U.S. President Barack Obama Outlines Nuclear Disarmament Plan

PRAGUE -- Under a hazy spring sky, before a swelling Czech crowd, U.S. President Barack Obama called for an international effort to lock down nuclear weapons materials within four years, one of a host of steps he said would move the globe to nuclear disarmament.

Speaking just hours after North Korea launched a controversial multistage rocket, the U.S. president took to the stage in Castle Square here, testifying "clearly and with conviction" to an audience of at least 20,000 of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

"We have to insist, 'Yes, we can,'" he said, reprising a battle theme recognizable to a crowd a continent away from his campaign victory.

It was the first public, set-piece speech on the fifth day of his first major trip abroad, but the promise of renewed arms-control efforts may have been overshadowed by the reality of North Korea's launch. Mr. Obama said he would consult with Japan, South Korea and other Asian neighbors before seeking sanctions at the United Nations Security Council, which was to convene in New York Sunday afternoon for an emergency session.

"Rules must be minded. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something," the president told the crowd, calling the launch a provocative act that violated United Nations Security Council resolutions. "The world must stand together to stop the spread of these weapons."

Mr. Obama's European tour has become increasingly ambitious as he has proceeded eastward. He has vowed to help end the global recession and remake the world's financial architecture, ramp up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's war on Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan and now secure nuclear material and work toward "a nuclear-free world."

A foreign-policy agenda that grows fuller by the day comes on top of an already jam-packed domestic agenda that includes a national health plan, financial restructuring and rescue, a new alternative-energy economy and an aggressive federal intervention in education.

Specifically, Mr. Obama called for an international convention to draft a treaty abolishing the production of fissile materials that can be used to create nuclear weapons. An international "nuclear fuel bank" -- stocked in part by scrapped nuclear warheads -- could be accessed by nations seeking to develop and sustain peaceful nuclear-energy programs. That way, they wouldn't have to develop their own nuclear-enrichment programs.

He also called for new steps to secure existing nuclear materials and warheads, especially in Russia, before it leaches onto a black market where terrorists could acquire it. He vowed to lock down such weapons and materials within four years, calling for a global summit in the U.S. within a year.

Lamenting "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War," Mr. Obama said, "In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up."

He reiterated the pledge he made Wednesday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to conclude a new bilateral treaty reducing the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals below the 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads agreed on in 2002. The treaty is to be concluded by the end of the year, with progress assessed at a July summit in Moscow.

He will also "immediately and aggressively pursue" Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, concluded by President Bill Clinton in 1996, then abandoned by President George W. Bush after a Republican-controlled Senate voted it down.

North Korea's missile launch put new urgency into the arms control agenda, Mr. Obama said before a morning meeting with the Czech leadership.

But it also threatened to overshadow the message. The White House received confirmation just after 4:30 a.m. Prague time. Shortly afterwards, staff woke the president up for consultations with Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Gates, National Security Adviser James Jones and his NSC staff.

The Prague speech was billed as a sober, serious policy address, but the White House disregarded the advice of some in the Czech government and opened it to the public on a large square behind the castle that overlooks what Mr. Obama called "this golden city, both ancient and youthful."

Rock music from the Obama campaign pulsated, while Czechs waved small American flags. A camera swept over the crowd on a boom that extended over the square, flanked by baroque government buildings. Mr. Obama ascended the stage with First Lady Michelle Obama to the symphonic strains of the Moldau, by Czech composer Bedric Smetna. Under a temperate April sky, he evoked the Prague Spring of 1968, when the city tried to rise up against communist oppression, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when the city finally and peacefully overcame communism.

A Jumbotron beaming his English speech in Czech was invisible to all but a few of the crowd, a fact that likely subdued the crowd.

The site was chosen carefully. Czechs have been deeply divided over the efforts by former President George W. Bush to deploy elements of an antimissile system in their country, a move Russia angrily opposes but which Washington insists is targeted as Teheran, not Moscow.

Applause rose up in only part of the crowd when Mr. Obama vowed to pursue the missile shield as long as Iran pursued its nuclear ambitions. Another part of the audience cheered when he suggested he could drop the effort if Iran is deemed no longer a threat.

White House aides said the Kremlin was one of the target audiences of the speech, but so were North Korea and Iran.

Ahead of a review conference next year of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr. Obama wants to take concrete steps to make good on the nuclear nations' side of the bargain in the treaty: In exchange for nonnuclear nations' promises to forgo nuclear weapons development, the nuclear club was supposed to work toward disarmament while aiding the spread of peaceful nuclear technology.

White House national security aides hope Mr. Obama's efforts will isolate Teheran and Pyongyang.

"We're trying to seize the moral high ground," said Gary Samore, White House coordinator for weapons of mass destruction, security and arms control.

Source:online.wsj.com

U.S. President Barack Obama Outlines Nuclear Disarmament Plan

A gunman barricaded the back door blocks NY center's door, kills 13

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – A gunman barricaded the back door of a community center with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants taking a citizenship class Friday, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide, officials said.

Investigators said they had yet to establish a motive for the massacre, which was at least the fifth deadly mass shooting in the U.S. in the past month alone.

The attack came just after 10 a.m. at the American Civic Association, an organization that helps immigrants settle in this country. Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman parked his car against the back door, "making sure nobody could escape," then stormed through the front, shooting two receptionists, apparently without a word.

The killer, believed to be a Vietnamese immigrant, then entered a room just off the reception area and fired on a citizenship class.

"The people were trying to better themselves, trying to become citizens," the police chief said.

One receptionist was killed, while the other, shot in the abdomen, pretended to be dead and then crawled under a desk and called 911, he said.

Police said they arrived within two minutes.

The rest of those killed were shot in the classroom. Four people were critically wounded.

The man believed to have carried out the attack was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an office, a satchel containing ammunition slung around his neck, authorities said. Police found two handguns — a 9 mm and a .45-caliber — and a hunting knife.

Thirty-seven people in all made it out of the building, including 26 who hid in the boiler room in the basement, cowering there for three hours while police methodically searched the building and tried to determine whether the gunman was still alive and whether he was holding any hostages, Zikuski said.

Those in the basement stayed in contact with police by cell phone, switching from one phone to another when their batteries ran out, Zikuski said. Others hid in closets and under desks.

Police heard no gunfire after they arrived but waited for about an hour before entering the building to make sure it was safe for officers. They then spent two hours searching the building.

They led a number of men out of the building in plastic handcuffs while they tried to sort out the victims from the killer or killers.

Most of the people brought out couldn't speak English, the chief said.

Alex Galkin, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, said he was taking English classes when he heard a shot and quickly went to the basement with about 20 other people.

"It was just panic," Galkin said.

Zhanar Tokhtabayeva, a 30-year-old from Kazakhstan, said she was in an English class when she heard a shot and her teacher screamed for everyone to go to the storage room.

"I heard the shots, every shot. I heard no screams, just silence, shooting," she said. "I heard shooting, very long time, and I was thinking, when will this stop? I was thinking that my life was finished."

Dr. Jeffrey King, speaking at a Catholic Charities office where counseling was being offered Friday night, said he was certain his mother, 72-year-old Roberta King, who taught English at the community center, was among the dead.

Authorities read a list of survivors and his mother's name wasn't on it, he said.

King, one of 10 children, described his mother as a woman brimming with interests ranging from the opera to the preservation society to collecting thousands of dolls. He recollected a recent conversation in which he told her to enjoy her retirement.

"I said, 'Mom you're in your 70s,'" King said. "She said, 'What? You don't think I enjoy working?'"

President Barack Obama, who was traveling in Europe, said he was shocked and saddened by the shooting, which he called an "act of senseless violence." He said he and his wife, Michelle Obama, were praying for the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton, about 140 miles northwest of New York City.

Gov. David Paterson said the massacre was probably "the worst tragedy and senseless crime in the history of this city." Noting mass killings in Alabama and Oakland, Calif., last month, he said: "When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can't even keep track of the incidents?"

The community center was holding class "for those who want to become citizens of the United States of America, who wanted to be part of the American Dream, and so tragically may have had that hope thwarted today," the governor said. "But there still is an American dream, and all of us who are Americans will try to heal this very, very deep wound in the city of Binghamton."

Center officials issued a statement Friday night saying they were "stricken with grief about today's horrific assault and share this grief with the victims' families, our community and the entire nation."

The suspected gunman carried ID with the name of 42-year-old Jiverly Voong, of nearby Johnson City, N.Y., but that was believed to be an alias, said a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two handguns were registered to Jiverly Wong, another name the man used. Both officials were not authorized to speak publicly.

Initial reports suggested Voong had recently been let go from IBM. But a person at IBM said there was no record of a Jiverly Voong ever working there.

The police chief would not confirm the name of the dead man with the ammunition satchel, saying authorities were still trying to establish with certainty that he was the gunman.

"We have no idea what the motive is," Zikuski said.

He said the suspected gunman "was no stranger" to the community center and may have gone there to take a class.

A woman who answered the phone at a listing for Henry D. Voong said she was Jiverly Voong's sister but would not give her name. She said her brother had been in the country for 28 years and had citizenship.

"I think there's a misunderstanding over here because I want to know, too," she said.

Friday evening, police searched Voong's house and carried out three computer hard drives, a brown canvas rifle case, a briefcase, a small suitcase and several paper bags.

Police left the Voong home shortly before 8 p.m., soon after four people arrived by car and went into the house. It wasn't clear who they were, but they promptly turned out the lights.

Crime scene tape was stretched across the street about 20 yards from the house, and a steady rain fell as two state troopers stood guard to keep anyone but neighborhood residents from entering the dead-end street.

Waiting outside a Catholic Charities office where counselors were tending to relatives of victims, Omri Yigal said his wife, Delores, was taking English lessons when the gunman attacked. He had no word on what happened to her.

He finally left the center feeling sullen shortly before 8 p.m.

"They told me they don't have much hope for me," the Filipino immigrant said before going home to wait for a telephone call.

The American Civic Association helps immigrants in the Binghamton area with citizenship, resettlement and family reunification. The shootings took place in a neighborhood of homes and small businesses in downtown Binghamton, a city of about 47,000 residents.

The Binghamton area was the home to Endicott-Johnson shoe company and the birthplace of IBM, which between them employed tens of thousands of workers before the shoe company closed a decade ago and IBM downsized in recent years.

A string of attacks in the U.S. in the last month left 44 people dead in all.

A gunman killed 10 people and himself in Samson, Ala.; shootings that began with a traffic stop in Oakland, Calif., left four police officers and the gunman dead; an apparent murder-suicide in Santa Clara, Calif., left six dead; and a gunman went on a rampage at a nursing home Sunday, killing seven elderly residents and a nurse who cared for them.

A gunman barricaded the back door blocks NY center's door, kills 13

The two candidates in a New York congressional race, President Obama's economic policies

Congressional race in N.Y. is too close to call
Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes in a contest focused on Obama's economic policies. Absentee ballots will decide the outcome.


Albany, N.Y. -- The two candidates in a New York congressional race that focused on President Obama's economic policies are separated by only 65 votes with all the precincts reporting and more than 150,000 votes counted.

Democrat Scott Murphy, 38, holds the slim lead over Republican Jim Tedisco, 58. The race will come down to roughly 10,000 absentee ballots, none of which were to be counted on election night, officials said.

Some absentee ballots are from voters overseas, which will be counted as long as they arrive by April 13. New York's deadline had been April 7, but the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state for not giving overseas absentee voters enough time to return ballots.

The victor will replace Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton when she became secretary of State.

Murphy, a businessman and political newcomer, and national Democrats staked his campaign on the strength of Obama and his economic policies, specifically, his $787-billion stimulus plan.

Tedisco, an assemblyman for 27 years, attacked Murphy for supporting the stimulus plan, which he said allowed massive bonuses at the bailed-out insurer AIG.

Each campaign raised more than $1 million and got major support from national committees and political groups.

Murphy is a venture capitalist multimillionaire who has lived in New York for more than a decade.

Tedisco is the minority leader in the state Assembly. He doesn't live in the district, an issue cited by Democrats during the campaign.

Polling places and local election boards reported light turnout, not unusual in a special election in which there are no statewide offices or big names on the ballot.

Republicans hoped a win would knock Obama off balance, considering the race as one of the party's top priorities.

Democrats hoped for a win in a traditionally Republican district less than 100 days after Obama took office.

News Source: latimes.com

The two candidates in a New York congressional race, President Obama's economic policies

Edward Kennedy pushes Kathleen Sebelius nomination

WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy, citing his own battle with brain cancer, came out forcefully yesterday for Kathleen Sebelius's nomination as health and human services secretary.

"Few debates in Congress touch our lives as profoundly and personally as healthcare. Over the past 10 months, I've seen our healthcare system up close," Kennedy said, his hands shaking slightly.

"I've benefited from the best of medicine," he said, presiding at a hearing for Sebelius, who he said had the "vision, the skill, and the knowledge" to shepherd the healthcare overhaul. "But we have too many uninsured Americans. We have sickness care and not healthcare. . . . Costs are out of control. But today we have an opportunity like never before to reform our healthcare."

Toward the end of the hearing, Kennedy asked Sebelius to affirm support for cancer research. She did.

Sebelius, the Kansas governor and early supporter of President Obama, said she backs his call for giving Americans the option of government-run health insurance as an alternative to private coverage.

The proposal for a public plan that would compete with private insurers has emerged as the most divisive issue as Obama seeks to overhaul the health system to reduce costs and shrink the ranks of 48 million uninsured. Republicans fear that the competing plan would drive some private insurers out of business.

"If the question is, 'Do I support a public option side by side with private insurers?' " Sebelius said, "Yes, I do."

The exchange with Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was perhaps the most heated in a low-key hearing. Sebelius pledged that if confirmed, "health reform would be my mission."

"Inaction is not an option. The status quo is unacceptable, and unsustainable," said Sebelius, citing high healthcare costs that she said were hurting families and crippling the economy.

Saying she would be a tough enforcer, Sebelius also called for a crackdown on medical fraud as part of any healthcare overhaul. "Having a few strike operations may be the most effective way to send the signal that there's a new sheriff in town, and I intend to take this very, very seriously," she told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

While Obama has pushed for healthcare overhaul, lawmakers have questioned how the administration would pay for the plan. Sebelius didn't offer a specific solution, but said the approach must be comprehensive.

Sebelius did cite Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts, where a pioneering 2006 law requires nearly everyone to carry insurance or face fines. Policy makers there decided to extend coverage first, and deal with costs later. Now costs are ballooning. The lesson, Sebelius said, is costs and coverage must be dealt with in concert.

Sebelius is Obama's second pick to head the department. Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration while apologizing for failing to pay $140,000 in taxes and interest.

Sebelius alerted senators in a letter yesterday that she has corrected three years worth of tax returns after finding "unintentional errors" involving charitable contributions, the sale of a home, and business expenses.



In the letter obtained by the Associated Press, she says she and her husband paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest for 2005 to 2007.

Obama also wanted Daschle to head the White House Office for Health Reform, but when he dropped out, a separate White House health czar was named.

Sebelius's background on healthcare includes blocking an insurance company merger in Kansas while insurance commissioner in 2001. She has faced opposition from conservatives over her support for abortion rights, but senators didn't raise that issue yesterday.

The health committee won't actually vote on sending Sebelius's nomination to the full Senate. That job falls to the Senate Finance Committee, which will hold her confirmation hearing tomorrow.

News Source: latimes.com

Edward Kennedy pushes Kathleen Sebelius nomination

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday,Obama touts $3.6 trillion spending outline

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to rally support among skeptical Senate Democrats for his $3.6 trillion spending plan, focusing attention on the core initiatives that unite the party while downplaying the issues that divide it.



Centrist Democrats who have complained that Obama's spending plan would drive the annual budget deficit to unacceptable levels held their tongues during the 45-minute lunchtime meeting. They asked no questions about deficits or about the administration's controversial push to force its signature investments in health care and education through the Senate without Republican votes.

Despite the meeting's friendly tone, tensions over those issues continued to simmer as budget leaders in both chambers worked on competing blueprints that would trim Obama's spending request and sharply curtail his plans for tax cuts - all in an effort to lower deficits over the next five years.

While acknowledging the adjustments to Obama's budget request, Democrats cheered the fact that budget leaders in both chambers would permit Obama's most ambitious and costly initiatives on health care, education and climate change to move forward as long as they do not interfere with deficit reduction.

Welcome unity

"There has to be some realism here," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "We're all unified on four main goals ... and that is not easy to do."

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag also claimed victory on the most significant aspects of the president's agenda.

"We are very pleased that the House and Senate budget committees are taking up resolutions that are fully in line with the president's key priorities," Orszag said. The blueprints under consideration "may not be identical twins to what the president submitted, but they are certainly brothers that look an awful lot alike."

In the House, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., unveiled a spending plan that would slice more than $150 billion from Obama's proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October, reducing next year's deficit to $1.22 trillion, compared with $1.38 trillion under Obama's request. The House blueprint would cut the deficit to just under $600 billion by 2014, forcing the government to borrow $3.9 trillion over the next five years - about $500 billion less than Obama's proposal.

Much of the savings for next year would come by jettisoning Obama's plan to spend more on the Treasury Department's financial-sector bailout, a move that would reduce the deficit but would not prevent the president from seeking the cash.

Other trims

Spratt also rejected Obama's proposal to extend a tax break for businesses that lose money. And he trimmed $7 billion from a funding request for other government agencies, with the bulk of the reduction targeting international programs.

The House proposal would make bigger changes in future years, slicing another $60 billion from Obama's request for nondefense programs and rejecting the president's proposal to permanently exempt millions of middle-class families from the expensive alternative minimum tax.

Like the Senate, the House also scrapped Obama's plan to extend an $800 tax cut for working families that was temporarily enacted in the economic stimulus package.

The House and Senate budget committees expect to vote on their budget plans today and send them to their respective chambers for approval next week. Differences between the two chambers would then have to be resolved in a conference committee after the Easter break.

Obama would not have to sign the resulting resolution, which would not have the force of law. But it would set guidelines for lawmakers as they craft spending bills and draft legislation to implement Obama's policies.

Also Wednesday, Obama endorsed a fellow Democrat in a competitive special congressional election and was the main draw at two Democratic National Committee fundraisers.

"Sign up and pitch in to elect Scott Murphy to Congress," the president implored in an early morning e-mail to at least 50,000 people in New York's 20th Congressional District. Tying his agenda to the election's outcome, he added that electing Murphy would "make a big impact on my efforts to bring about a lasting economic recovery."

By evening, Obama headlined two fundraisers in Washington expected to bring in an estimated $3 million.



News Source : sfgate.com

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday,Obama touts $3.6 trillion spending outline

Scenes of mourning in Oakland

As Oakland prepared for Tuesday night's vigil to honor the four officers slain in East Oakland on Saturday, residents brought flowers, notes, pictures and candles to a sidewalk memorial. The display is at the corner of 74th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard, where the first two officers were shot.

Parolee Lovelle Mixon, 26, gunned down Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and Officer John Hege, 41, who had pulled Mixon over for a routine traffic stop. Mixon fled to his sister's apartment about half a block away and barricaded himself inside.

About two hours later, as a police SWAT team entered the apartment where he was hiding, Mixon opened fire, killing Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35, and Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43.

The three-block stretch of MacArthur where Tuesday night's vigil was held is among the most crime-ridden areas of the city. Neighbors complain of frequent robberies, drug dealing and shootings and said they are devastated by the officers' deaths.

Investigators are trying to determine why Mixon fired on the two motorcycle officers who pulled him over.

News Source : sfgate.com

Scenes of mourning in Oakland