Overnight News Digest: Seven Combat Brigades to Iraq

Top Story

• McClatchy - U.S. announces deployment of seven combat brigades to Iraq

  The Defense Department announced Monday that it will send seven combat brigades to Iraq by the end of the year, suggesting that the Pentagon is planning to maintain its troop levels in Iraq through next year. The military also alerted four National Guard Army brigades, or roughly 14,000 troops, to prepare for deployments to Iraq beginning next spring. A fifth National Guard brigade, Vermont's 86th Brigade Combat Team, is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in the spring of 2010, the Pentagon announced. Those National Guard brigades and the roughly 25,000 active-duty soldiers will replace brigades finishing their deployments in Iraq. In addition, the military said a headquarters division, the 25th Division, will deploy this fall. The deployments, which would indicate a plan to keep 15 combat brigades, or roughly 140,000 troops, in Iraq through 2009...

USA

• LA Times - Obama criticizes McCain for lobbyist-run campaign

  Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama assailed Republican John McCain for a campaign "being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for with their money." Referring to a string of resignations from McCain's presidential campaign by staffers with ties to lobbying organizations, Obama said that "after nearly three decades in Washington, John McCain can't see or won't acknowledge what's obvious to all of us here today: that lobbyists aren't just part of the system in Washington, they're part of the problem." Obama, noting that two corporate lobbyists are "still at the helm" of McCain's campaign, said the Arizona senator has been running for president for a year "but it was only in the past few days, when stories surfaced publicly about his lobbyist aides and their clients, that Sen. McCain took any action to curb their roles."

• WaPo - A Fifth Top Aide To McCain Resigns

  Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, resigned yesterday because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said. He is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern over whether lobbyists have too great an influence over the Republican nominee. Last week, campaign manager Rick Davis issued a new policy that requires all campaign personnel to either resign or sever ties with lobbying firms or outside political groups... His firm, the Loeffler Group, had collected $15 million from Saudi Arabia and millions more from other foreign governments. He is listed as chairman and senior partner at the firm.

• The Hill - Rep. Boehner backtracks on ’08 prediction

  House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is backing off his bold prediction that Republicans will gain seats this November. A confident Boehner told reporters in April that once voters heard the Republican message, the GOP would put on a strong showing in the fall. "I think we are going to gain seats this year. Period," he said at the time. Six weeks and three special-election losses later, a spokesman for Boehner attempted to tamp down expectations. "This is going to be a better year for Republicans than people think," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said on Monday. "We hope to pick up seats — that’s the goal."

• AP - FBI flagged mistreatment of detainees according to Justice Dept.

  FBI agents raised concerns about U.S. interrogators mistreating terror detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay during the three years after Sept. 11 but in some cases were slow to report it, an upcoming Justice Department report concludes. Additionally, in a few isolated cases, FBI agents did not immediately withdraw when they witnessed harsh treatment of detainees who were being questioned, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the report. The report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is expected to be released Tuesday after more than three years in the making. It is certain to fuel debate over whether the Bush administration knowingly allowed the use of interrogation tactics widely defined as illegal forms of torture... The report's release was delayed for more than three years due to disagreements and negotiations between Fine's office and the Pentagon over how much would be classified or otherwise shielded from public review...

• Seattle Times - Degrees atone for 1942 wrongs

  The applause lasted nine minutes as dozens of Japanese Americans whose education was cut short after the bombing of Pearl Harbor filed into an auditorium Sunday at the University of Washington. It was the start of an emotion-filled event in which the UW awarded 450 honorary degrees. The students, now mostly in their late 80s, were forced into internment camps or to other parts of the country in 1942 after President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order that effectively banned Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

• McClatchy - White House influenced EPA ruling on California emissions

  Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson was interested in granting California's petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, but later changed his mind and denied it after meetings with White House officials, an EPA official told congressional investigators in testimony released Monday. The official, Jason Burnett, also told investigators that other EPA officials had instructed him not to answer questions about the White House's role in the decision, according to a memo from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform... The memo said that the evidence before the committee suggests that the White House "played a pivotal role in the decision to reject the California petition, but it does not explain the basis of the White House intervention." It said the committee was investigating further.

• AP - Recycling lags behind compact fluorescent push

  Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word. Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling — despite what public officials and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash and end up in landfills and incinerators. For now, much of the nation has no real recycling network for CFLs, despite the ubiquitous PR campaigns, rebates and giveaways encouraging people to adopt the swirly darlings of the energy-conscious movement. Recyclers and others guess that only a small fraction of CFLs sold in the United States are recycled, while the rest are put out with household trash or otherwise discarded... Swedish retailer IKEA collects the bulbs at its 34 U.S. stores and manufacturer Osram Sylvania offers a mail-in program.

Europe

• Guardian - Ban on hybrid embryos and saviour siblings fails

  An attempt to ban the use of hybrid human-animal embryos for scientific research was rejected in the House of Commons tonight. Voting was 176 to 336, a majority of 160, during the committee-stage debate on the human fertilisation and embryology bill. During the same debate a bid to ban the creation of so-called 'saviour siblings' genetically matched to help treat a sick older brother or sister, was also defeated tonight. Voting was 163 votes to 342, a majority 179.

• Spiegel - Negotiators gather in Dublin to ban cluster bombs

  Almost 10 years after the Ottawa Treaty banned the use of landmines, more than 100 countries are gathering on Monday to attempt to ban cluster bombs as well. However, the United States and other big producers will not be attending. Washington is arguing that the proposed treaty threatens to undermine the very fabric of NATO... The biggest producers of the cluster weapons, the United States, China, Israel and Russia, are not attending the 12-day conference and have been lobbying hard to have it watered down. Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations, told Reuters that Washington is opposed to any ban. "We do not believe they are indiscriminate weapons." ... According to the United Nations Development Program, cluster munitions have caused more than 13,000 confirmed injuries and deaths around the world, the vast majority of them in Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. The munitions caused more civilian casualties in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003 than any other weapon system.

• NYT - 3 Nordic Banks Help Iceland Prop Up Currency

  In a show of Nordic solidarity, three central banks in the region have ridden to the rescue of Iceland, lending the island emergency credit of up to 1.5 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to shore up its swooning currency and forestall a broader economic collapse. The unusual collaboration is intended to calm the turbulence that has buffeted Iceland since the beginning of the year, when rumors of a banking crisis led speculators to bet against the country’s currency, the krona. The central banks of Sweden, Denmark and Norway announced the plan Friday, in the form of swap agreements that would give the Central Bank of Iceland access to as much as 500 million euros from each of them.

• Russia Today - Russia must grow its own food - Putin

  Vladimir Putin says Russia needs to cut its dependence on food imports in order to protect the population from sharp price rises. The Prime Minister made his comments during a visit to Stavropol region, the country’s agricultural heartland. The PM said Russia had the potential to become an exporter of wheat, and to decrease its high dependence on imports.  Around 40% of meat and more than a quarter of dairy products consumed in Russia come from abroad. "Our key goals are to secure the stable development of agricultural areas, to improve the quality of life on the land, to make the agro-industrial sector significantly more efficient and to increase the competitiveness of home-grown products. That way we can protect ourselves from sharp price fluctuations on the international markets," Vladimir Putin said.

• Independent - Georgia's leader vows to prevent Russia reviving the Soviet Union

  Two photos stand out in the office of the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili – there's an autographed one of him with his buddy, George Bush; then there's the unsmiling one with his nemesis Vladimir Putin. The body language says it all – the Georgian looks the other way, the Russian disdainfully at the ground. Yet more than anyone else, Mr Putin has defined the presidency of Mr Saakashvili, who came to power in the rose revolution of 2003 promising to bury Georgia's Soviet past... There's no doubting that he wants the concierge to be Nato and the EU – into whose orbits he wants to move Georgia, much to Russia's annoyance. He is out to convince the West that the Kremlin's real goal is the takeover of territory the Soviet Union lost, and force it into action. "Russia is trying to reverse everything that has been done in Europe since 1991, and Western Europe is still hesitating with what answers it should come up with," he complains.

• AFP - Spanish court hears testimony from Tibet monks in genocide case

  A Spanish court hearing a genocide case against seven top Chinese leaders, including former president Jiang Zemin and former prime minister Li Peng, heard testimony on Monday from three Tibetan monks. Judge Ismael Moreno of the National Audience, Spain's highest criminal court, questioned Palden Gyatso, Janpel Monlam and Bhagdro who spent time in prison in China for their "counter-revolutionary activities" in Tibet. Since June, 2006, the court has been hearing the case against the seven Chinese leaders for torture and crimes against humanity as well as genocide allegedly carried out in Tibet during the 1980s.

• DW-World - German Environment Minister: Biodiversity Poses an 'Alarming Challenge'

  Protecting biodiversity is one of the most important global challenges, Germany's Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Monday, May 19. He spoke at the start of a two-week United Nations conference on the topic. Protecting animal and plant life from climate change and pollution should be at the top of the global agenda, Gabriel said at the conference in Bonn on Monday... "In my view, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda," Gabriel said in a speech opening the conference, held once every two years.

Africa

• CS Monitor - Zimbabweans face hate in South Africa

  You know it's bad when you have to go to another country to buy bread. That's just what Bellarms and his brothers do every day, buying enough loaves of bread in the South African town of Musina to fill the back of his pickup truck and take it back across the border to his native Zimbabwe to sell for 200 million Zimbabwe dollars (roughly $1 US) a loaf... The rising number of Zimbabweans in South Africa – estimated to be nearly 3 million – has created growing anxiety among the working-class South Africans who compete with them for jobs. This anxiety has recently turned to anger, as a wave of antiforeigner attacks in Johannesburg townships such as Alexandra and Diepsloot, and even downtown Johannesburg itself have killed 22 in the past few days, and left 217 others injured and nearly 6,000 homeless.

• BBC News - Berber riots rock Algerian town

  The Algerian security forces have sent hundreds of officers to the southern town of Berriane to end three days of fighting between Arabs and Berbers. Two people have reportedly been killed in clashes between rival gangs of hooded young men in the Saharan town. A number of homes and shops have been petrol-bombed. Correspondents say long-running tensions between Arabs and Berbers in Algeria have been worsened by high unemployment and a shortage of housing.

• Daily Nation - Kenya: ODM leaders demand amnesty for suspects

  Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a number of ODM ministers and MPs Sunday said youths  arrested during the post-election violence should be granted amnesty. Addressing a rally in Tinderet in Nandi, Mr Odinga said he held consultations with key Government officials on the release of youths who were arrested during post-election violence, that rocked the country after the December polls. "I have held several consultations with President Kibaki and Internal Security minister George Saitoti over the matter and we expect it to be addressed expeditiously," Mr Odinga said. The PM said the youths were languishing in jails in Nyanza, Rift Valley and Nairobi, and it was time they were released.

• BBC News - Ethiopian millions 'risk hunger'

  Six million children in Ethiopia are at risk of acute malnutrition following the failure of rains, the UN children's agency, Unicef, has warned. More than 60,000 children in two Ethiopian regions require immediate specialist feeding just to survive, Unicef says. The situation is expected to worsen in the next few months as crops fail. Aid agencies in Ethiopia say they are short of funds as donors concentrate on the emergencies in China and Burma.

Middle East

• AP - 11 Iraqi police recruits killed, police say

  Suspected Sunni insurgents ambushed a minibus carrying Iraqi police recruits near the Syrian border Monday, killing all 11 passengers, Iraqi officials said — the first deadly attack since Iraqi forces launched a major sweep against al-Qaida fighters in the region. The hail of gunfire came hours after Iraqi officials said they arrested a man suspected of being al-Qaida in Iraq's chief leader in the northern city of Mosul, the terror network's most prominent urban stronghold. The attack, the bloodiest in months against police, left the minibus riddled with bullets in the desert west of Mosul, where the crackdown has been centered. Some al-Qaida fighters are believed to have fled the city toward neighboring Syria.

• LA Times - In Iraq, U.S. apologizes for soldier using Koran in target practice

  U.S. commanders moved swiftly to avert a crisis after a soldier deployed in Baghdad was found to have used a copy of the Koran for target practice. The incident had the potential to inflame Muslim opinion against the U.S. military and compromise the delicate alliance it has been forging with Sunni Arab communities against religious extremists. Local leaders accepted an apology from senior U.S. commanders, and the military said Sunday that the soldier responsible had been disciplined and pulled from Iraq.

• NYT - War That Traumatizes Iraqis Takes Toll on Hospital That Treats Them

  In a different time, in another country, where violence and terror did not stalk the streets, Dr. Amir Hussain could practice psychiatry the way he once hoped to. He can see it in his mind: the clean, tastefully decorated hospital wards, the well-stocked pharmacies, the gleaming laboratory equipment, the thickly carpeted consulting rooms, the halfway houses and outreach teams that help chronically ill patients re-establish their lives outside the hospital... Only four of 11 psychiatrists remain at Ibn Rushid; the rest have moved north to Kurdistan, where the risk of kidnapping or assassination is lower, or have fled the country. The psychiatric hospital, one of two in Iraq, provides short-term treatment and was once considered a jewel of the country’s medical system, renowned for its modern care. Patients from as far away as Syria and Jordan came for treatment, and the hospital’s 75 beds were always full. Specialists from Western countries visited to teach the latest forms of treatment. But Ibn Rushid’s fortunes have fallen with those of the broken city around it, a decline that began under Saddam Hussein and that has grown steeper each year since 2003.

• CS Monitor - Sunni backlash follows Hezbollah's strike in Lebanon

  Hezbollah's swift routing of Sunni groups during deadly street battles that started May 8 in Beirut has spawned an ominous backlash within Lebanon's Sunni community – one of anger, humiliation, and fear. While fighting lasted about a week, the result could see the influence of moderate Sunni leaders weaken as their constituents shift toward more militant groups – such as Al Qaeda and its adherents – as a perceived source of protection against powerful Hezbollah. "What happened in Beirut could push the Sunnis to extremism," says Sheikh Maher Hammoud, a prominent Sunni cleric in Sidon and a close ally of Hezbollah since the 1980s. Hezbollah's offensive in Beirut may have been intended only as a short, sharp shock to discourage the Lebanese government from tampering with its military wing, but it has delivered a blow to the Shiite party's longstanding efforts to prevent intra-Muslim discord.

• NYT - Islamists Win 24 of 50 Seats in Parliament of Kuwait

  Islamist candidates won 24 of 50 seats in Kuwait’s parliamentary elections on Saturday, a gain of two seats over their total in the last round of elections there two years ago, according to official results released Sunday. Liberal candidates and their allies won seven seats, one fewer than in the last round. None of the 27 women who ran won in what was the second election since women were granted the right to vote and run for office in 2005. Economic issues dominated the monthlong election campaign, and it was not clear how the Islamists’ greater share of power would affect the Kuwaiti Parliament, one of the most powerful and active legislatures in the Arab world. There are no legally recognized political parties in Kuwait, and affiliation is flexible.

• WaPo - Al-Qaeda Operative Loses Freedom in Yemen

  Jaber Elbaneh, the al-Qaeda operative who had roamed free in Yemen despite a $5 million reward offered by the U.S. government for his capture, was jailed Sunday by a Yemeni judge. Elbaneh's detention was ordered one day after a Washington Post article on how he was living under the personal protection of Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Yemeni government has repeatedly refused U.S. requests to extradite Elbaneh to stand trial on terrorism charges, straining diplomatic relations between the two countries.

• Reuters - Russia-Iran rail link to open in 2011

  A railway linking Russia and Iran via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan will open in December 2011, a top Turkmen executive said on Monday. The link, which will be constructed by the two ex-Soviet states, along with Iran, will cover 900 km (560 miles) and will allow for travel and goods transportation between Europe and the Persian Gulf in one continuous stretch for the first time ever.

South Asia

• IHT - Seesaw Afghan war strains ties among allies

  Last autumn, groups of Taliban fighters swarmed into every village in this district in southern Afghanistan. American forces arrived to sweep them out in January, people here say. By April, the Taliban were back, surrounding the district center in a show of force that froze villagers in their tracks. Then the insurgents melted away again. Khakrez, two hours north of the city of Kandahar, is just one corner of a complex war in Afghanistan. But the seesaw nature of the fight here speaks to the larger problems facing NATO and American forces seven years into a conflict that shows few signs of winding down. Increasingly, the question before the allies is how much longer it will take in crucial provinces, like Kandahar, to lock in tentative gains and bring real security and strong government to Afghans. An equally important question is whether that can be done before the war wears down relations within the U.S.-led alliance, and between it and the Afghan people.

• Guardian - Demolished by the Pakistan army: the village punished for harbouring the Taliban

  An estimated 200,000 villagers have been displaced since the Pakistani army attacked the mountain redoubt of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and a suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto four months ago. The operation was called zalzala - Urdu for earthquake. One of the first villages they hit was Spinkai, nestled under a line of jagged hills at the gateway to the Mehsud stronghold in South Waziristan. The army swept through with helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks that crunched across a parched riverbed. After four days of heavy fighting - 25 militants and six soldiers died, the army said - the militants retreated up the valley. In their wake, the soldiers said, they discovered bomb factories and schools for teenage suicide bombers. Waziristan is the hub of a surge in suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The local people had already fled to refugee camps in nearby North-West Frontier province. But army retaliation against them - for allowing the militants to operate - was swift and harsh. Bulldozers and explosives experts turned Spinkai's bazaar into a mile-long pile of rubble. Petrol stations, shops, even parts of the hospital, were levelled or blown up.

• Reuters - India to protest to Pakistan over border shooting

  An Indian soldier was killed in cross-border fire in Kashmir on Monday, prompting India to lodge a protest with Islamabad, an army spokesman said. The soldier died in shooting from the Pakistani side of a military control line that divides Kashmir between the two countries, the spokesman said. India said it was the third such incident in Kashmir this month. It comes two days ahead of Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Pakistan for a review of a four-year-old peace process. The Indian army said the firing was unprovoked and they would lodge a protest.

• Times of India - India second largest seller of carbon credits according to World Bank

  India has emerged as the second largest seller of carbon credits in the global market with six per cent share in 2007, while China tops the list with a huge 73%, a World Bank report said. "India and Brazil, at 6% market share each, transacted the highest volumes after China in 2007," said the report 'State and trends of the carbon market 2008'.

Asia-Pacific

• Xinhua - China begins three-day mourning for quake victims

  China on Monday began a three-day national mourning for the tens of thousands of people killed in a powerful earthquake which struck the country's southwest on May 12... All national flags will fly at half-mast at home and Chinese diplomatic missions abroad from Monday to Wednesday. Public recreational activities will be halted during the mourning period... The death toll from the massive quake rose to 32,476 nationwide as of 2 p.m. Sunday, while the injured numbered 220,109, according to the emergency response office under the State Council.

• NYT - Aftershock Alert Spreads Panic in Chinese City

  Panic erupted here in the capital of Sichuan Province and at least one other Sichuan city on Monday after provincial television issued a warning of the possibility of a severe aftershock. Near midnight in Chengdu, thousands of people trying to evacuate the city by car became mired in gridlock, stuck bumper to bumper in clotted streets. Other people quickly gathered blankets and rushed outside, planning to sleep on the street or in neighborhood parks. In Mianyang, one of the areas hit hardest by last week’s earthquake, guests were evacuated from hotels, joining the masses in the streets. It was not immediately clear on what basis the warning was issued. Hundreds of aftershocks have occurred since the main earthquake on May 12, which the government now says reached a magnitude of 8.0.

• Guardian - Burma softens stance on cyclone aid

  Burma agreed today to allow some international assistance for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, two weeks after the devastating storm killed an estimated 128,000 people... The junta agreed to let neighbouring countries organise help for the cyclone victims, ministers said at a meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), a 10-member regional bloc that includes Burma... Aid teams from Asean nations would be allowed unrestricted access, but those from other countries would need specific permission to enter [according to George Yeo, Singapore's foreign minister].

• Reuters - Malaysia's PM in danger as Mahathir quits party

  Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rejected calls to step down after his predecessor quit Malaysia's main ruling party on Monday, a move that could undermine its hold on power. Mahathir Mohamad, who handpicked Abdullah as his successor in 2003, insisted that he would not return to the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) until the premier leaves, adding to political uncertainty that could roil financial markets... It was not immediately clear whether the 82-year old Mahathir, who led UMNO for 22 years, would form a splinter party to fight UMNO, but analysts said the move was aimed at jolting the party to act against Abdullah and to preserve Mahathir's legacy.

• SMH - 19 AU dollars a tonne: the price to pollute

  Australia finally has a price for carbon emissions. In a symbolic trade between two of Australia's oldest companies, carbon emissions have been given an initial price of $19 a tonne before the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme begins in 2010. When it begins, power users could be liable for nearly $12 billion in extra electricity costs a year. "Under emissions trading, we would expect that electricity prices will rise," Elaine Prior, an analyst for Citigroup, said. But consumers - particularly those on low incomes - are unlikely to bear the full cost of the charge on pollution.

• SMH - Animal welfare groups outraged as kangaroo cull starts

  The Defence Department has started culling more than 400 kangaroos on department land in Canberra, angering the RSPCA, which says the cull was preventable, and animal rights activists who wanted the animals moved to NSW. The department would not say yesterday whether the cull at the former naval site in Belconnen had started, but the RSPCA, which was monitoring the cull, confirmed it had begun... Inspection reports to the group from the cull found no "welfare issues" over the treatment of the eastern greys. They were shot with tranquilliser guns then killed by lethal injection. Mr Linke said the cull, which had been ordered to stop kangaroos destroying endangered grasslands, could have been avoided.

• Guardian - Australia cancer deaths linked to Agent Orange

  Claims by a leading researcher that cancer deaths in a small town in Queensland, Australia, are 10 times higher than the state average owing to the secret testing of Agent Orange there more than 40 years ago are to be investigated by the authorities. Australian military scientists sprayed the toxic herbicide on rainforest near Innisfail during defoliant testing in the early years of the Vietnam war, it is alleged. The jungle began dying and has never recovered, according to local people. The site is near a river which supplies water for the town in the far north of the country and researchers believe the spraying may be responsible for cancer rates in the area being 10 times the state average and four times the national average.

Americas

• AP - Venezuela protests alleged US plane incursion

  Venezuela wants the U.S. ambassador to explain a violation of its airspace by a U.S. Navy plane, the country's foreign minister said Monday. The U.S. Navy plane was detected in Venezuelan airspace Saturday night near the Caribbean island of La Orchila, and questioned by the Caracas airport control tower, Defense Minister Gen. Gustavo Rangel Briceno said... The Navy crew on the plane, which is based in Curacao, had some language problems during the three-minute radio conversation, [an anonymous U.S. Defense Dept.] official said. "They promptly responded and identified themselves as U.S. Navy, on a training mission in international airspace, and that a navigational error had possibly occurred," the official said.

• NYT - Colombia Denies Its Forces Entered Venezuela Illegally

  Tension between Colombia and Venezuela increased Sunday after Colombia’s defense minister rejected an accusation by Venezuela’s government that 60 Colombian troops had illegally entered a border region of Venezuela known to be a redoubt for Colombian guerrilla groups. The differing accounts of Colombian troop activity in the area are part of a dispute that has been festering for months. The dispute intensified in March when Venezuela reacted to a Colombian incursion in Ecuador by saying it would respond with military force if Colombia pursued Colombian rebels into Venezuela.

• AP - Colombian rebel urges others to surrender

  A day after surrendering to the army, Colombia's best-known female rebel commander urged other guerrillas Monday to follow her example and abandon their decades-long struggle. Nelly Avila Moreno, better known as "Karina," denied her bloody reputation during a news conference and said her surrender owed much to intense military operations. She said she feared for her life after the recent murder of a fellow rebel commander by one of his bodyguards... Her surrender Sunday was a major propaganda victory for President Alvaro Uribe, who has made defeating the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the cornerstone of his administration.

• McClatchy - Brazil's sugar cane mills race to keep up with ethanol boom

  Fuels made from sugar cane have become Brazil's second most-used energy source, only behind fossil fuels. That boom has transformed Moema into one of Brazil's biggest sugar-cane mills and turned much of Sao Paulo state, where Moema is located, into the world capital of sugar cane ethanol... Exploding demand has pushed mills here to plant on more farmland, harvest the crop more quickly and grow better-quality cane... Brazilian officials said part of their secret is nonstop research into sugar cane and ethanol, which started more than three decades ago when Brazil's government first subsidized ethanol production to counter rising world petroleum prices.

• Miami Herald - Cuba: U.S. funneled money to dissidents

  in Cuba served as an emissary between a top dissident on the island and an exile militant from Miami serving time for weapons possession, the Cuban government announced Monday at a news conference aired live on Cuban radio. Top Cuban officials released a series of e-mails, which they allege show that dissident Martha Beatriz Roque gets regular financing from Santiago Alvarez, the benefactor and friend of alleged terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Alvarez's group, Fundación Rescate Juridica, also allegedly sent $200 a month to dissident Jorge Luis "Antúnez" García and another $2,400 to the Ladies in White dissident group. The Cuban government says the U.S. government's top diplomat in Havana, Michael Parmly, was the person who helped carry the money to Cuba.

• BBC News - Dominican leader wins third term

  President Leonel Fernandez has won re-election in the Dominican Republic as his main opponent admitted defeat. Miguel Vargas Maldonado conceded after partial results confirmed exit poll predictions giving the president a clear lead in his bid for a third term. With more than 90% of votes now counted, President Fernandez has 53% support - enough to avoid a run-off.

• LA Times - New phase seen in Mexico's drug war

  To strike back at narcotics traffickers suspected of ordering the assassination of Mexico's top drug cop, President Felipe Calderon dispatched 2,000 army troops and federal police to the gang's home base, the western state of Sinaloa. The traffickers struck back themselves with a paramilitary-style ambush of a police station, and taunted the newly arrived troops with mocking signs on the streets. Analysts say those moves last week show that the killing of Edgar Millan Gomez on May 8 has opened a dangerous new phase in the country's drug war.

• Toronto Star - Dion exudes confidence on green plan

  Over the summer, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will be criss-crossing the country, telling Canadians already reeling from higher gas prices that they need to pay a lot more for the rest of their energy sources. His message, in essence, is that it's time for Canadians to put their money where their mouths are if they are serious about saving the planet. No one thinks it will be an easy sell, but Dion seems determined, even eager, to take on the task. In fact, he's staking the Liberals' chances in the next election – not to mention his own political future – on this risky strategy. "I am convinced that far too many political elites underestimate Canadians," he explains. "When you speak to the minds and big hearts of our great people, good policies translate into good politics." ... So, despite warnings of political calamity from within his own Liberal caucus, Dion is proposing a carbon tax that will mean new federal levies on energy from all fossil fuels.