Fears grow about Israeli attack on Iran

Fears grow about Israeli attack on Iran

jerusalem

For the first time in nearly two decades of escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, world leaders are genuinely concerned that an Israeli military attack on the Islamic Republic could be imminent — an action that many fear might trigger a wider war, terrorism and global economic havoc.

High-level foreign dignitaries, including the U.N. chief and the head of the American military, have stopped in Israel in recent weeks, urging leaders to give the diplomatic process more time to work. Israel seems unmoved, and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has reportedly concluded that an Israeli attack on Iran is likely in the coming months.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday he does not think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran.

Egypt will try 19 Americans in case

cairo

Ignoring a U.S. threat to cut off aid, Egypt on Sunday referred 19 Americans and 24 other employees of nonprofit groups to trial before a criminal court on accusations they illegally used foreign funds to foment unrest in the country.

Egypt’s military rulers had already deeply strained ties with Washington with their crackdown on U.S.-funded groups promoting democracy and human rights and accused of stirring up violence in the aftermath of the uprising a year ago that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. The decision to send 43 workers from the various groups to trials marks a sharp escalation in the dispute.

Noriega hospitalized

panama city

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was toppled by a 1989 American invasion and later convicted of drug running, was transferred from prison to a hospital Sunday because of extreme hypertension, health officials said.

Health Minister Franklin Vergara said Noriega’s blood pressure was very high, nearly leading to a stroke. The former military strongman arrived to a hospital, and doctors saw signs of a possible brain hemorrhage.

Further X-rays and evaluations yielded normal results, Vergara said.

Death toll from cold tops 280 in Europe

belgrade, serbia

Subzero cold combined with snowstorms continued to claim lives across Europe, bringing the death toll to more than 280 by Sunday — most of the victims were in Ukraine, where 30 more died over the weekend.

The severe weather, with the temperature in Ukraine often falling to 30 degrees below zero, has killed at least 131 people there since the beginning of winter, most of them homeless.

Student finds lost Malcolm X speech

providence, r.i.

The recording was forgotten, and so, too, was the odd twist of history that brought together Malcolm X and a bespectacled Ivy Leaguer fated to become one of America’s top diplomats.

The audiotape of Malcolm X’s 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn’t stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little- remembered visit in the university archives.

In the May 11, 1961, speech delivered to a mostly white audience of students and residents, Malcolm X, then 35 and a supporter of the black separatist movement Nation of Islam, combines blistering humor and reason to argue that blacks should not look to integrate into white society but must forge their own identities and culture.

Combined dispatches