BOMBING ANNIVERSARY

Bombing anniversary
MADRID, Spain -- People place candles in a tunnel that goes underneath the railway tracks at El Pozo station in Madrid on Saturday. Madrid is commemorating the second anniversary of Spain's worst terrorist attack that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. The attacks were claimed by Muslim militants who said they had acted on behalf of Al-Qaida to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq. A delegation from Morocco -- home to many of the suspects -- fell silent at the Atocha train station, one of four sites where 10 backpack bombs exploded exactly two years ago. The 70-member Moroccan Caravan for Peace and Solidarity set out from Morocco in buses March 5, stopping in Spanish cities before arriving at the station. Inside they held a red Moroccan flag next to the red-and-yellow one of Spain. Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders recited prayers for peace and understanding at the station. They lighted candles as a roll-call of the dead was read. At the El Pozo train station, hardest hit site in the March 11, 2004, attack, about 100 people bowed their heads in silence. Some held red and pink carnations, lit candles at makeshift shrines and cried. Sixty-seven people died at the station.
Authorities investigatepossible case of mad cow
WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department is investigating a possible case of mad cow disease, the agency's chief veterinarian said Saturday. A routine test indicated the possible presence of mad cow disease, said John Clifford, the USDA official. The agency would not say where the animal was from. The cow did not enter the human or animal food chain, Clifford said. The department is conducting more detailed tests at its laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and should have results in four to seven days. "This inconclusive result does not mean we have found a new case of BSE," Clifford said, giving the abbreviation for the disease's formal name, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Bachelet sworn in asfirst female president
VALPARAISO, Chile -- Michelle Bachelet, a single mother who was tortured under Chile's military dictatorship, was sworn in as the country's first female president Saturday and promptly fulfilled a key campaign promise by naming women to half her Cabinet posts. The inauguration also made Bachelet the first directly elected Latin American female president who was not the widow of a powerful politician. Bachelet said her inauguration "was not only the change from a great president to a woman president. It's about putting an entire government to your service." Bachelet, who suffered prison, torture and exile under Chile's military dictatorship, took her oath at the crowded Hall of Honor of Chile's Congress in this port city near Santiago, applauded by most of the leftist leaders who have come to power in South America in recent years. She returned to Santiago, and in a speech from the presidential palace balcony made an appeal to national unity -- an indirect reference to the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Palestinian Cabinet
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that a majority of the ministers in the Cabinet he was putting together would come from outside the newly elected Palestinian legislature. Haniyeh, a leader of the Hamas group, has been negotiating with different Palestinian factions to put together a coalition government by the end of the month in the wake of the Islamic militant group's overwhelming victory in Jan. 25 parliamentary elections. Hamas has been working to bring Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party into the Cabinet, but Fatah leaders have said they prefer to serve in the opposition. Hamas spokesman Salah Bardawil said the group told Palestinian parties they must decide by Monday whether to join a Hamas-led government. .
Associated Press