Obama wants to visit Hiroshima, Nagasaki - Summary

Tokyo - US President Barack Obama said he wants to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were destroyed by US nuclear bombs at the end of World War II, during his time in office, which would make him the first US leader to do so. His tight schedule did not allow for the visit during his trip to Japan this week, Obama said in an interview Monday with the Japanese broadcaster NHK in Washington.

"I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," Obama said.

Obama is to meet with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Friday, and will travel to Singapore to attend a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum the following day.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, flattening the city. About 70,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 residents died immediately. By late December 1945, the number of fatalities had risen to 140,000. Many more have succumbed to the after-effects since then.

Three days later, US forces exploded a second bomb over Nagasaki, about 300 kilometres west of Hiroshima. Another 70,000 people died there.

Then-emperor Hirohito announced Japan's capitulation on August 15, 1945.

Survivors of the nuclear blasts had earlier called on Obama to visit the cities.

Al-Maliki says ex-Baathists cleared to run in elections

Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Tuesday that former Baathists could participate in the upcoming elections provided they cut ties with the former ruling party of the country. However, he said he would not negotiate with Baathists who remained loyal to the party and its former leader Saddam Hussein, accusing them and al-Qaeda of creating instability and insecurity in the country ahead of the vote.

They would also be barred from the political process, Maliki told reporters in Baghdad.

Al-Maliki is depending on a patchwork of alliances with Sunni tribal leaders and Sahwa, or "Awakening," militia leaders to win January's parliamentary elections, following the departure of key Shiite coalition partners in August.

Iraq's electoral commission on Monday said those elections will now take place on January 21, five days later than originally planned, after weeks of rancorous debate on voting in the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk delayed passage of the electoral law for weeks.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/294088,al-maliki-says-ex-baathists-cleared-to-run-in-elections.html.

Jordan okays use of swine flu vaccines

Amman - The state-run Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA) on Tuesday endorsed the public use of the anti-H1N1 virus vaccine, saying its "safety" was established through multiple lab-testing. "The JFDA has decided to allow the public circulation of the vaccine after its safety was proven through the conducting of tests at three local laboratories over the past three days," the JFDA Director General Dr. Mohammad Rawashdeh was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency.

He said that the tests were carried out by the laboratories of the country's two top universities and by the research and industrial development centre of a local pharmaceutical company to ensure that the vaccine did not include germs.

In a related the development, the Public Health Ministry said Tuesday that it received 100,000 doses of the vaccine from foreign manufacturers last Wednesday and that additional 12,000 doses were expected to arrive in the country in the coming few days.

Five Jordan policemen to face trial over death of civilian

Amman - Five Jordanian police officers are to face trial in connection with the death of a civilian, who died of injuries allegedly sustained from torture, the Amman news agency reported Tuesday. Minister of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif confirmed that the investigation into the incident was concluded Tuesday and that the case has now been referred to the court.

Sharif stopped short of mentioning the number of security men suspected of involvement in the killing of Saddam Saud - who was buried on Monday amid riots by his relatives and supporters at an East Amman suburb. At least six policemen were injured in those clashes.

Saud's relatives claim that he was tortured by police a month ago, after being arrested after a quarrel at an Amman commercial centre.

He was receiving hospital treatment for injuries sustained after the arrest until his death two days ago.

Shark gives another Caesarean bite and saves babies

Wellington - A shark in a New Zealand aquarium bit the stomach of another one, effectively giving it a Caesarean operation and saving the lives of four babies, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Staff at Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, in Auckland, were initially dubious when visitors came running to tell them that baby fish were spilling from a wound in a female school shark's stomach after it had been bitten by another shark, the New Zealand Herald reported.

But they found the female with a large gaping stomach wound and four babies swimming in the tank.

Aquarist Fiona Davies said it was common for sharks to take chunks out of each other, even in the wild, but she had never heard of anything like the effective operation, which had probably saved the babies' lives.

She said staff did not know the mother was pregnant and if she had given birth naturally, most likely at night, the babies would have been eaten by adult sharks and stingrays before they could be rescued.

Davies said the shark that helped had to bite a certain part of the stomach to release the babies without killing them or the mother.

The young sharks were removed to a nursery tank where visitors can view them before they are released into the wild.

1/5 of Internet users in Jordan shop online

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Out of 1.5 million Internet users in Jordan, around 300,000 people buy some of their products through online shopping, according to an official.

"This figure indicates that a large part of the e-commerce sector in the Kingdom is not used," Yarub Qudah, the chief executive officer of the Jordan Enterprise Development Corporation (JEDCO), told participants in a workshop organized Tuesday by JEDCO to introduce Jordanian companies to e-commerce techniques and basics.

Qudah said: "We need to increase awareness among businesses in Jordan about this marketing channel to increase their sales and expand their markets."

Representatives from over 50 companies took part in the workshop, during which German e-commerce expert Tobias R�ckert talked about the international e-commerce.

In explaining how to sell products and services through the Internet, R�ckert indicated that consumers can make transactions by developing their own websites; a process he described as cost effective for companies and offering quality products to customers at cheaper prices.

Qudah stressed that new marketing tools are needed to increase sales abroad despite a sharp increase in Jordanian exports during the past five years and the flexibility of the economy and diversification of markets and products.

"Exports are the main pillar of the Jordanian economy and the private sector should not depend on traditional tools to market their products," he said, noting that JEDCO will be organizing another workshop to connect companies in the country with international shopping websites.

He referred to the National E-commerce Strategy launched in 2007 to promote the use of e-commerce throughout the industrial sector and to identify the barriers that hinder the use of such marketing channel.

"The strategy should address hurdles related to law and regulations such as the lack of a certification authority for e-signatures under the e-transaction law," he indicated.

Other obstacles, he mentioned, are lack of electronic system, lack of trust in e-commerce in the Jordanian culture in addition to customs, skills and tax issues.

By Omar Obeidat

Defiant DC sniper mastermind Muhammad executed

By DENA POTTER, Associated Press Writer

JARRATT, Va. – John Allen Muhammad stepped foot into Virginia's death chamber and within seconds was lying on a gurney, tapping his left foot, his arms spread wide with a needle dug into each.

"Mr. Muhammad, do you have any last words?" the warden asked the mastermind behind the D.C.-area sniper attacks that killed 10 in 2002. Muhammad, calm and stoic, was defiant to the end, refusing to utter any final words.

The 48-year-old died by injection at 9:11 p.m. Tuesday as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks that October. Victims' families sat behind glass, separated from the rest of the 27 witnesses, who were quiet, looking straight forward, intent on what was happening.

"He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims," said Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert, who witnessed the execution at Greensville Correctional Center, south of Richmond.

Muhammad was executed for killing Dean Harold Meyers, who was shot in the head at a Manassas gas station during the spree across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Answers to why he and a teenage accomplice methodically hunted people going about their daily chores, why he chose his victims, including a middle schooler on his way to class, and how many there were went to the grave with him.

Meyers' brother, Bob Meyers, said watching the execution was sobering and "surreal." He said other witnesses expressed a range of feelings, including some who were overcome with emotion.

"I would have liked him at some point in the process to take responsibility, to show remorse," Meyers said. "We didn't get any of that tonight."

After the first of the three-drug lethal cocktail was administered, Muhammad blinked repeatedly and took about seven deep breaths. Within a minute, he was motionless.

Nelson Rivera, whose wife, Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, was gunned down as she vacuumed her van at a Maryland gas station, said that when he watched Muhammad's chest moving for the last time, he was glad.

"I feel better. I think I can breathe better," he said. "I'm glad he's gone because he's not going to hurt anyone else."

J. Wyndal Gordon, one of Muhammad's attorneys, described his client in his final hours as fearless and still insisting he was innocent.

"He will die with dignity — dignity to the point of defiance," Gordon said before going inside to watch the execution.

The terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo while they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected.

Malvo, who was 17 when carrying out the attacks, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.

The men also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad's final appeal Monday, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine denied clemency Tuesday.

Muhammad's attorneys had asked Kaine to commute his sentence to life in prison because they said Muhammad was severely mentally ill.

"I think crimes that are this horrible, you just can't understand them, you can't explain them," said Kaine, a Democrat known for carefully considering death penalty cases.

A small group of death penalty opponents gathered on a grassy area near the prison and had a sign reading, "We remember the victims, but not with more killing."

Muhammad was born John Allen Williams and changed his name after converting to Islam. He had been in and out of the military since he graduated from high school in Louisiana and entered the National Guard. He joined the Army in 1985. He did not take special sniper training but earned an expert rating in the M-16 rifle — the military cousin of the .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle used in the D.C. shootings.

The motive for the attacks remains murky. Malvo said Muhammad wanted to extort $10 million from the government to set up a camp in Canada where homeless children would be trained as terrorists. Muhammad's ex-wife said she believes they were a smoke screen for his plan to kill her and regain custody of their three children.

Sonia Hollingsworth-Wills, the mother of Conrad Johnson, the last man slain that October, sat in the back seat of a car outside the prison before the execution, which she chose not to witness. But she said she wanted to be there and was counting the minutes until Muhammad's death.

"It was the most horrifying day of my life," she said. "I'll never get complete closure but at least I can put this behind me."

Cheryll Witz, who's father Jerry Taylor, was fatally shot on a Tucson, Ariz., golf course in March 2002, said she was unhappy that Muhammad didn't say anything before he died. But she said his execution begins a new chapter in her life.

"I've waited seven long years for this," she said. "My life is totally beginning now. I have all my closure, and my justice and my peace."