Saturday, April 19, 2008
Followers of al-Sadr denounce building of wall
BAGHDAD — Followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military’s construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, the scene of renewed clashes Friday between his militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops.
The wall — a concrete barrier of varying height up to about 12 feet — is being built along a main street dividing the southern portion of Sadr City from the northern, where al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters are concentrated.
American commanders hope that construction of the Sadr City wall, which began Tuesday, will effectively cut off insurgents’ ability to move freely into the rest of Baghdad and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, the central Baghdad district where government offices and the U.S. Embassy are located.
Carter meets Hamas chief
DAMASCUS, Syria — Former President Carter defied U.S. and Israeli warnings and met Friday with the exiled leader of Hamas and his deputy, two men the U.S. government has labeled terrorists and Israel accuses of masterminding attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians.
Carter is the most prominent American to hold talks with Khaled Mashaal, whose Palestinian militant group claimed new legitimacy from the meeting along with two other sessions the Nobel laureate held with Hamas leaders in the Middle East this week.
“Political isolation [of Hamas] by the American administration has begun to crumble,” Mohammed Nazzal, a top figure in Hamas’ political bureau, told The Associated Press after Friday’s meeting at Mashaal’s Damascus office.
Children from sect ordered to stay in state custody
SAN ANGELO, Texas — More than 400 children taken from a ranch run by a polygamous sect will stay in state custody and be subject to genetic testing, a judge ruled Friday.
State District Judge Barbara Walther heard 21 hours of testimony over two days before ruling that the children be kept by the state. Individual hearings will be set for the children over the next several weeks.
She ordered that all children and parents be given genetic testing. Child welfare officials have said they’ve had difficulty determining how the children and parents are related because of evasive or changing answers.
Plans for Freedom Tower reportedly found in trash
NEW YORK — The government agency building a 102-story skyscraper at the World Trade Center site is investigating the discovery of two sets of blueprints for the building that a homeless man says he found in the trash.
The schematic documents for the Freedom Tower, under construction at ground zero, were marked “Secure Document — Confidential,” the New York Post reported Friday.
The documents, dated Oct. 5, 2007, contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns, the Post reported.
Michael Fleming told the newspaper he found the documents on top of a public trash can in downtown Manhattan, with written warnings on it to “properly destroy if discarded.”
Dutch defense chief’s son killed in Afghanistan
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The son of the Dutch defense chief was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed they deliberately made the young lieutenant a high-profile target.
While the Dutch quickly cast doubt on the Taliban claim, the death underscores the danger high-profile soldiers can face and illustrates a grim reality for families, famous and not, who choose the military life.
Book blames rivets for Titanic tragedy
NEW YORK — The tragic sinking of the Titanic nearly a century ago can be blamed on low-grade rivets that the ship’s builders used on some parts of the ill-fated liner, two experts on metals conclude in a new book.
The company, Harland and Wolff of Belfast, Northern Ireland, needed to build the ship quickly and at reasonable cost, which may have compromised quality, said co-author Timothy Foecke. That the shipyard was building two other vessels at the same time added to the difficulty of getting the millions of rivets needed, he added.
Associated Press