WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hollywood actor Fred Thompson has tentatively decided to run for president, according to a long-time friend and political adviser, and has quit his role on the TV crime series "Law & Order."
"His (Thompson's) mind is made up to run if interest continues to be as intense as it is," Tom Ingram said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Thompson, who won election twice as a Republican senator from Tennessee, will now begin raising money to gauge support, added Ingram, who now serves as chief of staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander, also a Tennessee Republican.
Thompson, a 64-year-old social conservative, was not immediately available for comment.
Late Wednesday, "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf said Thompson had asked to leave the show where he has played New York District Attorney Arthur Branch for five seasons.
"I've spoken to Fred today, and although he told me he has not made a firm decision about his political future, he felt that given the creative and scheduling constraints of the upcoming season, he asked to be released from his responsibilities to the show," Wolf said in a statement.
If he decides to seek the U.S. presidency, Thompson would join a crowded Republican field with no dominant choice. President George W. Bush, prohibited from running for a third term in November 2008, is set to leave office in January 2009.
The current front-runners include former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Zoellick promises to heal World Bank rifts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert Zoellick, picked by U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday to head the World Bank, said his biggest challenge would be to "calm the waters" following the storm over outgoing president Paul Wolfowitz.
"One of the issues will be to try to calm the waters, but also then try and get a sense from people about how we can build some consensus about the direction of the institution," Zoellick told reporters soon after Bush's announcement.
"One can have the best strategy and ideas in the world and unless one can operationalize it, it's not going to be successful," he added.
If confirmed by the World Bank board of member countries as expected, Zoellick, 53, will succeed Wolfowitz, who agreed to step down on June 30 after a bank panel found he violated rules in authorizing a hefty promotion and pay raise for his companion, Middle East expert Shaha Riza.
Zoellick, who left his job as deputy secretary of state last year to join Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, immediately reached out in an effort to heal divides that emerged among bank staff and member countries in the battle that led to Wolfowitz's resignation.
"This institution has been through a traumatic period and there is a lot of anxiety, some frustration and anger that has built up," he said, adding: "This is a group of first-class minds, highly trained, highly educated and devoted to the mission and this adds to the complications."
HANDS-ON MANAGER
Zoellick said he had already illustrated as U.S. Trade Representative that he was an able, hands-on manager who held daily meetings with senior managers, implying a different management style from Wolfowitz, who relied on an inner circle of advisors he brought in from the Pentagon and White House
"One of the issues will be to try to calm the waters, but also then try and get a sense from people about how we can build some consensus about the direction of the institution," Zoellick told reporters soon after Bush's announcement.
"One can have the best strategy and ideas in the world and unless one can operationalize it, it's not going to be successful," he added.
If confirmed by the World Bank board of member countries as expected, Zoellick, 53, will succeed Wolfowitz, who agreed to step down on June 30 after a bank panel found he violated rules in authorizing a hefty promotion and pay raise for his companion, Middle East expert Shaha Riza.
Zoellick, who left his job as deputy secretary of state last year to join Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, immediately reached out in an effort to heal divides that emerged among bank staff and member countries in the battle that led to Wolfowitz's resignation.
"This institution has been through a traumatic period and there is a lot of anxiety, some frustration and anger that has built up," he said, adding: "This is a group of first-class minds, highly trained, highly educated and devoted to the mission and this adds to the complications."
HANDS-ON MANAGER
Zoellick said he had already illustrated as U.S. Trade Representative that he was an able, hands-on manager who held daily meetings with senior managers, implying a different management style from Wolfowitz, who relied on an inner circle of advisors he brought in from the Pentagon and White House
5 Britons Kidnapped; 10 GIs Die in Iraq
Gunmen in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by security forces kidnapped five Britons from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office Tuesday, and a senior Iraqi official said the radical Shiite Mahdi Army militia was suspected.
Compounding the fresh evidence of chaos in Iraq, the U.S. military announced that a total of 10 American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash on Memorial Day, making May at 113 fatalities the third deadliest month of the war.
Across the country Tuesday, police and morgue officials contacted by The Associated Press reported a total of at least 120 people killed or found dead. All of the officials refused to allow use of their names fearing they could be targeted by militants.
The Finance Ministry kidnappings, if the work of the Mahdi Army as asserted by Iraqi officials, could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia's commander in Basra.
The raid also was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and snatched away as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims were never been found.
The Mahdi Army, which is deeply embedded in the Iraqi security forces, also was believed looking for a way to avenge the recent killing by U.S. forces of a top operative. He was said to have been the author of an attack in the holy city of Karbala in January in which gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers and then shot them to death.
In the Finance Ministry attack, about 40 heavily armed men snatched the five Britons from an annex and sped away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold not far away, according to the British Foreign office in London and Iraqi officials in the Interior and Finance ministries.
Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, confirmed that four of its security workers and one client were kidnapped. All four GardaWorld workers are British citizens, he said, declining to provide more details.
A spokesman for BearingPoint, a McLean, Va.,-based management consulting firm, said one of the company's employees, apparently the client referred to by Gavaghan, was among those abducted.
"We have been informed that a BearingPoint employee working in Iraq was taken from a work site early this morning," Steve Lunceford, the BearingPoint spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to AP.
BearingPoint has been working in Iraq since 2003 on a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded contract to support economic recovery and reform, Lunceford said.
A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry confirmed the five were British and that Mahdi Army militiamen were believed responsible. The official would provide the information only on condition that his name not be used.
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the abduction was carried out by men wearing police uniforms who showed up at the Finance Ministry data collection facility in the 19 four-wheel drive vehicles of the type used by police. He said the band of kidnappers sped off across the Army Canal to the east. Sadr City, the Shiite Mahdi Army stronghold, is directly east of the Canal.
Eight of the U.S. soldiers killed on Monday were from Task Force Lightning. Six were killed in an insurgent roadside bomb ambush as they raced to rescue the two others, who died in a helicopter crash. The military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical problems. All eight died in Diyala province north of the capital.
"We know that the helicopter had received ground fire, but do not know yet the cause of the helicopter going down," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, said in an interview with Associated Press Radio.
Two other American troopers died Monday in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad, the military said in a separate statement issued at Camp Victory in Baghdad.
Since the war began in March 2003, only two other months have recorded higher death tolls for U.S. troops: November 2004 with 137 deaths, and April 2004 with 135 fatalities.
Baghdad police, meanwhile, said two car bombers hit neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Tigris River on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 123 others. A Shiite mosque was destroyed in the second of the two attacks, in the Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad.
The first attack hit Tayaran Square, riddling cars with shrapnel, knocking over pushcarts and sending smoke into the sky, witnesses said. The blast killed 23 people and wounded 68 others, a police official in the district said on condition he not be named. The official said his superiors refused to allow him to speak to reporters.
Yousef Qasim, 37, was working in his fabric shop 200 yards away when the blast tore through a line of buses waiting at the square, he said.
"I rushed there to see about four or five burning bodies," he said. "I saw flesh on the ground and pools of blood."
Shop owners grabbed their wares and tried to flee, fearing a second blast, said Talib Dhirgham, who owns a nearby laundry. Police who arrived at the scene confiscated the cameras of journalists who came to cover the aftermath, according to AP photographers and television cameramen.
More than an hour later, a pickup truck parked next to a Shiite mosque in the Amil district in western Baghdad exploded, demolishing the mosque, killing 17 people and wounding 55 others, according to a second police official, who also spoke on condition anonymity because he felt use of his name would put his life in danger.
The mosque was reduced to rubble and piles of brick, according to AP Television News videotape. Cars were flipped over, charred and dented. Residents pushed debris off nearby roofs.
In another statement issued at Camp Victory, the U.S. military said the Amil explosion was the work of a suicide bomber in a white Honda. The military did not give a death toll.
"We will work closely with our Iraqi Security Force partners to bring those responsible to justice in accordance with Iraqi laws," said Col. Ricky D. Gibbs, commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
Of the 120 reported killed or found dead nationwide on Tuesday, 35 were bodies dumped or buried in a newly dug mass grave in Diyala province. A morgue official in Baqouba, the provincial capital, and a spokesman at the provincial police operations center in the province both reported the same figure, but refused to be named fearing reprisal from al-Qaida militants and Shiite militias battling for control of the region.
In other violence, gunmen in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and members of two tribes that had banded together against local insurgents, according to a police official in the city. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Compounding the fresh evidence of chaos in Iraq, the U.S. military announced that a total of 10 American soldiers were killed in roadside bombings and a helicopter crash on Memorial Day, making May at 113 fatalities the third deadliest month of the war.
Across the country Tuesday, police and morgue officials contacted by The Associated Press reported a total of at least 120 people killed or found dead. All of the officials refused to allow use of their names fearing they could be targeted by militants.
The Finance Ministry kidnappings, if the work of the Mahdi Army as asserted by Iraqi officials, could be retaliation for the killing by British forces last week of the militia's commander in Basra.
The raid also was reminiscent of an attack by the Shiite militiamen, dressed as Interior Ministry commandos, who stormed a Higher Education Ministry office Nov. 14 and snatched away as many as 200 people. Dozens of those kidnap victims were never been found.
The Mahdi Army, which is deeply embedded in the Iraqi security forces, also was believed looking for a way to avenge the recent killing by U.S. forces of a top operative. He was said to have been the author of an attack in the holy city of Karbala in January in which gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers and then shot them to death.
In the Finance Ministry attack, about 40 heavily armed men snatched the five Britons from an annex and sped away in a convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold not far away, according to the British Foreign office in London and Iraqi officials in the Interior and Finance ministries.
Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld, confirmed that four of its security workers and one client were kidnapped. All four GardaWorld workers are British citizens, he said, declining to provide more details.
A spokesman for BearingPoint, a McLean, Va.,-based management consulting firm, said one of the company's employees, apparently the client referred to by Gavaghan, was among those abducted.
"We have been informed that a BearingPoint employee working in Iraq was taken from a work site early this morning," Steve Lunceford, the BearingPoint spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to AP.
BearingPoint has been working in Iraq since 2003 on a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded contract to support economic recovery and reform, Lunceford said.
A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry confirmed the five were British and that Mahdi Army militiamen were believed responsible. The official would provide the information only on condition that his name not be used.
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the abduction was carried out by men wearing police uniforms who showed up at the Finance Ministry data collection facility in the 19 four-wheel drive vehicles of the type used by police. He said the band of kidnappers sped off across the Army Canal to the east. Sadr City, the Shiite Mahdi Army stronghold, is directly east of the Canal.
Eight of the U.S. soldiers killed on Monday were from Task Force Lightning. Six were killed in an insurgent roadside bomb ambush as they raced to rescue the two others, who died in a helicopter crash. The military did not say if the helicopter was shot down or had mechanical problems. All eight died in Diyala province north of the capital.
"We know that the helicopter had received ground fire, but do not know yet the cause of the helicopter going down," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman, said in an interview with Associated Press Radio.
Two other American troopers died Monday in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad, the military said in a separate statement issued at Camp Victory in Baghdad.
Since the war began in March 2003, only two other months have recorded higher death tolls for U.S. troops: November 2004 with 137 deaths, and April 2004 with 135 fatalities.
Baghdad police, meanwhile, said two car bombers hit neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Tigris River on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 123 others. A Shiite mosque was destroyed in the second of the two attacks, in the Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad.
The first attack hit Tayaran Square, riddling cars with shrapnel, knocking over pushcarts and sending smoke into the sky, witnesses said. The blast killed 23 people and wounded 68 others, a police official in the district said on condition he not be named. The official said his superiors refused to allow him to speak to reporters.
Yousef Qasim, 37, was working in his fabric shop 200 yards away when the blast tore through a line of buses waiting at the square, he said.
"I rushed there to see about four or five burning bodies," he said. "I saw flesh on the ground and pools of blood."
Shop owners grabbed their wares and tried to flee, fearing a second blast, said Talib Dhirgham, who owns a nearby laundry. Police who arrived at the scene confiscated the cameras of journalists who came to cover the aftermath, according to AP photographers and television cameramen.
More than an hour later, a pickup truck parked next to a Shiite mosque in the Amil district in western Baghdad exploded, demolishing the mosque, killing 17 people and wounding 55 others, according to a second police official, who also spoke on condition anonymity because he felt use of his name would put his life in danger.
The mosque was reduced to rubble and piles of brick, according to AP Television News videotape. Cars were flipped over, charred and dented. Residents pushed debris off nearby roofs.
In another statement issued at Camp Victory, the U.S. military said the Amil explosion was the work of a suicide bomber in a white Honda. The military did not give a death toll.
"We will work closely with our Iraqi Security Force partners to bring those responsible to justice in accordance with Iraqi laws," said Col. Ricky D. Gibbs, commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
Of the 120 reported killed or found dead nationwide on Tuesday, 35 were bodies dumped or buried in a newly dug mass grave in Diyala province. A morgue official in Baqouba, the provincial capital, and a spokesman at the provincial police operations center in the province both reported the same figure, but refused to be named fearing reprisal from al-Qaida militants and Shiite militias battling for control of the region.
In other violence, gunmen in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and members of two tribes that had banded together against local insurgents, according to a police official in the city. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Russia: New missile can penetrate any defense system
Russian military officials have confirmed that the country has tested a new inter-continental ballistic missile designed to evade missile defence systems.
The massive ICBM, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch site in northwestern Russia.
The Russians say the missile is capable of evading Stars Wars-style defence systems like that the one the the United States wants to construct in Europe
However, yesterday's test is believed to be more about Russia modernising its nuclear arsenal than its worries about the US defence shield.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said: "As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
"In terms of defense and security, Russians can look calmly to the country's future."
The massive ICBM, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch site in northwestern Russia.
The Russians say the missile is capable of evading Stars Wars-style defence systems like that the one the the United States wants to construct in Europe
However, yesterday's test is believed to be more about Russia modernising its nuclear arsenal than its worries about the US defence shield.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said: "As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
"In terms of defense and security, Russians can look calmly to the country's future."
Missing girl's parents to meet pope
VATICAN CITY — The parents of a missing 4-year-old British girl sat in the front row of Pope Benedict XVI's general audience Wednesday to ask for prayers for their daughter who vanished while on vacation with her family in Portugal earlier this month.
The Vatican had readily accepted the British couple's request to meet with the pope, as they press their campaign to publicize Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Devout Catholics, they recently prayed at the pilgrimage site in Fatima, Portugal, for her safe return.
"Obviously we have very mixed emotions about being here, and of course why we are here," Gerry McCann said as he arrived in St. Peter's Square. "In normal circumstances it would be one of the most exciting things we could do in our own lifetimes, but very much on our minds is the fact that we are here without Madeleine."
Earlier this week Vatican officials said that the McCann family would be among the dignitaries and other notables brought up to greet the pope at the end of his weekly audience with faithful in St. Peter's Square.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor had requested the meeting.
"We are talking about a family drama that has touched world public opinion. It could not but touch the Holy Father, especially since these people are Catholics," Benedettini said.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3 when her parents left her and her 2-year-old twin siblings alone in their hotel room while they went to a restaurant in their hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a resort town in Portugal's Algarve region. Gerry and Kate McCann, have said they won't return to Britain without their daughter.
The family also planned to give a news conference at the residence of Britain's ambassador to the Holy See.
The Vatican had readily accepted the British couple's request to meet with the pope, as they press their campaign to publicize Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Devout Catholics, they recently prayed at the pilgrimage site in Fatima, Portugal, for her safe return.
"Obviously we have very mixed emotions about being here, and of course why we are here," Gerry McCann said as he arrived in St. Peter's Square. "In normal circumstances it would be one of the most exciting things we could do in our own lifetimes, but very much on our minds is the fact that we are here without Madeleine."
Earlier this week Vatican officials said that the McCann family would be among the dignitaries and other notables brought up to greet the pope at the end of his weekly audience with faithful in St. Peter's Square.
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor had requested the meeting.
"We are talking about a family drama that has touched world public opinion. It could not but touch the Holy Father, especially since these people are Catholics," Benedettini said.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3 when her parents left her and her 2-year-old twin siblings alone in their hotel room while they went to a restaurant in their hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a resort town in Portugal's Algarve region. Gerry and Kate McCann, have said they won't return to Britain without their daughter.
The family also planned to give a news conference at the residence of Britain's ambassador to the Holy See.
Thailand's Oldest Political Party Cleared of Election Offences
May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand's constitutional court cleared the Democrat Party, the country's oldest, of breaking election laws last year.
The nine-judge tribunal, appointed by the military junta that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September, said today that the Democrat Party can continue to exist. Its leader Abhisit Vejjajiva was also absolved of any wrongdoing.
The judges are expected to rule later today on whether to disband the former ruling party Thai Rak Thai and ban its key members from politics for offences in the same April 2006 election.
Thailand's junta deployed more than 10,000 soldiers and police in Bangkok ahead of today's verdicts, which Democrat and Thai Rak Thai leaders pledged to respect. King Bhumibol Adulyadej warned last week that any judgment ``will damage the country'' and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said this morning he would order emergency rule if there were violent protests.
While a number of schools in Bangkok were closed on security concerns today, there were no signs of any large protests in the city, with less than 200 people gathered quietly behind police barriers across the road from the court.
Surayud told Thai television before the verdict, which took more than three hours, that the situation is calm throughout the country.
The nine-judge tribunal, appointed by the military junta that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September, said today that the Democrat Party can continue to exist. Its leader Abhisit Vejjajiva was also absolved of any wrongdoing.
The judges are expected to rule later today on whether to disband the former ruling party Thai Rak Thai and ban its key members from politics for offences in the same April 2006 election.
Thailand's junta deployed more than 10,000 soldiers and police in Bangkok ahead of today's verdicts, which Democrat and Thai Rak Thai leaders pledged to respect. King Bhumibol Adulyadej warned last week that any judgment ``will damage the country'' and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said this morning he would order emergency rule if there were violent protests.
While a number of schools in Bangkok were closed on security concerns today, there were no signs of any large protests in the city, with less than 200 people gathered quietly behind police barriers across the road from the court.
Surayud told Thai television before the verdict, which took more than three hours, that the situation is calm throughout the country.
Israel decides against expanding Gaza action (Extra)
Gaza - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's inner security cabinet decided Wednesday against expanding a two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to intense rocket fire at southern Israel from the area.
The Israeli military would keep up its airstrikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets and would also continue with limited ground incursions up to the outskirts of Palestinian populated-areas in the Strip, without entering cities and towns, Israeli media reported.
Several hardline ministers in the 12-men forum had demanded tougher action against the militant groups behind the rocket-fire. One minister called for including Hamas political leaders in Israel's list of air-strike targets.
The Israeli military would keep up its airstrikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad military targets and would also continue with limited ground incursions up to the outskirts of Palestinian populated-areas in the Strip, without entering cities and towns, Israeli media reported.
Several hardline ministers in the 12-men forum had demanded tougher action against the militant groups behind the rocket-fire. One minister called for including Hamas political leaders in Israel's list of air-strike targets.
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