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Miss Haiti gives hope to devastated country

Cheney: Stop the 'dithering' as troops face danger

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday night accused the White House of dithering over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and urged President Barack Obama to "do what it takes to win."

"Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," Cheney said while accepting an award from a conservative national security group, the Center for Security Policy.

Cheney disputed remarks by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel that the Bush administration had been adrift concerning the war in Afghanistan and that the Obama administration had to start from the beginning to develop a strategy for the 8-year-old war.

To the contrary, Cheney said, the Bush administration undertook its own review of the war before leaving office and presented its findings to Obama's transition team.

"They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt," Cheney said. The strategy Obama announced in March bore a "striking resemblance" to what the Bush administration review had found, the vice president said.

Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that the decision regarding what to do in Afghanistan is more complex than whether to send more troops. The U.S. commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has reportedly asked for as many as 40,000 additional troops to combat the Taliban insurgency and al-Qaida fighters.

"When you go through all the analysis, it's clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that's adrift, that we're beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years," Emanuel said.

Cheney said the Obama administration seems to be pulling back and blaming others for its own failure to implement the strategy it had embraced earlier in the year.

"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," the former vice president said. "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."

Cheney criticized Obama's decision to drop plans begun in the Bush administration for missile defense interceptors in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic, calling the move "a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith." The administration said it will instead pursue a higher-tech system that is also more cost-effective.

"Our Polish and Czech friends are entitled to wonder how strategic plans and promises years in the making could be dissolved just like that with apparently little if any consultation," he said. "President Obama's cancellation of America's agreements with the Polish and Czech governments is a serious blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of Europeans."

Cheney said those who try to placate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and accede to his wishes will get nothing in return but trouble.

On the Net:

• Center for Security Policy: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/

Pakistan bombs Taliban hideouts after week of carnage

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistani fighter jets on Tuesday pounded Taliban sanctuaries, as the militant group claimed responsibility for the latest in a wave of attacks that have killed 125 people in a week.

Fighter jets launched another round of bombing raids killing six suspected insurgents in South Waziristan, the semi-autonomous region near Afghanistan and a known stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked rebels, officials said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, meanwhile, vowed to wipe out the Islamist extremist threat in Pakistan, with a fierce military operation into the Taliban's mountain sanctuaries believed to be imminent.

The army claims to have already quashed militants in the one-time tourist paradise of Swat valley, but on Monday a teenage suicide bomber struck in the neighbouring northwest district of Shangla, killing 45 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, with spokesman Azam Tariq telling AFP: "This is revenge for our martyrs... This is part of the series of attacks that we are carrying out. Wait and see more."

The group have also claimed responsibility for a weekend hostage drama at Pakistan's army headquarters which hit at the heart of one of the most powerful institutions in the nuclear-armed nation.

Local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police, and have questioned why the siege which left 23 people dead was not thwarted.

On October 5, The News published extracts of a correspondence between the interior ministry and Punjab authorities, warning that militants in army uniforms were planning to target the HQ -- exactly what happened days later.

"Don't blame intelligence agencies, they have foiled several planned attacks, we foiled at least a hundred attacks before they were carried out," Malik told reporters.

A spokesperson for Punjab Senator Pervaiz Rashid confirmed to AFP that the provincial home department had dispatched a confidential letter to the army and other departments in July highlighting possible targets.

"It was mentioned categorically in the letter that terrorists have been planning to get into GHQ (General Headquarters) clad in military uniform and using a military vehicle," the official said.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said the army HQ attack was planned in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.

War planes Tuesday targeted the region's Makeen, Ladha and Nawazkot towns, which had already been pummeled from the air on Sunday.

"At least six Taliban including a local commander were killed in the air attack," said a security official in South Waziristan who asked not to be named. Intelligence officials gave the same toll.

The strikes occurred in areas under Taliban control, and the death tolls are impossible to verify independently.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement has threatened more attacks, vowing vengeance for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone missile strike in South Waziristan in August.

There was a brief lull in violence as the Taliban leadership regrouped, but the comeback has been fierce.

Last Monday, a suicide bomber walked into the lobby of the Islamabad offices of the UN's World Food Programme, killing five people, while a massive suicide car bomb Friday killed 52 people in northwest Peshawar city.

The latest attack hit Alpuri town in Shangla on Monday, with 39 civilians and six soldiers killed when a boy aged about 13 or 14 flung himself at a military convoy passing through a crowded market.

Thousands of civilians have fled South Waziristan fearing an imminent offensive, while Pakistani fighter jets have been carrying out air raids in the region and blocking key roads in an attempt to choke off the rebels.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi flew to Washington on Tuesday to air concerns about a 7.5 billion-dollar aid package that has raised hackles among the nation's military, officials said.

US Senator John Kerry on Tuesday strongly denied that the package would impinge on Pakistan's sovereignty at a joint news conference with Qureshi.

Kerry, a close ally of President Barack Obama, will embark on a tour of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday, said Tomeika Bowden, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which Kerry chairs.

He is expected to consult Pakistanis about the aid package.

Nobel jury speaks out in defense of Obama prize

OSLO — One judge noted with surprise that President Barack Obama "didn't look particularly happy" at being named the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Another marveled at how critics could be so patronizing.

In a rare public defense of a process normally shrouded in secrecy, four of the Nobel jury's five judges spoke out Tuesday about a selection they said was both merited and unanimous.

To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama's young presidency, "We simply disagree ... He got the prize for what he has done," committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press by telephone from Strasbourg, France, where he was attending meetings of the Council of Europe.

Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.

"All these things have contributed to — I wouldn't say a safer world — but a world with less tension," he said.

For nine-year Nobel committee veteran Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, Obama's demeanor spoke volumes when he first acknowledged the award during a news conference Friday on the lawn of the White House Rose Garden.

"I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to Norway, and he didn't look particularly happy," she told the AP by telephone.

"Obama has a lot of problems internally in the United States and they seem to be increasing. Unemployment, health care reform: They are a problem for him," she said.

She acknowledged there was a risk the prize might backfire on Obama by raising expectations even higher and giving ammunition to his critics. "It might hamper him," Ytterhorn said, because it could distract from domestic issues.

Still, she added: "Whenever we award the peace prize, there is normally a big debate about it" so the Obama controversy was not unexpected.

It was unusual, however, for the Nobel jury to speak out so candidly about their selection.

Even the most seasoned Nobel watchers were surprised by Obama's Nobel — they hadn't expected the U.S. president, who took office barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline, to be seriously considered until at least next year.

Jagland said that was never an issue for the Nobel committee, which followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who established the prize in his 1895 will.

"Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year," Jagland said.

"Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?"

Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed suggestions that Obama was undeserving of the honor.

"Don't you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?" Valle said from the coastal city of Bergen. "Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I'm not afraid of a debate on the Peace Prize decision. That's fine."

World leaders have reacted positively to Obama's Nobel in most cases, the committee said, with much of the criticism coming from the media and Obama's political rivals.

"I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous," Jagland said.

In announcing the award Friday, the committee, whose members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, applauded the change in global mood brought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation. They also praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.

The White House declined comment on the Nobel judge's latest statements.

However, Obama expressed surprise and humility at Friday's news conference, saying the prize should be considered not a "recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations."

Nobel Peace Prize selections have often been surrounded by fierce debate. Controversial awards include the 1994 prize shared by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for Mideast peace efforts, as well as the joint prize to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho for a 1973 cease-fire agreement. The Vietnam War continued for two more years.

So the Nobel jury "expected that there would be a discussion" about Obama's award, said Kaci Kullman Five, a former Conservative Party parliamentarian and longtime Nobel committee member.

Valle said the criticism shouldn't overshadow important issues raised by Obama's Nobel.

"Of course I expected disagreement and debate on ... giving him the prize," she said. "But what I want now is that we seriously raise a discussion regarding nuclear disarmament."

Ritter reported from Stockholm.

Schwarzenegger creates day honoring Harvey Milk

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk will get a special day of recognition in California, making him only the second person in state history — in addition to conservationist John Muir — to gain such a designation.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signing of the bill establishing "Harvey Milk Day" each May 22, Milk's birthday, was announced Monday.

The Republican governor vetoed similar legislation a year ago. In the interim, Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in August and was the subject of a movie for which Sean Penn won the Academy Award for best actor.

Penn spoke out in favor of the bill last spring, saying he didn't want to insult Schwarzenegger's intelligence by assuming the governor would again oppose creating Harvey Milk Day.

"He has become much more of a symbol of the gay community than he was a year ago because of those things," Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said. "That made the difference from last year: he's really come to symbolize the gay community in California."

In his veto message a year ago, the Republican governor said Milk should be honored locally by those who were most impacted by his contributions. He did not write a signing message this year saying why he flip-flopped.

Milk was a leader in the gay rights movement who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. The bill said he was the nation's first openly gay man elected to public office in a major U.S. city.

A year later, Milk played a prominent role in defeat of the so-called Briggs Initiative, a ballot proposition that would have prevented gays and lesbians from teaching in the state's public schools.

In November 1978, a few weeks after the election, he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated at City Hall by former supervisor Dan White, who had resigned his seat but wanted it back.

White was angry at Moscone for refusing his request and at Milk because he had been among those lobbying the mayor against reappointing White.

"Harvey Milk Day" will not be a formal state holiday, so government employees will not be given the day off. The bill instead calls for the day to be observed by public schools as a day of special significance. Teachers will be encouraged to conduct exercises recalling Milk's life and contributions to the state.

State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who wrote the bill, said Milk was a human rights leader in the same way Cesar Chavez championed Hispanic farmworkers and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sought equal treatment for blacks.

"Harvey's work was not only about the respect and dignity and validation of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, but for all human life. That's why I think he ranks among the other world-renown human rights leaders," he said.

Leno said he would support making Milk's birthday a formal holiday but conceded the state can't afford it because it would require overtime payments to thousands of state workers.

Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, said he was appalled by the governor's decision.

"Sadly, children in public schools will now have even more in-your-face, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination," Thomasson said in a statement.

Leno responded by saying opponents of his bill "wish to lock the fact of LGBT Californians into a dark closet of the 20th century."

"The rest of the state is moving forward," he said.

"Harvey Milk Day" is California's fifth day of significance. The others are the Day of the Teacher, John Muir Day, California Poppy Day and Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. Muir was instrumental in establishing Yosemite National Park and starting the Sierra Club.

McLear said Schwarzenegger is open to adding days of special significance for other influential Californians if lawmakers send him the bills.

"There's no threshold," McLear said. "He just weighs every bill on its merits."

Coup amnesty off the table as Honduras talks pause

TEGUCIGALPA — Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the interim government agreed to create a joint cabinet and ditch amnesty for coup leaders, one of the ousted leader's negotiators said.

But both measures depend on Zelaya's return to the presidency, still far from certain four months into the standoff that emerged from the June 28 coup.

Union leader Juan Barahona, one of Zelaya's top three negotiators, told a rally of hundreds of the president's followers that the joint cabinet, if realized, would be composed of ministers from both governments.

The Zelaya camp, he added, opposed amnesty because such a move would mean "amnesia, forgetfulness and forgiveness, and we got cannot condone the coup.

"If after all of this, they say that there is not going to be reinstatement (of Zelaya), what difference does it make if we made progress on anything else?" quipped Barahona.

"Tuesday, we are going to get at that key point in detail. If on October 15 we do not have a deal, the talks will have failed."

The formation of a national unity government and amnesty for crimes linked to the coup were two key points of the San Jose reconciliation agenda set out in August, whose central tenet calls for Zelaya's return to office.

The discussions came ahead of a three-day pause that prolongs the uncertainty of resolving the political crisis that has paralyzed the impoverished Central American country since late June.

The resumption of talks on Tuesday will come just two days before the October 15 deadline given by the Zelaya camp for his unconditional return to power.

Reinstating him any later, supporters say, risks causing a delay in presidential and legislative elections planned for November 29.

"I do not understand the three-day break," Zelaya's wife Xiomara Castro told AFP from within the Brazilian embassy, where the deposed leader has been holed up since his surprise return to the capital on September 21.

"When there's persecution, repression, the minutes and hours count. (The pause) is a way to delay the process, with time passing and the president still not returning to power."

A diplomatic delegation from the Organization of American States left Honduras Thursday without resolving a months-old political impasse between de facto leader Roberto Micheletti and Zelaya, who was forced out of the country at gunpoint.

A rancher known for his trademark white cowboy hat, Zelaya veered to the left after his election and alarmed conservatives by aligning himself with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. They feared Zelaya was seeking to change the constitution to allow himself to seek reelection.

Moonstruck: Making one giant thud for mankind

WASHINGTON — For as long as man has looked up, the moon has inspired romance, poetry and songs. Man also likes blowing things up. Now we get to do both — in the name of science.

The aim of Friday's deliberate crash of two unmanned NASA spacecraft into the moon is to see if they can kick up some ice. It is the 20th lunar crash, most of them done on purpose, since the Russians first did it 50 years ago last month.

And that doesn't count the eight times we tried and somehow missed the moon or couldn't get off the ground.

For more than a century, the idea of Earthlings taking a swipe at the moon has permeated popular culture. The most enduring image is from the 1902 classic movie, "A Trip to the Moon," in which a bullet-like rocket wincingly lodges in the eye of the man in the moon.

As much as we like to gaze at the moon, we like stirring things up even more. It's the specialty of the hit show "Mythbusters" and the aptly named show "Destroyed in Seconds."

Friday's first smack: a 2.2-ton empty rocket stage crashing into the moon at twice the speed of a bullet, equal to the power of 1.5 tons of TNT, followed four minutes later with a smaller hit. As planned, the probe sent by NASA had separated into the two pieces Thursday night.

For those fearing that the crashes like Friday's could cause the moon to shift its orbit or send huge chunks back to Earth, agency scientists have some words of comfort.

They say such crashes have no more effect on the moon than an eyelash dropping on a jet. Sure the impact may seem big, but so is the moon.

This also is something that happens four times a month to the moon, said Dan Andrews, the head of this NASA lunar crash mission. The only difference is that those hits are from naturally occurring space rocks.

No one personifies the blow-'em-up-in-the-name-of-science more than Brown University geologist Peter Schultz, a scientist who worked on NASA's similar purposeful crash into a comet in 2005. He's a regular cosmic crasher in the name of science — and jollies.

"Whenever these things happen, the first thing that comes out of your mouth is 'Geez,'" Schultz said. "I've got the neatest job in the world."

It's human nature to blow things up and dissect what happens, Schultz said Thursday from the Vertical Gun Range at NASA's Ames Research Center.

"There's a reason you drop pumpkins off a 30-story building," he told The Associated Press.

He won't say whether he's done that — but he has shot eggs out of jet engines into the ground to see what happens to the shells. And then there's this don't-do-this-at-home moment from his boyhood: He put a firecracker into an ant mound and took pictures of the flying ants during the explosion.

Schultz later got a telescope and fell in love with the moon and its craters. He planned to look at the crash with spacecraft cameras capable of 1 million frames per second — getting millisecond-by-millisecond details of the violence.

NASA's plan, which often mistakenly was called "bombing the moon," has generated lots of late-night humor and even some outrage.

David Letterman, who has dropped watermelons off Manhattan rooftops, has riffed on it repeatedly. He speculated on a counterattack by the moon with his own NASA-like animation and then compared it to the U.S. war in Iraq, as an attack-first, ask-questions-later scenario.

Others aren't completely joking about their concerns.

Novelist Amy Ephron doesn't understand the hoopla surrounding NASA's moon crash and wondered whether the public would be as excited about the mission if a country like Iran were in charge.

Ephron created a "Help Save the Moon" Twitter campaign — part tongue-in-cheek and part serious — to prevent future lunar dustups and to start a debate about who owns the moon.

"I really am a pacifist. I don't like the idea of sending a missile to Afghanistan or to Iraq or to the moon," said Ephron, while stressing that she's not against space exploration.

Still the moon beckons as an inviting target.

NASA's Andrews said his 12-year-old son was out gazing at the sky a couple months ago and came back and told him: "Look, Dad, it's taunting you."

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On the Net

NASA's moon crash mission: http://www.nasa.gov/mission(underscore)pages/LCROSS/main/index.html

Save the moon Twitter site: http://twitter.com/helpsavethemoon