UK police arrested a 60-year-old man in an investigation into whether any political parties including Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party sold honors such as peerages. The man who was not named, is being held in a London police station under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, the Metropolitan Police said in an e-mailed statement. Sky News identified him as Des Smith, who was involved in fundraising for schools on behalf of Blair's government, without naming its sources. All political parties are included in the investigation of possible irregularities in taking loans. Police were called in the request of some lawmakers after Labour treasurer Jack Dromey, 57, said he had not been told about 14 million pounds ($24.5 million) of loans organized by Michael Levy, 61, the party's chief fundraiser. Four of the 12 men who lent money to help fund Labour's 2005 election campaign were subsequently nominated for seats in the House of Lords, the upper, unelected chamber of Parliament...
http://quote.bloomberg.com
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Editor - 09:26:00 04-13-06
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 Immigration Debate Splits Republican Politicians, Not Voters |
The U.S. immigration debate has split congressional Republicans over enforcement measures, guest- worker programs and how to treat millions of undocumented aliens. Republican voters don't have the same problem. A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll this week shows most Republicans support proposals to give legal status to undocumented workers and legislation that combines tougher enforcement of immigration laws with new temporary-worker programs. That 64 percent of Republican voters support this two-part approach may be good news for President George W. Bush, who has endorsed a similar proposal. These results indicate Republican voters are at odds with legislation approved by party lawmakers in the House of Representatives last year that only emphasized tougher enforcement and the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border. ...
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=asHdTQGmf_DM&refer=home
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Editor - 09:04:00 04-13-06
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| British officer jailed for refusing to go to Iraq |
A British Air Force doctor was sentenced to eight months jail on Thursday for refusing orders to go to Iraq. Australian-born Flight-Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, was convicted by a five-member panel of officers of what the judge called "calculated and deliberate disobedience" of five orders to train, prepare and deploy to Iraq last year.Kendall-Smith said he viewed the war as a crime and could not participate in any form.But judge Jack Bayliss ruled British troops were in Iraq in 2005 with the permission of the United Nations, and that Kendall-Smith's view of the war's legality was no defense....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060413/ts_nm/iraq_britain_court_dc
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Editor - 09:02:00 04-13-06
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| Crunch weeks ahead for Europe's CIA probes |
After months without a breakthrough, European investigators probing alleged CIA abuses in the war on terrorism are starting to sound more hopeful and will seek new evidence in the next few weeks. A Washington Post report last November that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had run secret prisons in Eastern Europe for al Qaeda suspects unleashed a spate of investigations which have so far failed to produce a "smoking gun."But after several months when the issue largely faded from view, two developments in the past eight days have generated new headlines.First Amnesty International detailed the case of three Yemeni men who were held for 13 months until May 2005 at a secret U.S. facility, possibly in Eastern Europe....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060413/ts_nm/security_europe_cia_dc
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Editor - 08:58:00 04-13-06
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| Defense begins case in Moussaoui trial |
Coming off a week of emotional, at times horrific, testimony about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawyers for al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui tried Thursday to convince jurors to spare his life and put him in a place from which he could not escape. An expert on prison policy and management testified that if Moussaoui is spared the death penalty he would spend the rest of his life in the highest-security federal prison facilities after he is sentenced. James E. Aiken, the first defense witness in the second phase of Moussaoui's death-penalty trial, said Moussaoui would always require the highest level of supervision and would be isolated not only from the outside world but also from other prisoners. "I don't care how good he is ... I don't care how compliant he is. He will be in the security envelope as long as he lives," Aiken said. ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-13-moussaoui_x.htm
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Editor - 08:54:00 04-13-06
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| Panchen Lama Makes Rare Appearance |
China's controversial choice for a Tibetan holy figure made his first major appearance before an international audience Thursday, saying Tibetan Buddhists should be patriotic and "defend the nation." Gyaltsen Norbu, 16, is the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism and a key figure in the struggle for the religion's future that pits China's officially atheistic communist regime against supporters of the exiled Dalai Lama.Norbu is believed to live in Beijing amid intense secrecy and is almost never seen in public.He was seated onstage at the opening of the five-day World Buddhist Forum, a gathering of about 1,000 monks, nuns and scholars from more than 30 countries that China is using to showcase its cultural diplomacy and its willingness to use traditional beliefs to ease social tensions....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191612,00.html
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Editor - 08:53:00 04-13-06
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