U.S. commando attack that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
Crowds of people flocked to the compound in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden had been hiding.
And so has worldwide media -- to cover what many see as a major historical development.
But many Pakistanis from around the area just came to look. Some to be a witness to history. And some to verify with their own eyes what happened.
"We have come to see whether all this is true or not. Such a big event has occurred here. The whole world is talking about it. I cannot believe that it is true. How can such a well-known person live in such a house?, said local resident Alam Sher.
Guards still stopped anyone from actually entering the compound.
But for the first time, people got to see the entire exterior from nearby rooftops -- and get a clear view of the villa where Osama bin Laden died.
Earlier in the day, security was much tighter -- keeping people much further away, as an unnamed high ranking Pakistani officer inspected the site.
Not far away, crowds expressed anger and frustration over what they see as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. They say, the fact that the U.S. conducted the mission without Pakistani authorization means their country is not well defended.
"We want to convey that we are insecure. Today, Americans came and they did what they wanted to do. Tomorrow, India will come and they will do what they want to do. Where is our security?," said one Pakastani.
In the city of Multan, local imams led prayers for the dead.
The prayer service turned into a protest, praising bin Laden and condemning the United States
But the protests so far have been small and isolated.
"I think the reason why there are no big protests, demonstrations in Pakistan is due to the fact that support for every kind of militant -- whether al-Qaida, whether Taliban, Jihadi -- that has gone down. It doesn't mean that the people of Pakistan are now supporting the U.S. There's still a very strong anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan," said Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusafzai.
Sentiment that has been inflamed, some say, by the killing of America's enemy number one on Pakistani territory.
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Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant entered the number one reactor building on Thursday for the first time since an explosion ripped through it on March 12. The workers are building a air purification system that should aid further recovery work.
Until Thursday, nuclear workers had been sending remote-controlled robots into the building to check for damage and measure radiation.
The robots found levels as high as 49 milliSieverts per hour - so high that a worker would hit their annual limit in just five hours inside the building.
The danger meant Thursday's work began under severe safety limitations, says Tokyo Electric Power Spokesman Junichi Matsumoto.
Matsumoto says two workers entered the building at 11:32 on Thursday morning. They made up a team of 12 people, each of whom had their time in the building limited to 10 minutes because of the highly radioactive environment.
They were sent in wearing protective suits, masks and air tanks similar to those used by firefighters.
Thursday's work involves laying ducts that will be used to suck air into a purifier in a neighboring building. The machine should remove radioactive substances from the air, which will then be pumped back into the reactor building through additional ducts.
It should take about three days for the system to bring the radiation levels down to a point where staff can enter the building to conduct other work.
That means checks on pipes and valves used in the water cooling system could begin as early as Sunday.
Tokyo Electric Power wants to restart the system as soon as possible, to reduce the need to pump in large amounts of water from outside.
The plant operator also wants to install and calibrate a new reactor water level gauge, so it can better monitor water levels around the fuel rods in the reactor core.
Iraqi officials say at least 18 people were killed and 40 wounded when a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the entrance of a police station.
The attack took place on Thursday in Hilla, a predominately Shi'ite city about 100 kilometers south of Baghdad.
Investigators say most of the victims were police officers who had assembled outside of the building for a shift change.
The incident took place a day after roadside bombs and attacks in Baghdad and the city of Karbala killed at least five people.
Security sources said Wednesday that bombs in the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala killed at least three people and wounded three others.
In Baghdad, bombs wounded as many as three people. Also, gunmen using silenced weapons in the capital shot dead a government employee and a police officer in two separate attacks.
Violence in Iraq has declined since the height of the sectarian conflict several years ago. But militants still carry out bombings and shootings almost daily.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Wednesday that the ICC will seek the arrest of three individuals for crimes against humanity in Libya.
International Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the U.N. Security Council that he will present a case on Libyan war crimes to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court in the next few weeks. He said he will ask the judges to issue arrest warrants against three individuals who appear to bear the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity committed in Libya during the current turmoil there. He did not give their names.
"In all the incidents to be presented to the judges, the victims who were shot at by the security forces were unarmed civilians and there is no evidence of any attack against the security forces," said Moreno-Ocampo. "To prove the case, the office has collected different types of evidence. There are at least two eyewitnesses for each incident, documents and, in many cases, corroboration of details by pictures or videos."
The international prosecutor told the Security Council that civilians in Tripoli and other parts of Libya under Moammar Gadhafi's control are reportedly subject to persecution. He said systematic arrests, torture, killings and forced disappearances have been reported in Tripoli and elsewhere. The victims, Moreno-Ocampo added, are civilians who participated in demonstrations, are considered disloyal to the regime, or who talked to international media, activists and journalists.
Arresting those who ordered the commission of crimes, the prosecutor said, will send a serious message to other potential perpetrators in Libya and elsewhere that the international community will not condone such crimes.
The U.N. Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the prosecutor of the ICC in a resolution on Libya it approved unanimously in February.
The U.S. ambassador the the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Moreno-Ocampo's reports on Libyan crimes against humanity underscore U.S. statements that Moammar Gadhafi has lost all legitimacy to lead Libya.
"The specter of ICC prosecution is serious and imminent, and should warn those around Gadhafi about the perils of continuing to tie their fate to his," said Rice. "The prosecutor has also indicated that further cases may be opened, as would be appropriate against individuals involved in further crimes that might be committed in the days ahead."
Rice added that through his brutal repression, Gadhafi has demonstrated time and again that he is not interested in a Libya that honors his peoples' hopes and rights.
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Two Rwandans have gone on trial in the German city of Stuttgart, facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni are accused of ordering militias to carry out mass murder and rape.
The two men are alleged to be leaders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, more commonly known as the FDLR.
They are accused of ordering militias to kill and rape in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008 and 2009. They are being prosecuted in Stuttgart under a law that allows Germany to prosecute foreigners for crimes committed elsewhere.
Ricarda Lang is defense lawyer for Murwanashyaka. She spoke to reporters outside the court on Wednesday.
The trial is politically motivated, she says, and until the day of the trial the defense did not have access to the complete files. They were blocked, she says, by the United Nations.
Human rights groups say the FDLR has deliberately killed civilians in eastern DRC, including women and children.
The two men on trial were not in the DRC when the crimes were allegedly committed, but the prosecution says they gave the orders from their base in Germany.
The U.N. says the trials are a breakthrough. The U.N. Security Council has made repeated calls for European countries to bring FDLR commanders living abroad to justice.
Carla Ferstman, from the Britain-based human rights organization REDRESS, says Europe is moving in the right direction. "In a number of European countries there have been moves in recent years to establish specialized units dedicated to investigating and prosecuting these kinds of individuals who are found mainly within their territories. It's a really important move because certainly international criminal courts can only prosecute a handful of these types of criminals and it's very difficult to extradite them back to the countries where they came from," she said.
The FDLR was set up by some of those accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide in 1994. It now operates in the eastern DRC, a region that has been wracked by deadly violence for over a decade.
Ferstman says this trial is important for victims of the FDLR's violence. A lot of the crimes that the FDLR has been accused of involve significant rape and sexual violence of masses of populations in eastern DRC. We have heard a lot about this but this is one of the first significant cases where this will be addressed," she states. "So it's quite important from the perspective of the victims who are there and hopefully it will serve some kind of deterrent effect.
A third alleged FDLR leader, Callixte Mbarushimana, was arrested by French police last year.
He was transferred to The Hague in January and is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court.
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Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi shelled the besieged western rebel-held port of Misrata on Wednesday, as aid workers scrambled to evacuate hundreds of migrants and wounded civilians.
A rebel spokesman says the shelling killed at least five people.
A ship chartered by the International Organization for Migration docked amid the shelling Wednesday, and workers boarded evacuees and delivered basic supplies ashore.
The ship had waited offshore since Saturday as NATO minesweepers finished searching for mines drifting near the harbor.
In New York, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the United Nations Security Council that he has evidence Libya's government committed war crimes.
Moreno-Ocampo said he will seek warrants against three Libyans who bear "the greatest criminal responsibility" for crimes against humanity.
The ICC prosecutor said Libyan forces shot and killed peaceful protesters. He said evidence also suggests Libya hired mercenaries to come into the country as early as January. Libya also removed bodies from hospitals and prevented doctors from documenting the number of dead.
Hundreds have died during the past two months in Misrata, the major stronghold of rebels trapped in the mostly-Gadhafi-controlled west.
Forces loyal to the Libyan leader also fired rockets at the western town of Zintan on Wednesday.
In the east, rebel reinforcements continued to arrive in the strategic city of Ajdabiya. The Associated Press reports that Gadhafi's forces held their position some 50 kilometers away.
On Thursday, members of the 22-nation Libya Contact Group plan to meet in Rome to explore ways to help finance Libyan rebels. The group also will discuss possible diplomatic solutions to the crisis.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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A Middle Eastern daily has reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the military operation in the southern flashpoint city of Daraa will end "very soon."
Assad was quoted Wednesday in Al Watan. The military has placed the city of Daraa under siege since April 25 following anti-government protests that started as calls for reform and developed into calls for the president's ouster.
Syrian security forces have intensified their crackdown on opposition protesters, detaining more than 1,000 people in recent days as international condemnation of Assad's government widens.
The head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, Ammar Qurabi, said Tuesday that urban areas have witnessed "an insane escalation by authorities who are arresting anyone with the potential to stage protests."
Other rights groups, including Amnesty International, allege security forces have beaten male detainees in the arrest campaign that also has included women, teenagers and the elderly.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on its website that hundreds of people arrested have been charged Tuesday with "degrading the prestige of the state." The offense carries a three-year prison sentence.
Rights groups say at least 560 civilians have been killed in the nationwide unrest. Foreign media have been banned from Syria, making it almost impossible to confirm the reports.
Despite the crackdown, thousands of protesters continued to demonstrate Tuesday in the northern city of Aleppo and the coastal city of Banias. Activists said protesters carried loaves of bread to symbolize their solidarity with Daraa's embattled population.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday that Syrian government actions amount to the collective punishment of innocent civilians.
His comments came hours after France and Germany announced they are asking the European Union to impose sanctions on Syrian leaders in response to the violent crackdown.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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The leaders of the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have agreed to reconcile, under a deal criticized by Israel.
The reconciliation deal aims to unify the rival Palestinian governments with an interim government leading to elections next year. After a brief, last minute delay, the ceremony got underway with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and foreign dignitaries in attendance.
While the planned caretaker government has been described by Fatah officials as an independent body of technocrats, Meshaal struck a more political tone.
The Hamas leader told the gathering that "the black page of division" was behind them, and that the only real battle is with "the occupier" - a reference to Israel.
Israel has condemned the deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday saying it is "a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism,"
Netanyahu has urged Abbas to choose "peace with Israel" over any deal with Hamas - considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.
Hamas, which does not recognize Israel, is said to be willing to honor an unofficial truce.
But Meshaal's statement, as well as continued attacks from Gaza on Israel, are likely to undermine any Israeli confidence in that position.
President Abbas also took the occasion to challenge Israel, saying it must choose between peace and settlements. Israeli building on Palestinian lands has proved a key obstacle to the peace process.
Among supporters of Palestinian statehood, the deal in Cairo is seen as the only way to move forward and end the rivalry which has split the Palestinian movement for the past four years amid fighting over control of Gaza.
"The real issue is to get together, speak with one voice, to pave the way for the future," said Hassan Nafae, a political science professor at Cairo University. "And this is a very, very important step and I think without it nothing will happen at all."
Egypt's role in cementing the deal comes as the new government in Cairo indicated it would open the Rafah border crossing to Gaza and ease the pressure of an Israeli blockade.
Whether this played a role in bringing the two sides together is unclear, although Egypt had worked in vain for reconciliation for years.
"Once you have a unified government there will be no pretext at all to continue the closure of Rafah," said Nafae.
Egypt under former President Hosni Mubarak had closed Rafah after the Hamas victory in Gaza in 2007, citing Cairo's commitments to existing peace deals. The old government also used the threat of militancy spilling into Egypt as another reason to keep the crossing strictly controlled.
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The signing Wednesday of a reconciliation agreement between the Fatah and Hamas factions has sparked only small celebrations in the Palestinian territories as questions arise of whether the agreement will last.
There appeared at times to be more reporters than people celebrating in Ramallah's Manara Square.
There was singing as people released balloons in the red, white, green, and black colors of the Palestinian flag. Some waved the flag of Egypt, which brokered the agreement and whose recent uprising inspired many here to take to the streets and rally for reconciliation.
A woman called the news of the reconciliation agreement the best thing that has happened in a long time.
"It's a different world," she said. "I think that. Maybe for good ways, for good things, I hope."
She said she hopes this week's killing by U.S. forces of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden closes a chapter of violence. She said the September 11 attacks on the United States did nothing to further the Palestinian cause.
"What happened was so awful," she added. "I don't think this helped anybody. This made a bad effect for Muslims all over the world."
Amid the optimism, there are also many questions as to whether the two Palestinian factions - with their opposing visions - can really move beyond violence and toward true reconciliation.
Fatah is moderate, willing to negotiate with Israel, and envisions a Palestinian state living alongside the Jewish state. Hamas, which the U.S. and others consider a terrorist organization, refuses to recognize Israel and its charter calls for Israel's destruction.
Azzam Abu Baker is with Fatah's foreign affairs department, who believes the reconciliation will make Fatah a little more militant and Hamas more moderate, perhaps, he says, more moderate than it has ever been.
Analysts see signs of growing pragmatism among some elements of Hamas. The group's leaders have said they are willing to pay any price for reconciliation.
Gaza has been the scene of demonstrations recently. Many of the demonstrators said they are frustrated by Hamas' failure to end the blockade maintained by Israel and Egypt.
On Thursday, thousands were on the streets of Gaza City to celebrate the reconciliation agreement, many of them waving Fatah flags.
Analysts say uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world could have triggered protests in the West Bank by those who are angry over Fatah's failure to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.
Ahmed Moussa, a political analyst in Ramallah, says Fatah's decision to pursue reconciliation is also a pragmatic one. He said that because Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state by September, he had to do something quickly. Moussa says Abbas could not go to the U.N. and ask for recognition of a Palestinian state if that state does not include Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday denounced the Palestinian agreement as "a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism."
Earlier, he urged Abbas to cancel the reconciliation deal. Israel has ruled out negotiating with a government that includes Hamas.
Abbas has garnered international support over the years by pursuing a peaceful end to the conflict. Analysts say his alliance with Hamas makes the West uncomfortable, especially after Hamas this week condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Analyst Ahmed Moussa sees no signs of rising militancy in the West Bank. He notes that Palestinians did not go out to demonstrate against the United States this week in Ramallah or elsewhere in the Palestinian territories. He said people have largely turned against violence.
Past attempts by Fatah and Hamas to reconcile have failed, and often ended in violence. In the latest split, four years ago, Hamas expelled Fatah officials from Gaza following a week a bloody clashes.
Many Palestinians hope this time will be different.
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As government officials from eight Arctic nations - the United States, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland - prepare to meet in Greenland next week to discuss the challenges of climate change, a report released May 4, 2011 underscores the urgency of the Arctic Council meeting. The study finds the Arctic's polar ice is melting at a much faster rate than previously thought.
The report was released by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, the scientific arm of the 8-nation Arctic Council. It finds that the past six years - between 2005 and 2010 - were the warmest years recorded in the Arctic since measurements began in 1880.
Gordon Hamilton is a leading glaciologist and professor at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute. He says the new assessment updates the U.N.'s Climate Change Panel's 2007 report with data on Arctic conditions over the past five years.
"And so with our new understanding on how ice sheets are behaving and how they are responding to climate change we can say that the IPCC [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] estimate for sea level rise from 18 to 59 centimeters is a very large underestimate and we are looking at something probably double the upper end of the estimate. So we are expecting one meter of sea level rise by 2100," said Gordon Hamilton.
Melting from Arctic glaciers, ocean ice and the Greenland ice sheet will make substantial contributions to that sea level rise, the report finds. Hamilton says while the year 2100 may seem like a long way off, the new estimates can help policy makers address changes in coastal areas where more than half the world's population lives.
"If you're building coastal structures or if you are planning development in coastal zones, these are the types of human activity that take place over the course of decades and so we need to be making these decisions with the best sea level estimates in hand," he said.
Hamilton is amazed at the rate of change he's witnessed in polar regions.
"In my field, glaciology, six years ago we didn't think that ice sheets responded to climate change on a time scale any shorter than a few thousand years, whereas now we are seeing the big ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica respond in just a few months to triggers that are coming from the climate systems," said Hamilton.
The extent and duration of snow cover have decreased throughout the Arctic, falling by 18 percent since 1966. Other accelerated changes, Hamilton says, include the rapid decline of sea ice.
"A few years ago the projection was that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free in the summers by the year 2080," he said. "Well, in the first few years of this decade there were some extraordinarily fast declines in Arctic sea ice."
The report finds that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly ice-free in the summers within the next thirty to forty years. Hamilton says there is still time to act to slow down these changes by drastically reducing climate-changing carbon emissions, initiatives that he hopes the Arctic country ministers adopt when they meet next week in Greenland.
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As soon as he heard about the raid that ended the life of America's most wanted man, James Kotecki joined people celebrating in front of the White House in the middle of the night.
Kotecki, is a vlogger - or video blogger. So he posted a video that shows him on the scene, shouting.
"Osama bin Laden is dead! All these people are partying! There's flag waving, balls bouncing. Earlier there was a guy climbing up that light post. These people are pumped and for good reason!"
Many of the people there were around the same age as Kotecki. He was just a teenager when planes flown by al-Qaida hijackers killed thousands of people on September 11, 2001.
Later in an interview, Kotecki said he didn't know what motivated the others to celebrate. "But the way that I approached it was certainly not about rejoicing in a specific person's death per se," he said.
It was, he says, about the accomplishment of a national security objective - the elimination of a global terrorist figurehead.
"This doesn't mean that I don't also - as I step back from the celebration of that moment - reflect on the tragedies of the lives that were lost, both on September 11 and in the ensuing war on terror," he added.
Jubilation over the killing of Osama bin Laden has given way to a soul-searching debate in the United States over whether it is appropriate to celebrate the death of someone who orchestrated the nation's deadliest terrorist attack.
While many people defended the celebrations as natural human reaction, others condemned what they saw as immoral and jingoistic behavior. The debate was especially intense on social media sites.
Denver based radio host David Sirota wrote a commentary on Salon.com entitled: 'USA! USA!' Is The Wrong Response'. It got more than 100,000 thumbs up responses on Facebook.
"I certainly feel relief that Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to the United States, a threat to the world," he tells VOA.
But he adds that rejoicing over a killing is the kind of behavior Americans have attributed to terrorists and other people they despise. "And yet we are now - in the aftermath of bin Laden's killing - we're doing the same thing," he said. "We're celebrating not the end of a war, we're celebrating revenge, we're celebrating bloodletting."
After the September 11th attacks in the United States, many Americans were outraged to see rejoicing in parts of the Muslim world.
Sirota argues that the celebrations here may be an unintended consequence of the war on terror.
"There's a chance," he said, "that we may have inadvertently let Osama bin Laden win. That is, we have let him, and what he represents, change us, bring us down, make us more of a nihilistic people."
Sirota says bin Laden's demise cannot be compared to the death of Hitler and the end of World War II, because the war against terrorism continues.
But others say bin Laden's death provided a catharsis for a traumatized nation.
"Osama bin Laden was almost like a specter that hovered around our psyche," he said. "And in some ways it's like the end of the movie where the specter is destroyed, and now we can live without that shadow upon us."
U.S. President Barack Obama has cautioned that effort against terrorism still continues. But for many Americans, the lightning raid that took out al-Qaida's leader marks a liberation from a trauma that began on September 11, 2001, and from the mixed record of other military actions since then.
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Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are gathering this week in Jakarta (May 5-8) to discuss regional economic development and mutual security issues.
Indonesia's Foreign Ministry's spokesman Michael Tene says ASEAN's role in trying to end an ongoing border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia will almost certainly be addressed when the heads of state meet May 7.
"Of course the development in Thailand, on the border of Thailand and Cambodia is one of major issues developing in our region. So it will be very natural I believe that such issues will be taken up in the summit," he said.
Indonesia took over the chairmanship of the group of 10 Southeast Asian nations this year and made it a stated goal to transform the organization from a loose association to an active participant in global economic and security matters.
But in February clashes erupted between two ASEAN members, Thailand and Cambodia. The two armies have been fighting sporadically over an area surrounding a Hindu Khmer temple, a historical landmark that both countries claim as part of their heritage.
As head of ASEAN, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa saw this conflict as a test case for what the organization leadership could achieve and he has actively tried to negotiate an end to the conflict. So far his efforts have been unsuccessful, but ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan says Natalegawa should get credit for his unprecedented diplomatic efforts.
"There has never been one single special meeting of the foreign ministers on an issue between states before, ever. We have made history under Indonesia. There has never been an attempt by the chair to go to the two capitals and holding hands and talking and try to convince that this is something that we will have to work out together," said Pitsuwan.
He says in addition to continuing to resolve the Thai-Cambodia border conflict, leaders at the summit will also likely discuss how to build on Indonesia's efforts to make ASEAN an integrated economic and political community in the future.
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A new report shows that corruption in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world increased in the lead-up to the recent uprisings in the region.
The assessment, released Wednesday by the international nonprofit organization Global Integrity, said anti-corruption and transparency measures in Egypt were on a steady decline since 2006, putting increased pressure on the country's already fragile government.
The report says Yemen, Morocco and the West Bank experienced similar challenges - with barriers to independent media, enforcing asset disclosures for political leaders and effectively auditing government agencies and programs.
Global Integrity's Managing Director Nathaniel Heller said that with rare exceptions the Middle East and North Africa are what he called "black holes" when it comes to good governance.
The report also shows that many countries in eastern and central Europe have been on a continual slide in anti-corruption and transparency performance, despite their entry into the European Union and NATO.
Global Integrity says the number of countries on its Grand Corruption Watch List increased from 15 to 18 with the addition of Malaysia, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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India says the bold U.S. strike that killed Osama bin Laden is not something they plan to imitate anytime soon.
Indian government sources say they have no intention of carrying out their own surgical strikes anytime soon against terrorists being sheltered in Pakistan.
Instead, officials say they must continue to "engage" Pakistan in a relationship that is every bit as complex and contentious as the one between Pakistan and the United States.
In a conversation with journalists Wednesday, officials said a "reasoned, sober" approach to dialogue with Islamabad will be a hallmark of Indian foreign policy going forward.
Maroof Raza, an analyst at Security Watch India in New Delhi, agreed the Indian government is obliged, on one level, to show restraint.
"One of the reasons why America could take on this operation so successfully in Pakistan, and do something as bold and dramatic as this, is because Pakistan was not next door to America," he said. "America, therefore, did not have a nuclear-armed neighbor who could react spontaneously, at least with tactical, if not nuclear, weapons if it felt its sovereignty was threatened."
On the other hand, said Raza, India should not passively tolerate decades of Pakistan-backed terror attacks on its citizens. He said the bin Laden killing is a lesson to India that it should develop its covert and special forces capabilities.
"Carry out more ground-based infiltration.. a hit at a target, or even infiltrate assassins within Pakistan who assassinate those who... clearly have been behind bombings in India, and who continue to be sheltered inside huge villas," he said.
Raza said India should imitate Israel, which uses covert tactics to punish terrorists and their supporters.
"Do something like that, convey the message, and then, just keep quiet," he said. "Just ignore. And you can cover your tracks quite easily, but then the message goes out to their patrons and others, that 'excuse me, but India does mean some business.'"
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, agrees India needs to get more creative in imposing costs on Pakistan for sheltering terrorists.
"I am not talking about assassination," said Sahni. "I am not talking about counter-terrorist strikes. But I am talking about things that would make the people that are making these decisions to feel a very severe pinch."
The problem, said Sahni, is that Indian officials seem only to have two gears on dealing with Pakistan.
"There is an infinity of alternatives - economic and diplomatic, and other kinds of coercive pressure that can be exerted against Pakistan - but the Indian policy spectrum is exhausted by talking, and not talking. That's it."
Raza and Sahni both point out that the operation that killed Osama bin Laden was the culmination of efforts by two U.S. presidents from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. In contrast, they say India counterproductively tears down and reinvents its strategic outlook every time there is a change in government.
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The economic recession has affected almost every aspect of American life, including education. Funding for public education has been cut as many U.S. states face budget problems.
Teachers across California have been afraid to check their mailboxes.
Veronica Pellegrin recently received a dreaded letter. "Getting the letter and seeing you will no longer be employed, your services will no longer be required - it is very disheartening, to say the least, and frustrating," she said.
Pellegrin is not alone. Sixty percent of the teachers at Mariposa-Nabi primary school in Los Angeles have received layoff notices.
"We have to keep going and making it the best year possible with all the changes," Principal Salvador Rodriguez stated.
Even with a tighter budget, Rodriguez has been able to provide computers for his students, but they are feeling the economic squeeze. He says there used to be 20 students to a teacher at his school. By next year, he expects nearly 30 students per classroom. "If you cut personnel, they cannot give that individual attention," he said.
Teachers say that is especially true in schools where there are large immigrant populations and English is not the first language of many students.
Superintendent John Deasy heads the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school system in the United States. He says that during the past two years, his school district has had to lay off 10 to 12 percent of its staff, about half of them teachers. "The recession has had an enormous impact in the state budget," he said. "And we have had a huge drop in funding."
University of California (at Los Angeles) Education Professor John Rogers says the recession has affected education funding across the United States. "Some projections estimate that across the country, 160,000 teachers have received lay-off notices this spring," Rogers explained.
Rogers says the situation in California is worse because the state was already facing a budget deficit before the recession, and that the state was spending less per student than the national average. Primary and secondary schools in California receive most of their funding from the state government. That is about 40 percent of the state's general fund.
United Teachers Los Angeles union President A.J. Duffy says the amount of funding schools receives each year depends on the economy. "In the past 2.5 to three years, we have lost $20 billion in funding for public education," he said.
Superintendent John Deasy expects more changes, if the state's budget problem does not improve. "We are cutting all of our librarians, our nurses. We would be forced to close and consolidate schools," Deasy stated.
Most school districts in California already have reduced the number of days students must attend school. Other states around the country are also talking about reducing the school year as they face shrinking education budgets.
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