hSinger backs Chavez, calls Bush a terrorist

hSinger backs Chavez,calls Bush a terrorist
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.
"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.
Church will rebuild
CHICAGO -- The majestic vaulted ceilings, amazing acoustics and ornamental designs are gone. But the voices that once filled the sanctuary at the 115-year-old Pilgrim Baptist Church sang out Sunday, pledging to rebuild after fire destroyed the birthplace of gospel music.
The chairman of the church's deacon's board rallied 200 members gathered to worship in an auditorium offered by Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH/Coalition just a few miles from the church's burned out shell.
"The Lord built man from the dirt," Alfonso Carrington told the crowd. "What better way to rebuild than from the dirt up? He did it in seven days. I can't promise you we'll do it in seven days, but we will rebuild."
Paintings stolen
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- Two robbers broke into a museum in northern Serbia city Sunday, tied up the guards and made away with four precious oil paintings, including works by Rembrandt and Rubens, police said.
The heist in the City Museum of Novi Sad, some 30 miles north of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, took place in the early morning, police spokesman Stevan Krstic told reporters.
The stolen pieces included Rembrandt Van Rijn's "Portrait of Father," Peter Paul Rubens' "Seneca," as well as a miniature by Pier Francesco Mola, an Italian baroque era painter, and a painting by an anonymous 16th-century Dutch author.
IRS accused of violation
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has illegally stopped making public detailed tax enforcement data, which has been used to show which kinds of taxpayers get the most and toughest audits, a noted tax researcher says.
Syracuse University Professor Susan B. Long said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle late last week that since Nov. 1, 2004, the Internal Revenue Service has violated a 1976 court order requiring the release of the data.
IRS spokesman Terry Lemons responded Friday, "We do not believe we are in violation of the court order."
Long, who has researched and written about federal tax administration for more than 30 years, used the Freedom of Information Act to win the court order in 1976 directing the revenue agency to provide her regularly with its data on criminal investigations, tax collections, the number and hours devoted to audits by income level and taxpayer category and other enforcement records. Since 1989, her FOIA requests have been submitted by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data-research organization at Syracuse of which she is co-director.
Mouse burns house
FORT SUMNER, N.M. -- A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.
Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.
"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.
Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.
No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.
Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.
"I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy said, "but nothing as unique as this one."
Associated Press