Iraqi leader seeks timetable for withdrawal

Iraqi leader seeks timetable for withdrawal

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister said Monday his country wants some type of timetable for a withdrawal of American troops included in the deal the two countries are negotiating.

It was the first time that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has explicitly and publicly called for a withdrawal timetable — an idea opposed by President Bush.

He offered no details. But his national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press that the government is proposing a timetable conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security.

In Washington, the State Department declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations and said officials in Washington were not yet entirely sure what al-Maliki had said.

Hurricane Bertha increases its strength

MIAMI — Hurricane Bertha has strengthened to a Category 3 storm.

The Atlantic season’s first hurricane is still far from land, but the National Hurricane Center says it now has maximum sustained winds of 115 miles an hour.

The center of the storm is located about 730 miles east-northeast of the Northern Leeward Islands and about 1,150 miles southeast of Bermuda.

Forecasters say it’s moving west-northwest at about 12 miles an hour.

U.S. eyes smugglers as potential terror threat

WASHINGTON — The intercepted e-mail was alarmingly matter-of-fact for anyone worried about a new terror attack: “getting into U.S is no problem at all. thats what i do best.”

The Ghanaian man who wrote it is in prison, accused of smuggling East Africans into the United States via Latin America for economic reasons. But the government worries such operations also could be used to sneak terrorists into the United States now that passports and other travel documents have become harder to acquire and more difficult to fake.

Intelligence officials are focusing new attention on these networks that smuggle people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan — known havens for terrorists, including al-Qaida — according to an internal government assessment obtained by The Associated Press.

Fallout over beef brings shuffle in Cabinet

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president replaced three ministers Monday amid the fallout from a much-criticized U.S. beef import deal, but left his Cabinet largely intact despite their offer to resign to stem weeks of anti-government protests.

Lee Myung-bak has been under intense fire over an April agreement to resume imports of U.S. beef. The deal has led to near-daily street rallies over perceptions the country could be exposed to mad cow disease. The demonstrations have grown to include opponents of the conservative Lee’s pro-business policies.

The shakeup was aimed at “making a new start” while giving other Cabinet members another chance, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.

Goat nabbed on Mercedes

CAPSHAW, Alabama _ The goat was arrested, the Mercedes-Benz was assaulted and the dog came along for the ride.

It happened Sunday when a woman driving the Mercedes saw a goat and dog playing on U.S. 72 in northern Alabama, Sheriff Mike Blakely said.

She stopped, afraid they would get hit, Blakely said. But the goat jumped on the car and wouldn’t come down. Fearing scratches and dents in her import’s paint job, she called the Limestone County Sheriff’s Department. A deputy got the goat down and put it in his patrol car, but then the dog jumped into his back seat too.

The deputy took the dog to a veterinarian and the goat to the home of another deputy.

“If anybody is missing a goat and dog, they need to let us know,” Blakely said.

Associated Press