Washington gas prices average $3.40; national average hits record

AP
Gasoline prices have surged to a record nationwide average of $3.07 and the Washington state average of $3.40 is second-highest in the nation, it was reported today.

The AAA auto club said gas prices in Washington lagged only the $3.49-a-gallon price in California. Among state metro areas, prices ranged from an average of $3.22 in Spokane to a high of $3.52 in Bellingham. Seattle had an average price of $3.44.

Oil-industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said the national average price for gasoline surged nearly 20 cents a gallon in the past two weeks, surpassing the previous national record of $3.03 per gallon recorded Aug. 11, 2006.

Nationally, prices are up 88.4 cents since Jan. 19, Lundberg said.

The nation's lowest average pump price was $2.80 per gallon in Charleston, S.C., while the highest was $3.49 in San Francisco.

The recent increases are due mostly to refinery problems, Lundberg said, noting there have been at least a dozen additional partial shutdowns in the U.S. and internationally that cut refining capacity.

One of the nation's largest refineries, a BP PLC plant in Indiana that processes more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day, will not be operating at full capacity for several months due to unexpected repairs.

Other examples include a 170,000-barrel-per-day plant in McKee, Texas, that was shut down for a month, and a 470,000 barrels-per-day plant in Texas City operating at less than half capacity.

The outages have been reflected in weekly government data which has shown gasoline inventories falling during a season when most analysts think they should be rising. Summer driving begins Memorial Day weekend, and analysts worry refineries won't be producing enough gasoline by then to meet demand.

The Oil Price Information Service and AAA reported Friday that the national average price of a gallon of gasoline hit $3.012 that day, up 2.1 cents overnight.

Despite prices at the pump climbing past the $3 mark, analysts have said the inventory fears can only go so far, as evidenced by recent declines in oil and gas futures. Retail prices generally lag the futures markets, so consumers can end up paying more for gas even as futures prices drop.

Gasoline futures for June delivery have dropped in the last week, falling 3.12 cents Friday to settle at $2.2164 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Some gas prices around Washington, according to the Triple-A:

Bellingham $3.52

Bremerton $3.42

Olympia $3.42

Seattle-Bellevue-Everett $3.44

Spokane $3.22

Tacoma $3.43

Tri-Cities $3.25

Vancouver $3.42

Yakima $3.29

Wall Street extends record streak

australian
WALL Street's blue chips set a fifth straight record high overnight amid renewed merger fever over US aluminum giant Alcoa's $US33 billion ($40.26 billion) hostile bid for Canadian rival Alcan.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 48.35 points (0.36 per cent) to 13,312.97 at the closing bell, extending what analysts said was the best streak for the benchmark index in decades.

The Nasdaq composite failed to keep pace and lost 1.20 points (0.05 per cent) to 2570.95 while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.83 points (0.25 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1509.45.

Merger fever was a factor again as Alcoa launched its bid for Canadian rival Alcan and British-based BAE Systems mounted a $US4.5 billion ($5.49 billion) takeover of Armor Holdings, which makes armoured vehicles and other equipment for the US military and law enforcement.

Some analysts said they were baffled by the Wall Street juggernaut: "What has many analysts ruffled is that this uptrend has beaten the odds and expectations," said Bernie Schaeffer at Schaeffer's Investors Service.

But Dick Green at Briefing.com said the latest merger developments were "yet another reminder of the liquidity boost that is helping to drive the market."

World Bank panel finds Wolfowitz at fault; a top aide resigns

IHT
WASHINGTON: Paul Wolfowitz came under renewed pressure to resign as World Bank president on Monday as a bank committee formally transmitted its findings that he was guilty of a conflict of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion in 2005 to Shaha Ali Riza, his companion.

The contents of the panel's findings were not made public. People who are familiar with the panel's report said that it reviewed extensive documents and testimony before concluding that Wolfowitz breached his obligations in arranging for Riza's reassignment from the bank to the State Department.

The report, as transmitted to Wolfowitz, did not recommend a punishment for Wolfowitz. Bank officials, speaking anonymously because the proceedings are supposed to be confidential, said that the special committee was still working Monday on what to recommend.

It was not clear whether the committee, consisting of 7 of the bank's 24 board members, would remove Wolfowitz from his post or, more likely, express a loss of confidence in his leadership in a manner that might persuade him to resign. Bank officials say that a majority of the bank board has concluded that he should go.

In another sign of Wolfowitz's difficulties, his top communications aide, Kevin Kellems, resigned on Monday, saying that "the current environment surrounding the leadership" at the bank made it "very difficult to be effective in helping to advance the mission of the institution."

Kellems said in a written statement that he had "tremendous respect and admiration" for the bank's staff. He made no mention of Wolfowitz, with whom he had a close association when the bank president was deputy secretary of defense.

European officials at the bank said that if Wolfowitz resigns, either now or some time in the future, Europeans may be willing to let the United States continue to exercise its customary prerogative of choosing the next bank president.

Since the bank was established as part of the post-World War II global economic architecture in a conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the United States has always chosen the bank's president, in part because it has always had the largest single share of voting rights at the bank, currently 16.4 percent.

A senior European official said that Europeans have informally told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. that many of their governments, some of whom asked for the custom to be discarded in 2005, would now renew their demand, especially if Wolfowitz is forced out by a vote of the bank board.

This official said that the overwhelming sentiment in Europe, as expressed in editorials, political commentaries and even Web logs, was that European governments should never again let the United States pick the president of the World Bank all by itself.

In addition, the Europeans say that they have begun signaling their intention of aiding African countries and other poor nations through their own development agencies, rather than through the World Bank or its principal vehicle for aid to the poorest countries, known as the International Development Agency.

The bank estimates that there are now about 230 separate government and non-government organizations that channel aid to the poorest countries, resulting in a splintering of aid programs that have created duplications and contradictions.

Some officials at the bank said that despite the antipathy toward Wolfowitz among members of the bank board, they will probably take their cue from the finance and development ministries in their home countries. These ministries, in turn, may be guided by the wishes of the political leadership of their nations.

Technically, it is the bank's 24-member board of executive directors that has the power to choose, remove or reprimand a bank president. Each director represents either a single country or a "constituency" of countries that vote as a bloc after polling their home governments.

Bank officials say that as of now, only the United States, Japan and Canada would vote in favor of Wolfowitz. They represent less than 30 percent of the voting shares. Most other directors are reported to be willing to vote against Wolfowitz, though some countries, mainly in Africa, are said to be wavering.

Kellems's departure leaves another top aide to Wolfowitz, Robin Cleveland, still in place. Both Kellems and Cleveland have been the focus of complaints from the bank's staff over their unusually high salaries - about $250,000 each - and unusual level of control at the bank.

Cleveland remains at the bank, but officials said that she moved out of her office just outside Wolfowitz's last week, and into a smaller office elsewhere at the bank headquarters.

Sarko Wins One for the Global Elite

kurt nimmo
Now that Nicolas Sarkozy has won the French election and appears to be the favorite of the French people—who are apparently as easily brainwashed as Americans, but of course with typical if oft satirized arrogant French élan—we can expect the idea of a supranational Europe, previously rejected by the people of France, to take center stage.

“One thing that both candidates recognize is that Europe needs to be united to be influential on the world stage. The French referendum on the EU constitution produced a shocking ‘no' in a nation that has always supported EU integration,” opines Germany's Deutsche Welle. “It is a top priority to get the European bicycle rolling again, according to Pierre Lellouche, Sarkozy's foreign policy advisor…. Thehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif differences between the candidates is more one of approach rather than substance, with Sarkozy being the better strategist.” According to Lellouche, even the top dog socialists in France “admit they'll vote for Sarkozy,” as their primary focus is globalization. Ségolène Royal's big mistake, obviously, was her election campaign promise to seek a referendum on selling France and Europe out to the one-worlders.

In 2005, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso described the French rejection as “a very serious problem,” while insisting it was premature to say “the treaty is dead.” Indeed, Sarko in France, in league with Merkel in Germany and the European Commission, will keep pushing until the globalist “super state” is firmly and irrevocably in place.

In hindsight, it was really quite stupid to allow the French and Dutch people to vote on the dismantlement of their national sovereignty. In North America, slipping in world government by stealth is all the craze, mostly notably with the hush-hush creation of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” in 2005, a much less burdensome process than the European experience, as the people are methodically excluded.

In fact, to this day, if you make noise about this exclusionary, indeed totalitarian process of world government by drib and drab under cover of stealth, you're considered a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nut, never mind the very real existence of the so-called NAFTA highway currently under construction in Texas and a flurry of “white papers” and “recommendations” on creating under the cover of darkness a “North America Community” issued by the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales, and other conspirators lurking in the shadows.

Sarkozy's immediate task will be to make sure there are no more silly mistakes and one world globalization remains unflinchingly on track. “The European Commission believes that rightist Sarkozy offers a better plan for the revival of the European Constitution, which would be placed for voting in the Parliament, while Segolene Royal wants to update the constitutional accord and hold another referendum which causes a risk that the constitution will not pass the referendum voting,” Javno explains. “Critics of Segolene Royal consider she did not manage to adequately present her program and that she is not feisty enough to become the future president of France, while on the other hand Sarkozy has showed more edge and feistiness, and his program was more substantial.”

In other words, Sarko was more effective than Royal at insisting France be rolled into the EU—never mind the opposition of a few million French citizens—and that's why he was selected to “win” by the transnational business elite, the international bankers, the kings and queens and princes, and all their bought or compromised chancellors, prime ministers, ambassadors, secretaries of state, ad nauseam.

It certainly helps, as well, that enough people in France were bamboozled—as the Americans were bamboozled twice running—to put a dull shine of legitimacy on this phase of what will soon enough become one world tyranny and global slavery.

EU Casts Cloud Over WTO Bid

moscow times
The European Union is threatening to block Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization unless progress is made on resolving acrimonious disputes between Russia and some of its neighbors before a key summit near Samara next week.

While the EU still supports Russia's accession to the WTO, it will not do so "at any price," Peter Power, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said Friday.

Russia's top WTO negotiator, Maxim Medvedkov, sought to downplay the disagreement, saying he would meet with his EU counterpart in about a week.

"We're in touch with the commission every day, really," Medvedkov said by telephone.

"It's business as usual," he added in English.

President Vladimir Putin is to host German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other EU officials at the summit, which is to be held in the Volga River resort of Volzhsky Utyos near Samara on May 17 and 18.

EU members have agreed in an internal document to use the upcoming EU-Russia summit to "push for progress" in the negotiations, unless "a satisfactory compromise" is reached beforehand. "Bilateral problems or disregard for existing commitments will be major impediments," Power quoted the document as saying.

"The EU is ready to support early conclusion of Russia's WTO accession, but not at any price, and bilateral problems and disregard for the implementation of existing commitments will be major impediments," he quoted the document as saying.

The tougher EU line comes amid escalating tensions between Russia and Estonia over the relocation of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn.

Amid calls for a trade boycott of Estonia, oil traders are reporting cuts in oil product exports to the country. (Story, Page 6.) Hundreds of students marched to the EU's office on Friday. (Story, Page 3.)

In other long-simmering disputes, Poland is vetoing the start of talks on a new long-term Russia-EU agreement over Moscow's yearlong ban on Polish meat, and Lithuania is threatening to add its veto over Russia's closure of an oil pipeline last year. European nations are already nervous about Moscow wielding its energy muscle through pipeline cutoffs to Ukraine and Belarus.

Friday's development comes as a new blow to Russia's WTO ambitions as the country prepares to enter the final, multilateral stage of entry talks.

One major stumbling block -- strong opposition within the U.S. Congress to the lifting of the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik amendment -- is already threatening to jeopardize Russia's chances of joining the WTO this year, and presidential elections in Russia and the United States could well see the issue put on the backburner until a new U.S. president enters the White House in early 2009.

The Russian and EU comments came after European Voice, a Brussels-based weekly published by The Economist, reported Thursday that the EU strategy document was discussed by ambassadors from member states on April 25 and represented "a dramatic toughening of the Union's position toward Russia."

But Power said the European Voice report was "totally inaccurate, wrong," and Medvedkov called it "exaggerated."

While Medvedkov said he was not aware of the document, he said it might very well exist. "There's nothing bad about it," he said.

He sought to downplay the document's importance, saying it was "simply an internal document." He added in an e-mailed response later that it had "no status."

Power said the EU was "strongly committed to seeing" Russia in the WTO and that a "commercially viable basis" should be found.

Power and Medvedkov agreed that timber export duties and railway tariffs were the biggest sticking points to be resolved, with Medvedkov adding that he was confident a compromise would be reached.

Mandelson said last month that the "level of misunderstanding or even mistrust" between the EU and Russia was the lowest "since the end of the Cold War."

Medvedkov said he was not aware of any plans for talks about WTO accession during the EU-Russia summit.

While Medvedkov's boss, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, is pushing hard for Russia to complete the WTO multilateral approval process by year's end, some other officials are less eager to strike a deal, if it means making concessions on issues such as the war memorial in Estonia.

Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin's, told Vesti-24 state television that the country "is not desperate to enter WTO as soon as possible."

European Stocks Drop From 6 1/2-Year High; ABN Amro, Shell Fall

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks retreated from a 6 1/2- year high after ABN Amro Holding NV rejected an offer for its U.S. subsidiary, cooling optimism mergers and acquisitions will keep lifting shares.

``The initial euphoria about the ABN Amro deal has evaporated,'' said Boris Boehm, a fund manager at Nordinvest in Hamburg, which oversees $7 billion. ``This might be an inflection point after mergers drove the markets higher.''

ABN Amro rebuffed a bid from a group led by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, stoking concern the biggest takeover battle in the financial industry won't end anytime soon. Royal Dutch Shell NV paced declines by energy companies, dragging the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Oil & Gas Index from this year's peak, as oil traded near a two-week low.

European stocks rallied to the highest since September 2000 last week as takeover speculation intensified and corporate earnings beat analyts' expectations.

Deals in Europe have totaled more than $1 trillion so far this year, based on data compiled by Bloomberg News. Mergers and acquisitions reached a record $1.6 trillion in 2006.

The Stoxx 50 declined 0.1 percent as of 11:43 a.m. in London, and Euro Stoxx 50, a measure for the 13 nations sharing the euro, dropped 0.1 percent. The Stoxx 600 was little changed, slipping less than 0.1 percent to 392.67.

Reed Elsevier NA led media companies higher, limiting the declines, following the sale of its Harcourt businesses to Pearson Plc for $950 million.

Shares of Bouygues SA, Alstom SA and European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. rallied on speculation the companies would benefit from a planned industrial shake-up by French President- elect Nicolas Sarkozy.

National Markets

National benchmarks slid in nine of 16 markets in western Europe that were open. Germany's DAX added 0.1 percent, while France's CAC 40 lost 0.1 percent. The U.K. is closed today for a public holiday.

ABN Amro lost 2.1 percent to 35.93 euros. Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander Central Hispano SA and Fortis said their $24.5 billion bid for ABN Amro's LaSalle Bank was rejected by the Dutch bank. ABN Amro said in a separate statement that the group's offer for Chicago-based LaSalle was not ``superior'' to an earlier $21 billion bid from Bank of America Corp.

``Many investors will start to think this is going to last a long time or may not happen at all,'' said Wim Zwanenburg, who helps oversee 27 billion euros at Bank Degroof Group, including ABN Amro shares. ``A deal might be challenged in court and we may see another emotional shareholder meeting. The soap continues.''

Two-Week Low

Shell, Europe's biggest oil company, dropped 0.8 percent to 26.46 euros. Total SA, the region's largest refiner, fell 0.8 percent to 55.31 euros.

``Fear of further oil price deterioration is weighing on the sentiment for oil stocks,'' said Philipp Musil, who helps oversee $24 billion at Vienna-based Constantia Privatbank AG.

Oil was little changed, after falling 6.8 percent last week, because of ample U.S. supplies and signs gasoline output is rising as refiners return plants from maintenance.

Crude oil for June delivery was at $61.95 a barrel in after- hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell to $61.93 a barrel on May 4, the lowest close since April 19. Oil had its biggest weekly decline since the week ended Jan. 5.

Reed Elsevier, Bouygues

Reed Elsevier gained 1.8 percent to 14.42 euros. Pearson Plc, the owner of the Financial Times and publisher Penguin Group Inc., agreed to buy Reed Elsevier's Harcourt businesses for $950 million in cash to bolster its international reach in education publishing.

The purchase of Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International will accelerate Pearson's goal of combining educational content and technology to offer new products and services, Pearson said May 4 after the market close.

Bouygues, the world's second-largest construction company, rose as much as 3.4 percent in Paris, while Alstom, the world's third-biggest builder of power stations, rose as much as 4.9 percent. EADS, Airbus SAS's parent, rose 2.02 percent.

``It's the Sarkozy effect pushing up the shares of Alstom, Bouygues and EADS,'' said Frederic Hamm, who helps manage about $200 million at Agilis Gestion in Paris. ``These are the companies more likely to benefit from his presidency.''

Sarkozy, presidential candidate of the governing Union for a Popular Movement, won 53.1 percent of the votes.

Rheinmetall AG added 1.5 percent to 75.10 euros. The German maker of car parts and military equipment said first-quarter net income rose by almost a third to 22 million euros because of higher sales at both the automotive and defense businesses. That surpassed the 17.8 million-euro median estimate compiled by Bloomberg News.

Air France, Tenaris

Air France-KLM Group, Europe's biggest airline, climbed 0.8 percent to 38.15 euros. Passenger traffic rose 3.1 percent in April on increased travel to destinations in the Americas and Asia.

The load factor, or proportion of seats filled, decreased 0.8 percentage point to 82.3 percent, as the airline offered 4.1 percent more seating capacity, the company said.

Tenaris SA fell 2.7 percent to 17.04 euros. The world's biggest maker of seamless pipes used to extract oil and gas said after the market closed on May 4 that first-quarter net income rose 15 percent to $509.4 million, or 41 cents a share, missing the average estimate of 91 cents a share in a Bloomberg survey.

Puma AG slipped 0.4 percent to 334.51 euros. Europe's second-largest sporting-goods maker cut its outlook for profit growth to ``low single digits'' from a February forecast of 10 percent or more, blaming an order backlog. First-quarter profit rose to 96.6 million euros from 93.1 million..

U.N. Beefs Up Security After Gaza Attack

washingtonpost
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Security was beefed up at the main U.N. compound in Gaza City Monday, with workers reinforcing the entrance gate and personnel inspecting the roof after a shadowy group of Muslim extremists attacked a U.N.-run school.

Sunday's incident, which killed one and wounded seven, is part of Gaza's out-of-control lawlessness that is increasingly aimed at foreigners. Most foreigners have left Gaza, and the latest attack on the U.N. was seen as a major escalation.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah, but security officials said they believe "salafiyeen," or Muslim fundamentalists, were involved. The group is believed to be behind a string of attacks on Internet cafes and music shops in recent weeks. It is not clear whether they are connected to any political party.

The latest incident underscored the inability of the new Palestinian unity government, a coalition of the Islamic militant Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to end the chaos.

Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met late Sunday in another attempt to put together a security plan. The meeting ended without agreement, and another was set for Monday.

Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh, the author of the plan, has threatened to resign because security commanders refuse to cooperate, mainly because of rivalries between coalition partners Hamas and Fatah.

New statistics illustrated the sharp increase in internal violence in Gaza.

In the first three months of this year, 147 Gazans, including 10 children, were killed by fellow Palestinians, according to the Palestinian human rights group Al-Mezan. By comparison, 57 people died in factional fighting in all of 2004, followed by 101 in 2005 and 252 last year.

If the upward spiral is not stopped, Gaza could become ungovernable, warned Ibrahim Ibrach, a political scientist at Gaza's al-Azhar University. "The collapse of the Palestinian Authority ... is at stake," he said.

Sunday's attack on the U.N. school in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah began with a protest by Muslim extremists in long robes, who said a sports festival the school was hosting was un-Islamic. The U.N. "is turning schools into nightclubs," read one sign held up by the protesters.

At one point, the group tried to enter the school. Palestinian security fired in the air to keep them away. In the ensuing chaos, at least one bomb was thrown into the school, and a gun battle followed.

A senior Fatah official, Majed Abu Shamaleh, was leaving the school when his bodyguard was killed. Seven people were wounded, most by bomb fragments. Some children hid under their chairs during the fighting.

Police arrested two of the gunmen and were interrogating them. Later, the extremists tried to approach the police station where the two suspects were being held, to release the men. Police and gunmen from militant factions surrounded the station to prevent the extremists from entering, witnesses said.

So-called salafiyeen are known through the Muslim world as fundamentalists who try to imitate their pious ancestors and recreate the lifestyle of Islam's founder, the Prophet Muhammad. Most are peaceful, but some engage in violence.

A Palestinian intelligence official said the Gaza group appeared determined to attack all those who don't agree with its strict ideology. Other fundamentalist groups have existed in the same area of southern Gaza for years, but live in their own communities and peacefully preach their beliefs, he said.

"What's new is that this group, which seems to have developed a few years ago, believes in violence if they see things they believe is wrong," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

He said the group has no more than dozens of members, but could easily grow as disaffected youths abandon the two largest political groups, Hamas and Fatah.

Iraq reels after weekend of carnage

iol
Baghdad - Iraqi and American forces battled to regain the initiative on Monday after two days of intense violence in and around Baghdad left dozens of Iraqis, 11 US soldiers and a European journalist dead.

Sunday saw a fierce surge in insurgent attacks, including a car bombing in a Baghdad shopping street, a suicide assault on a Samarra police station and a deadly ambush on an American patrol north of the capital.

"There are going to be these rough spots and the enemy is not just going to sit back and wait for us to clean them out and be done with it," said Major Joe Edstrom, a US military public affairs officer.

"We have to expect that there will be days like this. We are just going to do what they always do and just drive on, press forward, take measures and steps and ensure that there are not more casualties," he said.

In Sunday's bloodiest attack, a car bomb ripped through a crowded street in Bayaa, a mainly Shi'a commercial area of Baghdad, demolishing two shops and killing at least 33 people.

Such spectacular massacres are carried out by Sunni insurgents to discredit Iraq's fragile government and its US allies, while provoking Shi'a reprisals and leaving the country all but ungovernable.

Baghdad and Washington have responded with a massive security plan, backed up by a 28 000-strong "surge" in US troop reinforcements, designed to quell sectarian fighting and hunt down the car bomb gangs.

But the security forces themselves sometimes fall victim to increasingly audacious insurgent attacks, particularly in a belt of violent cities and rural communities in the lawless region around the capital.

On Sunday, insurgents ambushed a US patrol in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing six American soldiers and a civilian European journalist travelling with them. Two more soldiers on the patrol were injured.

The US military has released few details of the attack, in which a Stryker armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

Iraqi police officials told AFP that a US convoy was ambushed by insurgents near the village Zaghaniya, five kilometres north of Baquba, but it was not clear if they were referring to the same attack.

The journalist who died in the ambush has yet to be identified.

Also on Sunday, an Iraqi police station in the restive Sunni city of Samarra was attacked by a suicide bomber who ploughed a van packed with explosives into the gate during a fierce gunbattle between police and insurgents.

American troops from a nearby base of the 82nd Airborne Division rushed to the scene and fought a running street battle with the fleeing attackers, but 12 Iraqi police were killed and 11 wounded in the attack, the US military said.

The Samarra attack was the third in four days against police bases housing Sunni officers recruited by the government to fight the Sunni-led insurgency after several Iraqi tribes switched their allegiance to Baghdad.

In Baghdad, US and Iraqi forces remained on the offensive and killed between eight and ten Shi'a extremists in a raid on a militant safe house, they said.

US military spokesperson Major General William Caldwell said the gang was suspected of importing deadly armour piercing bombs from Iran and, although the raiding party did not catch the suspect they were looking for, US forces find 150 mortar rounds and a torture chamber.

"They found a room that clearly had bloodstains in it, handcuffs, a facial mask... all the signs exhibited the conditions we've seen before in other rooms that have been used to kill people and conduct torture," he said.

The raiders called in an air strike after coming under fire during the raid, and afterwards destroyed the building with demolition charges.

Bush's approval rate falls to 28 percent

reuters
President George W. Bush's approval rating has fallen to 28 percent in a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday, an all-time low for Bush in that survey.

Nearly two out of three Americans -- 62 percent -- believe Bush's recent actions in Iraq show he is "stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes," Newsweek reported. Just 30 percent think Bush's execution of the Iraq war demonstrates he is "willing to take political risks" to do what's right.

Bush's unpopularity may also be casting a dark shadow over Republican chances for keeping the White House in 2008. Democratic front-runners lead potential Republican contenders in head-to-head match-ups across the board, the poll suggests.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fares best against the lead Republicans so far in the race. Obama bested Republican front-runner and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani by 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters who responded to the poll.

Obama topped Arizona Sen. John McCain by 52 percent to 39 percent and defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 58 percent to 29 percent, Newsweek reported.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner among Democratic voters, topped Giuliani by 49 percent to 46 percent, beat out McCain 50 percent to 44 percent and outdistanced Romney 57 percent to 35 percent, the poll found.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards topped Giuliani by 6 points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37 points in the poll.

The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewed 1,001 adults 18 and older. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

U.S. to Use Interpol Passport Database for Screening

washington post
The Department of Homeland Security will begin using an Interpol database of stolen passports to screen foreign travelers later this year and is exploring whether to set up a unit at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, that would investigate any stolen documents the screeners turn up, officials said yesterday.

DHS expects to launch a 30-day pilot of the screening system at one U.S. airport by fall and, if it is successful, will expand the program nationwide immediately thereafter, department officials said.

After a meeting with DHS Deputy Secretary Michael P. Jackson, Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said Friday that he also asked U.S. officials to consider encouraging other nations to support a port and border security unit for following up on reports of stolen passports.

"I was pleasantly surprised by the apparent enthusiasm in DHS for integrating this system as soon as possible," said Noble, who has advocated use of the database for six years. "I didn't feel such enthusiasm before and I hope we'll get it done."

Security officials have long regarded stolen travel documents as a virtual weapon in the hands of potential terrorists. They are particularly worried about the theft of blank passports that can be used to produce counterfeit versions and enable terrorists to cross international frontiers with little scrutiny.

They cite the case of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef entered the United States carrying a stolen Iraqi passport and seeking asylum. More recently, Mexican authorities in January arrested 11 Iraqis in Monterrey on their way to claim asylum in the United States. The group had eight passports that were among a batch of 850 passports stolen from Cyprus in 2003.

Investigators later found those passports used in seven other countries, including by other Iraqis, none known to be terrorists.

U.S. officials express particular concern about passports stolen from 27 friendly countries that participate in a program under which travelers can visit the United States without visas.

At a hearing last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called the visa-waiver program "the soft underbelly of this nation," adding that the predominance of stolen passports and the sloppy administration of the program "places this nation in serious jeopardy."

Since 2001, Interpol has amassed a database of 6.7 million lost or stolen passports, including 2.8 million from visa-waiver countries. Through bilateral arrangements, DHS has access to 4.3 million records of stolen passports.

In a test of 1.9 million passport records collected over 16 days by U.S. border officials in April, DHS personnel discovered 273 stolen documents using the Interpol data. Analysts cleared 219 cases, but 64 remained unresolved, a senior U.S. homeland security official said.

"This data will provide another tool for front-line [Customs and Border Patrol] personnel in making admissibility decisions," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said.

Wal-Mart labels Boerne nuns a security threat

mysa
It's a David versus Goliath battle heating up in the Hill Country — a group of nuns from Boerne is taking a stand against Wal-Mart.

The corporate giant reportedly labeled the nuns a security threat after they raised questions about Wal-Mart's business practices.

Sister Susan Mika is part of the Benedectine Sisters, which is part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The center has been questioning Wal-Mart's business practices for years.

"We've been raising questions with them for about 17 years, so it's not like they don't know it," Sister Mika said.

Now, the sisters find themselves on Wal-Mart's security threat list. Sister Mika said the group has been wrongly labeled.

"In no way have we ever been a threat to the company in that sense. We might be a threat in the kind of question that we're asking, but not a security threat," Sister Mika said.

The sisters have raised questions on wages, human rights, health care and the pay disparity between CEOs and workers. They believe that's why Wal-Mart has launched a surveillance operation on the small church group.

"We wanted to find out more about what was actually happening, and did they do any surveillance on us, either personally or as a community, and to let us know what that would be, and to apologize to us," Sister Mika said.

Calls from KENS 5 to a Wal-Mart spokesperson went unreturned.

The nuns say they want an apology and will continue to raise concerns and issues until someone launches an investigation into thousands of allegations against Wal-Mart.