Hot World News: 5 Pakistani Soldiers, 21 Militants Killed in Border Clash

PARACHINAR, Pakistan — Taliban fighters attacked a security checkpoint close to the Afghan border, sparking clashes that killed five soldiers and 21 insurgents in a region that has seen heavy fighting in recent days, the army said Friday.

The attack took place Orakzai, a tribal region where the military is pursuing Pakistani Taliban insurgents believed to have fled a major offensive in nearby South Waziristan.

The army said in a statement the clashes started when security forces tried to recapture a checkpoint taken Thursday night by militants in the Kalaya area. It said 21 militants and five security force members, including a senior officer, were killed in the fighting that ended with the military regaining control of the area.

Orakzai is considered a major base for Hakimullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban’s top commander, who is believed to have died in a U.S. missile strike in January. The Taliban have denied his death, but have not shown any evidence he is still alive.

On Thursday, Pakistani fighter jets bombed militant targets elsewhere in Orakzai, killing 61 militants sheltering in a religious seminary, a mosque and a school, according to security officials.

The Pakistani Taliban have been under pressure in their main stronghold, the South Waziristan tribal region, since the army launched its ground offensive there in October. Many insurgents are believed to have scattered to other parts of the tribal belt, which borders Afghanistan in Pakistan’s northwest.

Orakzai and the neighboring tribal area of Kurram have witnessed numerous airstrikes over the past few months. The inaccessibility of the regions makes it very difficult to get independent confirmation of the casualty figures provided by officials and the identity of those killed.

Warned of Priest, Vatican Failed to Remove Him

VATICAN CITY — Two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — to let them conduct a church trial against a priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, but the Vatican ordered the process halted, church and Vatican documents show.

Despite the grave allegations, Ratzinger’s deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and the accused priest, Rev. Lawrence Murphy, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to an already swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of clerical abuse victims provided the documentation to reporters outside the Vatican, where they staged a press conference to denounce Benedict’s handling of the case. During the conference, a policeman asked for their documents and they were subsequently detained, police said.

“The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret,” said Peter Isely, Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

“This is the most incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get,” Isely said, flanked by photos of other clerical abuse victims and a poster of Ratzinger. “We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn’t let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him.”

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the case had only reached the Vatican in 1996, that Murphy died two years later, and that there was nothing in the church’s handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

Murphy worked at the former St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. He died in 1998.

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn’t take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger’s deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote him a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case’s statute of limitations had run out.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy’s alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone — now the Vatican’s secretary of state — told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger saying he had repented and that the statute of limitations on the case had expired. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to “pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice.”

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that “I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy.”

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1988. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn’t seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren’t “sufficient elements to institute a canonical process” against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary. Instead, he said Murphy must be forbidden from celebrating Mass publicly outside his home diocese.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a “difficult” child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a “typical” pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

“Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions,” the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the office.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals here. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican, said in a statement that the Vatican was not told about the abuse allegations against Murphy until 1996, years after civil authorities had investigated and dropped the case. Lombardi also said Murphy’s age, poor health and a lack of more recent allegations were factors in the decision not to defrock him.

He noted “the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties” and that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested the Milwaukee archbishop consider such things as restricting Murphy’s public ministry and requiring that he “accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts.”

The Times obtained the Murphy documents from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, attorneys for five men who have sued the Milwaukee archdiocese alleging fraud.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

Obama to Sign Promised Executive Order on Abortion

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to sign an executive order Wednesday reaffirming longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion, but he won’t hold an event like the signing ceremony a day earlier.

The order is part of an 11th-hour agreement with Democratic abortion opponents in the House that brought them over to Obama’s side and pushed the health insurance overhaul over the top.

Obama has invited members of the Democrats’ anti-abortion bloc, including its leader, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, to the private afternoon signing at the White House.

Stupak is under fire from his fellow abortion opponents for accepting the order as his price for supporting the health care overhaul. He released a statement Tuesday defending the order, placing it on a list of other significant orders that included Abraham Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves and Harry Truman’s 1948 order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.

“Throughout history, executive orders have been an important means of implementing public policy,” Stupak said in a statement. “The most famous executive order was the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln in 1863.”

The Stupak-negotiated executive order has drawn withering criticism from both pro-life and pro-choice groups. The former say he is allowing more openings for abortion, the latter say he’s denied abortion services to women.

Stupak says the order merely upholds the status quo that taxpayer money shouldn’t be used for abortion services.

“This executive order has the full force and effect of law and makes very clear that current law of no public funding for abortion applies to the new health care reform legislation,” Stupak said.

The White House also contends the executive order merely re-states existing law under the “Hyde amendment” that prohibits direct federal funding of abortion through Medicaid.

“He believes that the bill maintains the status quo and he thinks the executive order reiterates that strong belief,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of Obama’s take on the underlying bill and the executive order. “What the bill does and what the executive order does is underscore that the status quo is preserved.”

It’s not clear the support of Stupak and a handful of other pro-life Democrats guaranteed the bill’s passage.

“I’m not sure that that’s altogether knowable,” Gibbs said.

Bush and Clinton to visit rubble-filled Haitian city

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are traveling to Haiti’s rubble-filled capital Monday as part of their effort to raise aid and investment for a country still reeling from a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.

It is the first joint visit to the impoverished Caribbean nation for the two former leaders, who were tasked by President Barack Obama with leading the U.S. fundraising effort.

After meeting with President Rene Preval on the grounds of the collapsed national palace, they are expected to tour the tarps-and-tent city on the adjacent Champ de Mars, the national mall filled with 60,000 homeless quake survivors living in squalor.

While the government and business leaders hail their appearance as a signal of America’s commitment to help, the visit by two ex-presidents who have played major roles in Haiti’s recent political trajectory is also reminding the country of its tumultuous past.

Supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have scheduled protests for Monday — demanding the return of their exiled leader and pleading for more aid.

“We are going to bring our message to the presidents, that our situation here is no good. The way people are living in Haiti is no way for anyone to live,” said Fanfan Fenelon, a 30-year-old resident of the Bel Air slum.

Clinton and Bush will arrive in a country struggling to feed and shelter victims of the magnitude-7 quake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people. Another 1.3 million quake survivors are homeless, with many living in camps prone to dangerous flooding in the April rainy season.

The visit aims to spotlight the dramatic need ahead of a critical March 31 U.N. donors conference in New York, where Haitian officials will ask for $11.5 billion in reconstruction help.

Monday will be Bush’s first trip to Haiti. Clinton, who is the U.N. special envoy to the country, has made two visits since the quake and five in the past two years. He also visited as president.

The pair has arguably shaped Haiti’s history as much as anyone alive today.

Clinton presided over a refugee crisis born of the 1991 ouster of Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president. He returned Aristide to power in 1994 with a force of 20,000 U.S. troops.

Bush is remembered by many Haitians — especially the thousands in Port-au-Prince’s teeming slums — as the U.S. leader whose administration chartered the plane that flew Aristide back into exile during a 2004 rebellion.

The nonprofit Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has raised $37 million from 220,000 individuals including Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who gave $1 million, and Obama, who among other donations gave $200,000 of his Nobel Peace Prize. About $4 million has gone to such organizations as Habitat for Humanity, the University of Miami/Project Medishare mobile hospital in Port-au-Prince and the U.S. branch of the Irish charity Concern Worldwide. The rest has yet to be allocated.

CIA Chief: ‘Disrupted’ Al Qaeda Is ‘On the Run’

CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday an aggressive campaign has driven Usama bin Laden and other leaders deeper into hiding and left Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal regions in disarray.

“Those operations are seriously disrupting Al Qaeda,” Panetta told The Washington Post in an interview. “It’s pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run.”

Drone strikes in Pakistan’s border region, largely conducted by the CIA, have escalated in recent months, proving an effective way to target Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders hiding in the rugged mountainous border. While Pakistani officials have criticized the strikes, it is widely believed that Islamabad privately supports the attacks and works with the U.S. to provide intelligence.

The remarks came as an Al Qaeda leader believed to have played a key role in the bombing of a CIA post in Afghanistan last December was apparently killed by an American missile strike last week, a senior U.S. official said.

The counterterrorism official said Hussein al-Yemeni was believed killed in a strike in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

Al-Yemeni is considered an important Al Qaeda planner and explosives expert who had established contact with groups ranging from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to Afghan and Pakistani Taliban militant groups. He is also known as Ghazwan al-Yemeni.

The counterterrorism official said al-Yemeni was in his late 20s or early 30s and was a conduit in Pakistan for funds, messages, and recruiting but that he specialized in suicide operations.

A jihadist Web site linked to Al Qaeda recently announced his death, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who now is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center.

“This is another sign that drone operations and stepped-up efforts against Al Qaeda are having an impact in the tribal regions,” Riedel said Wednesday. He said al-Yemeni served prison time in Yemen in 2005 before being released and has since moved through Afghanistan and Iran and was a trainer for the Taliban.

In the CIA base attack, a Jordanian suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer. The bomber, a Jordanian doctor identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, detonated his cache of explosives at Camp Chapman, a tightly secured base in Khost.

CIA officials has cultivated al-Balawi in hopes of obtaining information about Al Qaeda’s second in command, but he turned out to be a double agent. In a video broadcast after his death, the bomber said the attack was meant to avenge the death of the former Pakistani Taliban leader in a CIA missile strike.

U.S. Envoy Cancels Mideast Trip Amid Israel Feud

JERUSALEM — A U.S. envoy’s postponement of his Mideast trip Tuesday appeared to deepen one of the worst U.S.-Israeli feuds in memory — even as Israel’s foreign minister signaled his government had no intention of curtailing the contentious construction at the heart of the row.

Dozens of masked Palestinians hurled rocks at police and set tires ablaze across the holy city’s volatile eastern sector, as the deployment of thousands of Israeli security personnel entered its fifth day.

The diplomatic crisis erupted last week after Israel announced during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden that it would build 1,600 apartments for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem, the sector of the holy city that the Palestinians claim for a future capital.

The announcement enraged Palestinians, who have threatened to bow out of U.S.-brokered peace talks that were supposed to have begun in the coming days. The Obama administration, fuming over what it called the “insulting” Israeli conduct, demanded that Israel call off the contentious project.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio that demands to halt Israeli construction there “are unreasonable as far as we are concerned.” And he predicted that the diplomatic row with the U.S. would blow over, saying neither side had an interest in escalation.

But Washington notified Israel early Tuesday that envoy George Mitchell had put off his trip. The visit will be rescheduled at an undetermined time, officials on both sides said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the timing of the project’s approval, but he has not said it would be canceled. On Monday, backed by his hawkish coalition, he defended four decades of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem and said it “in no way” hurts Palestinians.

The feud is feeding already high tensions in east Jerusalem, where Jews and Palestinians live together uneasily. Some 3,000 Israeli police officers were deployed in the east Jerusalem area on Tuesday, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Early Tuesday, masked Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli police and burned tires in multiple areas. Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police fired stun grenades to disperse dozens of protesters at one site, and that village elders helped to end protests at another. No injuries were reported in those disturbances.

At another site, rioters on a road strewn with rocks, tires and a charred garbage bin were dismantling a public bus stop. Police said 15 Palestinians have been arrested so far.

Palestinian access to a disputed hilltop shrine holy to both Jews and Muslims remained limited to men 50 and over, Rosenfeld said.

Palestinians are protesting the rededication of a historic synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, amid rumors of plans by Jewish extremists to take control over a hilltop complex at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The rededication has stoked periodically recurring rumors that Jewish extremists are planning to take over the shrine known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque complex.

Temple Mount, where the biblical Jewish temples stood, is Judaism’s holiest site. The Al-Aqsa complex is Islam’s third-holiest shrine.

Palestinians summoned by their leaders to defend the compound run afoul of Israeli checkpoints limiting access to the site, creating an environment for clashes.

Palestinians, who number about 250,000 in east Jerusalem, see the building of new settlements and the presence of some 180,000 Jews there as a grave challenge to their claims to the territory.

Jerusalem is the most explosive issue in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. At the emotional and religious center of the dispute is Jerusalem’s Old City, with shrines holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. Most Israelis accept the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as part of Israel, and previous peace proposals have allowed them to remain in Israeli hands.

But the international community does not recognize the annexation or distinguish the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as different from West Bank settlements, seen internationally as illegal.

The rift has presented Netanyahu with a predicament. If he doesn’t make gestures toward the U.S. and the Palestinians on east Jerusalem, he will likely further antagonize Israel’s most important ally. But Netanyahu, who historically has taken a hard line against territorial concessions to the Palestinians, could see his hawkish governing coalition crumble if he compromises on Jerusalem.

U.S. Military Hands Over Prison to Iraqi Government

Maj. Gen. David Quantock says Monday’s handover of the Taji facility will leave the U.S. in control of only one prison in Iraq.

Quantock says most of the prison’s detainees are low and midlevel insurgents who are held on warrants. Only a small number have been convicted.

The handover comes as the U.S. prepares to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by September, and all troops by 2012.

The Taji prison lies inside an American base with the same name, 12 miles north of Baghdad.

The U.S. plans to hand over the remaining prison, Camp Cropper, in July. About 100 of its 2,900 detainees will remain in U.S. custody.

Meanwhile, early election results show incumbent Nouri al-Maliki pulling ahead following pivotal national elections which Iraqis hoped would end years of sectarian strife. The narrow vote suggests that a long period of talks will be needed before a new government may be formed.

The results are still incomplete more than a week after the vote. Prelimary tallies released so far represent just over a quarter of 12 million votes cast, and may change, according to Reuters.

Opus Americana – Greatest Nation on Earth | The Composed Gentleman

Opus Americana is a testament to the principles and concepts of America’s founding and a timeless tribute to the greatest nation on earth. If you are interested in the American Revolution, American History, the Founding Fathers, or any other part of Americana that deals with this nation’s founding, this is a beautiful leather bound, heirloom quality, book for you, your friends, or your family. It makes a great gift for conservatives, libertarians, veterans, or anyone who loves America. A Brave New World, American Revolutions, Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, Founding Fathers, Separation of Powers, Armed Forces, National Landmarks, National Symbols, National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, Fifty States

Corey Haim died in drug overdose

Corey Haim was broke and caring for his mother, who was battling breast cancer, when he collapsed just after midnight Wednesday after complaining of labored breathing, People.com reports. Haim’s agent Mark Heaslip says Corey Haim, the “Lost Boys” star whose career stalled while his drug use spiraled out of control, had been with his mother during all of her doctor’s appointments but fell ill with flu-like symptoms in the last few days. Judy Haim called 911 early Wednesday. He was declared dead at the hospital.

“She is taking this very, very hard,” Heaslip says. “This is all shocking.”

Meanwhile, Haim’s pal Corey Feldman tells Larry King that he wants people to stop jumping to conclusions that Haim died from a drug overdose. “They need to stop saying, you know, their theories of what they think it is or isn’t. Because at the end of the day, until the coroner’s report comes out, until we have specific evidence, until we know exactly what the toxicology reports say, nobody knows.”

He says he last spoke to Haim a few days before his death, and that the actor was “honestly in the best frame of mind that he’s ever been in in the past year.” He says Haim’s mother’s illness made Haim finally grow up.

He also took Hollywood to task for discarding its child stars. “We build people up as children, we put them on pedestals and then when we decide that they’re not marketable anymore, we walk away from them,” he says. “And then we taunt them and we tease them … Why is it OK to kick somebody when they’re down?”

The Story of the Stuff

The Story of Stuff, made by Annie Leonard, is a short clip about the current situation the world is going through when it comes to the concept of consumerism. Annie starts The Story of Stuff off with defining the process which consumption follows as she starts off with the process of ‘extraction’ which she believes is just a more elegant word for exploiting natural resources. The Story of Stuff animation has a total run time of twenty minutes and has surprised the viewers with how much she has explained in just twenty minutes.

The Story of Stuff has now come out as an audio book which is available online from the sites of Amazon, iTunes, Audible.com and Barnes and Noble, it was released on the internet on the ninth of March and has been read by the author herself, Annie Leonard. The Story of Stuff touches some very important factors which have lead to the decline of national happiness and an almost exponential increment to the toxins that we release into our closed environment.

In The Story of Stuff she talks about how just a few decades ago the average American citizen consumed half as much as he or she did today and she blames this on the strategy that the government has promoted since the fifties which was to create a maximum amount of consumer goods and market them in such a way that the inventory is always on the move. The Story of Stuff book was released after the author was asked by thousands of people to give more details about the short animation that she had come out with.