(CNN) -- Tamil demonstrators protesting the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka flooded onto a major highway in Toronto, Canada, shutting it down for several hours before dispersing early Monday, police said.
There were no arrests, said Sgt. Chuck Konkel of the Toronto Police Department, who estimated the crowd's size at 500 to 1,000 people, although some put the number at several thousand.
It was not clear what the protesters intended by blocking the Gardiner Expressway -- "a very significant arterial road for the city of Toronto," Toronto Police Chief William Blair said. Members of Toronto's Tamil community were taking part in a peaceful demonstration in a nearby park when they moved to block traffic.
"They gave us no indication they were going to do what they [did]," Blair said.
Many of the protesters were on an overpass, and he said many children were in the crowd. Blair called it "an unsafe situation" before the demonstration broke up shortly after midnight.In Sri Lanka, the military has been on an offensive to try to finish off the ethnic Tamil insurgency that has been fighting for an independent state in the northeast of the country since 1983.As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began, and the Tamil Tigers rebel group has been declared a terrorist organization by the European Union and more than 30 countries, including the United States.
On Sunday, a humanitarian worker in Sri Lanka told CNN that nearly 400 people were killed overnight Saturday by government shelling in what is supposed to be a "no-fire" zone. Most of the roughly 378 dead were civilians, and an additional 1,200 were wounded, the aid worker said.
The government denies the claim, saying it is the Tamil Tiger rebels who have been killing civilians.
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Friday, 22 May 2009
Tamil protesters close Toronto highway
Sri Lankan Red Cross worker killed in conflict zone
(CNN) -- A Red Cross worker was killed Wednesday during shelling in the conflict zone in Sri Lanka, the third aid worker killed in six weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.
A photo supplied by a humanitarian group on Sunday
shows civilians allegedly injured in government shelling.
The worker, identified as Majurin Sivakurunathan, was killed along with his mother during an assault, a ICRC spokeswoman said.
The fighting between the Sri Lankan troops and the rebel Tamil Tigers has intensified in the conflict area to the point that the ICRC can not get food to that area or help the sick and wounded, said Sarasi Wijeratne, a ICRC spokeswoman.
The latest death comes after Sri Lanka angrily rebuked a U.N. official Tuesday over remarks by the organization that a civilian "bloodbath" had occurred in the north of the country.
U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss told CNN on Monday that hundreds of civilians died during weekend fighting because the Sri Lankan army had surrounded rebel fighters in the country's north, putting residents in the crossfire.
The Foreign Ministry expressed its displeasure to Amin Awad, acting resident representative of the United Nations in Sri Lanka, about the comments.Mahinda Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka's minister of disaster management and human rights, initially said Weiss would be summoned to explain his remarks, but this did not happen because of diplomatic protocol, a source told CNN, noting that he is a junior official at the U.N. office in Colombo.
Rebel claims of civilian deaths have been considerably higher than those provided by the U.N. Lawrence Christy, the head of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization, said more than 3,200 civilians died in fighting from Sunday evening until Monday morning, the rebel Web site TamilNet reported.The Sri Lankan government has denied the allegations and accused the Tamils of "taking the whole world for a ride with its well-engineered propaganda ploys," while turning their weapons on civilians trying to flee the combat zone.Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for an independent state in Sri Lanka's northeast since 1983.
As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began, and the Tigers have been declared a terrorist organization by the European Union and more than 30 countries, including the United States.
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Myanmar: Suu Kyi pleads not guilty at trial, party says
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- Aung San Suu Kyi declared herself innocent of charges she finally heard in court for the first time Friday, the fifth day of her trial on allegations of subversion.
A television grab shows Aung San Suu Kyi meeting
"I'm not guilty," the Myanmar opposition leader told the court, according to a spokesman for her party. When the court asked why she claimed innocence, she replied, "I didn't break any law," said the spokesman, Nyan Win.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been under house arrest for years under orders from Myanmar's military regime. She is being tried on allegations of subversion along with two of her maids for the May 3 incident in which an American, John William Yettaw, 53, swam across a lake to her house and stayed there for at least one night.
If convicted, Suu Kyi, 63, could be sentenced to three to five years in prison. The trial is being held inside a prison compound in Yangon, and all but one day so far has been closed to the public, including the news media and diplomats.
Yettaw -- who also is on trial -- has been charged with violating immigration laws and trespassing. Conviction on the charges would carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He is being represented by a lawyer selected by the U.S. Embassy in Yangon.
Suu Kyi's lawyer has said his client asked Yettaw to leave her home immediately, but Yettaw refused, first saying he didn't want to swim in daylight for fear of being captured, and later blaming leg cramps. Yettaw left May 5 and was arrested shortly afterward.
In court on Friday, Yettaw said he made the unauthorized trip to Suu Kyi's house because he had a vision she would be assassinated and wanted to warn her, Win said. He said Yettaw could be seen muttering to himself during the proceedings, including utterances that Suu Kyi is innocent. The trial will break for the weekend and resume Monday with Suu Kyi's defense, Win said. The trial has prompted international criticism, with nine Nobel laureates -- including Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa -- calling it a "mockery." U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the charges against Suu Kyi "baseless" and accused Myanmar's ruling junta of "continuing (its) resistance to a free and open electoral process."U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told CNN he was in talks with Myanmar's leadership about traveling to Yangon "as soon as possible" to seek the release of Suu Kyi from her long-standing house arrest, as well as steps toward democratization.
"This is an unacceptable situation when she has been under detention for such a long time," Ban said in the Wednesday interview. "She's a Nobel peace laureate."
Myanmar's government has said next year's scheduled elections will reintroduce democracy in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi's lawyers are expected to argue that the pro-democracy advocate knew nothing about the American's plan to visit her and that she tried in vain to get him to leave.
The defense also is expected to turn the charges on their head, arguing that the government has failed to protect Suu Kyi.
The court may be trying to issue a verdict before Suu Kyi's latest round of home detention expires May 27, according to Win.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years -- a confinement that the military junta has regularly extended. She has been barred for life from running for political office, but human rights groups suspect that Myanmar's junta is concerned that her release could invigorate the opposition.Suu Kyi has been the face of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement and the focus of a global campaign to free her. Her National League for Democracy party won more than 80 percent of the legislative seats in 1990, but she was disqualified from serving because of her house arrest, and the military junta ignored the results.It was during her house arrest that she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Suu Kyi married a British man, who died in 1999, and they have two sons.
Myanmar's government now says citizens who bore children with foreigners cannot run for office.
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McCain campaign manager: GOP should back same-sex marriage
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A key architect of Republican Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign has urged conservatives to drop their opposition to same-sex marriage.
Steve Schmidt served as Sen. John McCain's
"There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same-sex marriage," Schmidt, who was McCain's campaign manager, told the group. "I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities. No other exercise of one's liberty comes with greater responsibilities than marriage. In a marriage, two people are completely responsible to and for each other."
He added: "If you are not willing to accept and faithfully discharge those responsibilities, you shouldn't enter the state of matrimony, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if you're straight or gay. It is a responsibility like no other, which can and should make marriage an association between two human beings more fulfilling than any other."
Schmidt told CNN that the GOP must become more open if it wants to reverse a shrinking coalition, especially among younger, more accepting voters. "People are turned off in large measure by what they see as intolerance coming out of the party," he said.
Schmidt says he knows his is a minority view. In the presidential campaign, McCain ran against same-sex marriage.
"I don't honestly expect our party will reverse in the very near term its opposition to same sex marriage. Nor do I yet see support for it from a strong majority of the general public," Schmidt told the Log Cabin Republicans. "And, I do believe that such a highly charged political question such as this should be settled by the freely expressed will of the people, and not by the courts."
So what will change Republicans' mindset?
"One of the things that has definitely impacted my views on these issues and an evolution of thought over time is having a gay sibling," Schmidt told CNN. "As Americans get to know gay couples and or have gay family members, or work associates ... they come to understand that these relationships are deep and worth being respect and being protected."
Log Cabin Republicans say they hope other party leaders now realize that election losses prove the GOP catered too much to social conservatives."It's great that the Republican Party is going through this soul-searching at this moment right now," said Charles Moran, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans. "Republicans are thinking outside the box."
These days, their grassroots organization is reaching out to sympathetic Republicans in states debating same-sex marriage initiatives, such as New Hampshire.
Recently, Iowa and Vermont approved same-sex marriages. In April, the District of Columbia Council voted to allow same-sex marriages from around the country to be recognized there, though the measure still needs to be debated in Congress. All legislation in the district must pass congressional muster.
And just Thursday, New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, said he plans to introduce a bill in the state Assembly to legalize same-sex marriage.
And this week, another Republican group -- GOProud -- formed to push a broader agenda, advocating traditional conservative issues such as low taxes and smaller government.
"There's this misconception that if you're gay, you're liberal ... just like there's a misconception that if you're conservative, you're a bigot," said Jimmy LaSalvia of GOProud.
Gay Republicans say they often get asked a basic question: Why are you Republican? Most argue that they believe in the principle of limited government.
In fact, nearly 3 in 10 self-identified gays and lesbians voted Republican in the last presidential election, according to exit polling.
But while Schmidt admitted that it will be a tough challenge for the party to accept same-sex marriage, there could be hope down the road.
"I'm confident American public opinion will continue to move on the question toward majority support, and sooner or later the Republican Party will catch up to it," he told the gathering. "And I believe the nation's acceptance of same sex unions as lawful marriage would provide a far more secure guarantee that the change made to this profoundly important social institution will be permanent than would judicial fiat."
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Hollywood eyes $70 zombie movie wowing Cannes
(CNN) -- A budding British director is enjoying success on a shoestring at Cannes with "Colin," a new zombie feature that cost a scarcely believable $70 to make.
"Colin" director Marc Price who spent 18 months making
"We were almost fainting at the list of people who were coming [to the final market screening of the film]," said Helen Grace of Left Films who is helping the film's director Marc Price publicize the film in Cannes. "Representatives from major American distributors -- some of the Hollywood studios."
"When we say it's a low budget film, people presume a couple of hundred thousand [dollars]. People can't figure out how it's possible. What Marc's achieved has left people astonished."
It was by advertising for volunteer zombies on social networking site Facebook, borrowing make-up from Hollywood blockbusters and teaching himself how to produce special effects that thrifty director Price was able to make the film for less than the price of a zombie DVD box set.
"The approach was to say to people, 'OK guys, we don't have any money, so bring your own equipment,'" the the 30 year-old director told CNN.
With help from a makeshift band of friends and volunteers, Price shot and edited the feature -- which ingeniously spins the zombie genre on it's head by telling the story entirely from the zombie's perspective -- over a period of 18 months while working nights part-time as a booker for a taxi company.
Online social networking was an invaluable tool in both generating buzz and cheaply sourcing the undead: "We went on Facebook and MySpace and said 'Who wants to be a zombie?'" Price told CNN. "We managed to get 50 brilliantly made up zombies and stuff them into a living room."
In keeping with Price's beg and borrow approach, most of the zombie make-up in the make-up artists' cases was inherited from other movies. "One of our make-up people came off 'X-Men 3,' so we were having the same latex that was put on Wolverine," he told CNN.Price says he came up with the idea to make a no-budget film because he realized that he and his friends would never be able to scrape together enough money to make even a low-budget film.
"A couple of friends were round a few years ago watching Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead,' recalls Price. "And we were lamenting the fact that we could never make a zombie film -- we wouldn't be able to acquire a budget."
"Then I just woke up before everyone else -- I was probably a bit hungover -- and I wondered if a zombie movie from a zombie's perspective had been done before."
The end result is "Colin," a zombie film "with a heart," Price says, shot using production values cribbed from endless re-watching of making-of featurettes and director's commentaries from his personal DVD collection.
Zombie fan Web site zombiefriends.com called it "as original, compelling and thought provoking as [George] Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead,'" while horror magazine SCARS predicted it would "revolutionize zombie cinema."
Price hopes that the film will generate enough interest to kick-start his career and allow him to make another film. "Hopefully we'll be able to generate some interest and maybe try to get some kind of a budget for our next film -- maybe a bigger budget, £100, I don't know."Price's cost-effective filmmaking may make him the envy of film executives sweating over whether their latest projects will break even, but even "Colin" may suffer at the market: "In a strange way it's kind of counter-productive." admits Price.
"Anyone involved in sales will say, 'Oh, it cost [$70], well how much do you expect us to pay for that?' but with the current economic climate it seems to be a great way to make movies."
So, what exactly did Price spend the famous $70 on?
"We bought a crowbar and a couple of tapes, and I think we got some tea and coffee as well -- not the expensive stuff either, the very basic kind," Price told CNN. "Just to keep the zombies happy."
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At Naval Academy graduation, lives of McCain, Obama overlap
(CNN) -- President Obama delivered the commencement address Friday to the U.S. Naval Academy's graduating class, speaking to an audience of 30,000 that included a former presidential candidate and proud parent of one of the graduates in attendance.
"America, look at these young men and women. Look at these sailors and Marines. Here are the values that we cherish. Here are the ideals that endure," Obama told the crowd.
About midday at the academy's commissioning and graduation ceremony, McCain received a Bachelor of Science degree, taking the oath of office and being commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy 103 years after his great-grandfather did the same. With parents John and Cindy McCain watching, he shook hands with the president and then walked back into the crowd to applause and more hugs.
Joe McCain told CNN that his brother plans to join his father and great-grandfather as naval aviators.
"His grandfather, JSM Jr., was in submarines, commanding three different boats in World War II," he said.That grandfather later became Adm. McCain and was commander of the Pacific Theater during the Vietnam War, when Jack's father, now Arizona Sen. John McCain, was being held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi.
In an interview last year with GoMids.com, Jack McCain reflected on the advice his father gave him on the day he arrived at the Naval Academy.
"My dad told me there is one thing McCains are good at, and that is not giving in to pressure, and honor -- keeping our honor regardless of what happens," Jack McCain said. "He then said, 'Don't lie, cheat or steal -- anything else is fair game.' "
John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, frequently poked fun at his record at the Naval Academy while on the campaign trail, pointing out that he "stood fifth from the bottom" of his class and racked up dozens of demerits.
At a campaign event last October, McCain joked that Jack needed a "DNA check" because he had yet to receive a single demerit. (Jack McCain told GoMids.com that he did accumulate some demerits -- for wearing flip-flops outside and forgetting to shave).
McCain told Fox News on Thursday that his son is graduating "in better class standing than I had, which wasn't hard to do."
"I'm very proud of him," he said.
Meghan McCain, Jack's older sister, sent a message on Twitter Friday saying her younger brother, Jimmy, could not attend because he is serving overseas. McCain told Fox News he is returning home this weekend.
In his remarks to the students, Obama made a vow that he would not send them to war unless it is "absolutely necessary."
"It's a promise that as long as I am your commander in chief, I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy, the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support that you need to get the job done," he said.
"This includes the job of bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end and pursuing a new comprehensive strategy to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan."Obama also promised additional assistance to military families, vowing that "we will be with you every step of the way, increasing your pay, increasing child care and helping families deal with the stress and separation of war." And he said new laws will help ensure that veterans are well taken care of.
Obama's commencement address was his third and final of the year. He was also commencement speaker at Arizona State University and the University of Notre Dame.
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009
UN in plea for Tamil aid access
The UN and aid agencies have appealed to Sri Lanka to allow them access to injured and displaced civilians stranded despite an end to fighting.
Thousands of civilians, many injured and sick, are believed to be there.
Sri Lanka declared an end to civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels following the rebel leader's death.
"We need to have access, I repeat, total access, without the least let or hindrance, for the UN, for NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and for the Red Cross," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UN also called on authorities to improve the situation at camps where thousands had arrived to escape the intensive fighting in the past few months. "It's urgent that assistance gets into those camps and that we are able to deliver," said UN refugee agency spokesman Ron Redmond.
"We've got lots of humanitarian supplies that need to be delivered."
He said the government must improve conditions, maintain law and order and alleviate overcrowding at the camps.
He also said public buildings should be allocated for new arrivals while the UN refugee agency prepared land for new camps.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its local staff who worked in the conflict zone were still missing.
Apart from the northern Jaffna peninsula, the ICRC has no access north of Omantai.
Omantai is a small town through which thousands of displaced Tamil civilians have poured after escaping from the fighting. There they have been screened by the army to distinguish Tamil Tiger members from civilians.
Paul Castella, head of the ICRC in Sri Lanka, told the BBC there were still civilians north of Omantai and he was pressing the authorities for access, to assess the needs of those who are hungry and thirsty, sick or wounded.
Rebel's death
The Red Cross is also concerned that proper funeral rites be carried out for those who have died, and that their families be notified of their fate.
While the fighting was continuing, the ICRC was the only outside agency with access to the area of combat, taking in aid and evacuating wounded people by ship.
On Tuesday pictures of the body of the man who is believed to be rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran were released.
The Tigers had been fighting for a separate state for Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka since the 1970s.
About 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict and thousands displaced.
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Poll pledge for Sri Lanka Tamils
Sri Lanka's reconciliation minister says elections will be held in areas affected by recent fighting once displaced people have been resettled.
More than 250,000 people have been displaced by months of fighting in the north and east of the island.
Meanwhile two Indian envoys have arrived to discuss the Tamil situation.
'Very good'
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Muralitharan, who defected from the Tamil Tigers in 2004, said he hoped the Tamil people would be involved in the future political process. "Our government tried to solve this problem through the political system. After resettlement in the north we are going to do the election."
The minister of national integration and reconciliation said he wanted Tamils to have a greater role in parliament.
"If we sit on the opposition side we will never get any benefits for the minority community," he said.
Mr Muralitharan said he believed the Tamil Tiger rebel movement was finished because all of the senior figures had been killed.
"This war is over, I think. This 30-year-war is over here because the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] is dependent on one person, that was [Velupillai] Prabhakaran.
"The LTTE [was] controlled by him. He never built a secondary role, never a secondary leader, he never built it. He concentrated all the leaders with him. Now all the leaders have died with him," he said. "That is very good for the government because there are no enemies to continue the guerrilla warfare or any warfare here," Mr Muralitharan said.
Separately, India's National Security Adviser MK Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon have arrived for talks on the Tamils' future.
On Tuesday, the president declared the country "liberated" from Tamil Tiger rebels after the last pocket of territory held by them was taken.
The government released pictures of the body of the man believed to be the rebel leader.
Authorities said Mr Muralitharan had positively identified Prabhakaran's body.
The Tigers had been fighting for a separate state for Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka since the 1970s.
About 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict and thousands displaced.
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Protest Monks Escape Tibet
Five Tibetan monks wanted in China for staging protests at a major monastery reach safety in India.
NEW DELHI—Five Tibetan monks who took part in widely publicized 2008 protests against Chinese rule have arrived safely in the Indian capital after eluding Chinese security forces for more than a year.
Three of the monks—identified as Lobsang Gyatso, Jamyang Jinpa, and Jigme Gyatso—had disrupted a government-controlled tour by foreign journalists of Labrang monastery, in a Tibetan-populated area of China’s Gansu province, in April last year.Two others, Gendun Gyatso and Kelsang Jinpa, helped organize protests at Labrang in mid-March. [Eds.: Attn corrected paragraphs]
Their demonstrations, in which they called for freedom for Tibet, came amid widespread protests against Chinese rule throughout the Tibetan region beginning in March.
Hearing after the protests that they had been targeted for arrest, the five escaped in separate groups into the hills near the monastery.
“We lived like animals, moving from place to place. But this was better than prison,” Gendun Gyatso, one of the protest organizers, said in an interview.
After two months in hiding, Gyatso said, he and two friends found themselves surrounded one day by Chinese police. Gyatso and Kelsang Jinpa again escaped.
Their companion was captured and remains in jail, Gyatso said.
Advised to escape
Jamyang Jinpa, one of the monks who spoke to foreign journalists during the April protest, said that he first heard on a Radio Free Asia Amdo-dialect broadcast that the reporters had been invited to visit Labrang.
“But we didn’t know the exact date,” he said.
Jinpa said that he and monastery classmates Lobsang Gyatso and Jigme Gyatso then helped to plan the protest, feeling this would be a “good opportunity” to publicize concerns about Tibet.
“We called for freedom for Tibet and for the release of Tibetan political prisoners, including the Panchen Lama,” Jinpa said.
Chinese troops surrounded Labrang monastery after the protest, Jinpa said, adding that he and his friends then fled into the hills dressed as laymen after a lama advised them to escape.
Asked about the group’s present plans, Jinpa said that they now want only to go to Dharamsala, seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, to meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.
Despite their escape, they have no special feeling of accomplishment, he said.
“Too many people are still suffering in Tibet,” he said.
Massive protests
Much of Tibet has been closed to foreigners since a peaceful demonstration last year in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, erupted into a riot that left at least 22 dead, ignited protests in three neighboring provinces, and prompted Beijing to dramatically increase its troop presence.
The Tibetan government-in-exile in India says about 220 Tibetans died and nearly 7,000 were detained in the subsequent region-wide crackdown.
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Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Pakistan seeks national support against Taliban
Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued in Swat on Monday -- 27 Taliban fighters were killed, including three commanders, along with three Pakistani soldiers, said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani military.
In a separate move to pressure the Taliban, hundreds of Muslim clerics gathered in Islamabad on Sunday to issue a unanimous declaration that denounced the militants' violent tactics.
"Suicide attacks and beheading is haram," the resolution said. "Haram" means forbidden according to Islam.
National consensus is critical for the military offensive to succeed, said a senior foreign diplomat stationed in Islamabad. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the diplomat singled out Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif, leader of the PML-N party and the most powerful political rival to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, as saying that without Sharif's support, the anti-Taliban campaign would be doomed.
Sharif was at Monday's All Party Congress. The Pakistani military mounted its first assault on al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in tribal areas along Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan in 2004.
There have since been a number of military offensives against the Taliban, with questionable results. The attacks have displaced hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and done considerable damage to homes and infrastructure.
The Taliban has extended its area of control from the border all the way to the district of Buner, just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Pakistani capital. The military attacked Taliban fighters in Buner late last month. As of Sunday, troops were still battling to dislodge insurgents from parts of Buner, according to Pakistani military spokesmen.
The top U.S. military commander told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that it was too early to pass judgment on Pakistan's most recent military offensive.
"My biggest question about these operations is their ability to sustain them over time," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Historically, they haven't done that."
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The United Nations says the fighting has forced more than 1 million Pakistanis to flee their homes in the northwest of the country since May 2.Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gilani, addressing the All Party Congress on Monday, said, "The army will remain in these areas until the displaced people can return to their homes, and until peace is established."
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Early History
The network has 36 bureaus (10 domestic, 26 international), more than 900 affiliated local stations, and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world. The network's success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for the Time Warner conglomerate's eventual acquisition of Turner Broadcasting.
A companion network, Headline News (originally called CNN2) was launched on January 1, 1982 and featured a continuous 24-hour cycle of 30-minute news broadcasts. Headline News broke from its original format in 2005 with the addition of Headline Prime. The added Headline Prime programs featured confrontational personalities like radio talk-show host Glenn Beck and former Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Nancy Grace.
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Obama approves Afghanistan troop increase
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama has approved a significant troop increase for Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires," Obama said in a written statement.
"The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda supports the insurgency and threatens America from its safe haven along the Pakistani border." See what CNN's Barbara Starr says about the increase on the AC360 blog
Another 5,000 troops will be deployed at a later date to support combat troops, bringing the total to 17,000 the Defense Department said. A senior administration official confirmed the total.
The Obama administration has been conducting several reviews of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including a review by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in the region. The president and the Pentagon have been considering a request from the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, to send as many as 30,000 additional troops.
Obama said the troop increase in Afghanistan would be made possible in part by the impending troop drawdown in Iraq. View a chart of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan »
All 17,000 troops announced Tuesday will go to the southern region of the country where Afghanistan borders Pakistan, with the goal mainly being to stop the flow of foreign fighters, according to a U.S. military official with direct knowledge of the deployment and military plans for Afghanistan.
The troops will also train Afghan army units.
The military operations will set up a string of bases and smaller combat outposts, allowing the troops to move around and engage in counterterrorism against foreign fighters and counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban and other local enemies, the official said.
The goal is to have enough troops to "seize and hold" territory and maintain basic security, which hasn't been possible under current troop levels, the official said. The Taliban continues to maintain at least half a dozen safe areas inside Afghanistan, which are prime targets for the U.S. military. iReport.com: Do youths have "war fatigue"?
About 38,000 U.S. troops are currently serving in Afghanistan.
The increased troop levels are expected to last three to four years, the military official said.
However, the administration official said there was no clear timeline. "That would prejudge the outcome of the strategic review," the senior administration official said. iReport.com: "Afghanistan: The real war on Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the original mission in Afghanistan was "too broad" and needs to be more "realistic and focused" for the United States to succeed.
"If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience and money," Gates said during a recent Senate hearing.
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Obama: Candidate vs. President
(CNN) -- More than two years ago, a junior senator with presidential aspirations stood on the steps of Illinois' Old State Capitol in Springfield and warned of politicians who fail to live up to expectations.
"Too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own," then-Sen.
Barack Obama said as he announced his intentions to pursue the Democratic nomination.
Now, after 100 days in office, observers are asking the same of him: Has President Obama lived up to the expectations that candidate Obama created?
"What Obama has successfully done is keep his persona intact, which is a man of deep family values and a core moral center. And I think that people are learning to trust Obama that when he talks, he's not just articulate, but he's shooting straight," said presidential historian Doug Brinkley.
Obama won the White House campaigning on a message of hope and a promise of change. As he emerged a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, he pushed an ambitious agenda, vowing to overhaul health care, education and energy policy. But as the severity of the economic meltdown took hold and Obama moved into the White House, his inspirational rhetoric was injected with a sobering dose of reality. Obama encouraged patience and cautioned that, "change doesn't happen overnight."In his first 100 days, Obama laid the groundwork for many of his campaign promises and faced criticism that he's trying to do too much.
"Nobody will ever be able to accuse him of being an idle man during his first 100 days," Brinkley said. "He's clearly showing himself to be a progressive in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, with the moral core of Jimmy Carter."
So far Obama is showing himself to be "the same guy that we had on the campaign trail," Brinkley said.
Given the items on his agenda, Obama is living up to expectations, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said. "The public is patient and is not expecting to see a quick turnaround in the economy," he said.
"I count 10 major items -- jobs, health care, education, energy, housing, banks, automakers, deficit reduction, taxes and the war in Afghanistan. Plus, a pledge to take up immigration reform and climate change in the near future. Any one of those things would be a significant agenda," he said.
>But some Republicans say the president has failed when it comes to his pledge to reach across the aisle. After Democrats moved ahead with a $787 billion stimulus bill that garnered no Republican support in the House and just three Republican votes in the Senate, "That's when it became clear to me that all of this post-partisan talk and working down the middle and working together was a ruse," said John Boehner, House minority leader.
Obama's approval ratings remain high -- hovering around 65 percent. Those numbers are on par with where President Reagan and President Carter stood at this point in their presidencies. But one year later, their approval ratings dropped to about 40 percent.
Obama has maintained his popularity, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Mary Matalin said, but he's lost support from Republicans and some independents "because what he is not is what he was perceived to be in the campaign -- a centrist."
Schneider said Obama's agenda -- which includes massive government spending -- represents a challenge to the Republicans' core principle of smaller government. Republicans haven't responded to Obama's outreach, and "it's causing serious political damage to their party, he said. Video Watch: Is bipartisanship dead?
Obama is not personally polarizing in part because he is cautious about divisive social issues, "but his economic policies are very divisive," Schneider said.
"Obama is the mirror image of Bill Clinton ... Voters either loved him or hated him," he said, noting that after his first two years, Clinton's policies became more moderate and consensus driven.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee last month released an ad accusing Obama of backpedaling on numerous campaign promises, calling him out for signing a spending bill with thousands of earmarks, mishandling the AIG bonus scandal and failing to rein in government spending.
PolitiFact, a Web site that has been keeping track of Obama's campaign promises, reports that Obama has kept 27 promises, compromised on seven, broken six, stalled on three, has 67 in the works and has yet to take action on another 408.
But one Republican who broke ranks to endorse Obama and also spoke at the Democratic convention says he's had no regrets.
"As president, in surprisingly short order, he has moved rather decisively to implement new directions," said former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, who served as a Republican member of the House for 30 years.
And on areas where Obama hasn't been 100 percent in line with his campaign promises -- such as softening his stance on NAFTA and slightly extending his timeline for troop withdrawal -- Leach said Obama is making adjustments "in a very appropriately adaptive way."
"It is inconceivable that a thinking individual can agree with the president or anyone in public office 100 percent of the time," he said, adding that he thinks Obama has some prospect of "potentially going down as one of the great presidents in American history."
Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tennessee, who declined to endorse Obama before his party's convention, said Obama has met expectations thus far.
"I think every person who runs for office -- whether it's a local office, statewide office, runs for president -- we all have ideas, we all have visions, we all have a hope," Davis said. "But then acting on those is sometimes more difficult than others. But I do believe the president, during the campaign, made his visions known ... and I think he has certainly lived up to those."
Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ed Rollins said if he were a Democrat, he might give Obama an "A" on his performance.
"I think the guy has had a great start. He's pushing an agenda that obviously he ran on. He's lived up to most of his promises. You know, he's a big personality, and I don't diminish that," he said.
"I think the country wants a president they feel comfortable with. A long, hard path ahead, and hopefully, some of the stuff he's thrown out there will work because we're spending a ton of taxpayers' money," he said, noting that as a Republican he gives Obama a "B."
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Brinkley said it's somewhat unfair to hold the president to a 100-day litmus test because "it takes a while to get settled in.
"He's doing a lot of bold things for as short a period of 100 days," he said, pointing specifically to Obama's economic bailouts. But, he said, there's the large caveat that only time will tell how these bold moves will play out.
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Sri Lanka President Says Country Free From Terror
Sri Lanka's president declared his country "liberated from separatist terror" Tuesday as the military said it recovered the body of Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran from the battlefield on which he was slain.
TV footage showed a bloated body resembling the rebel leader, still dressed in a dark green camouflage uniform, laid out on a stretcher on the grass.
rested on top of his head, apparently to cover a bullet wound. His open eyes stared straight up and his face appeared bloated.
"A few hours ago, the body of terrorist leader Prabhakaran, who ruined this country, was found on the battleground," army chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka told state television.
The death of Prabhakaran, the unquestioned leader of the Tamil Tigers, would make it far more difficult for the rebel movement to reform and continue its nearly three decade separatist war.Speaking before the announcement, a rebel official abroad denied Prabhakaran was killed and said the Tamil Tiger leader was in a safe place.
With the war on the northern battlefields over, President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament early Tuesday.
Recounting how the rebels, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, once controlled a wide swath of the north and east, Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years, the country was unified under its elected government.
"Our motherland has been completely liberated from separatist terrorism," he said, declaring Wednesday a national holiday.
The rebels, listed as terrorists by the U.S. and European Union, had been fighting for a homeland for the mainly Hindu Tamil minority after decades of marginalization at the hands of governments dominated by the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority.
Briefly addressing parliament in the Tamil language, Rajapaksa said the war was not waged against the Tamil people.
"Our intention was to save the Tamil people from the cruel grip of the LTTE. We all must now live as equals in this free country," he said.Rajapaksa has said in the past he would negotiate some form of power-sharing with the Tamil community following the war and he alluded Tuesday to the need for an agreement."We must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities," he said. "That solution, which would be based on the philosophy of Buddhism, will be an example to the whole world."
He also called upon Sri Lankans — especially Tamils — who fled the country to return and help it rebuild.
"There are no minority communities in this country. There are only two communities, one that loves this country and another that does not," he said.
The war killed more than 70,000 people over the past quarter century. Another 265,000 ethnic Tamils were displaced in the recent offensive and many of them have been sent to overcrowded camps in the north.The chubby Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang in the late 1970s into one of the world's most feared insurgencies. At the height of his power, Prabhakaran controlled a virtual country in the north and a rebel army of thousands backed by artillery, a navy and a nascent air force.
He was also branded a terrorist abroad and his fighters waged hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and forcibly recruited child soldiers.
A rebel official overseas, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, denied Prabhakaran had been killed.
"Our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people," he said in a statement posted Tuesday on the rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site. He offered no further details or evidence to support the claim.
With the rebels' conventional forces eliminated, many in Sri Lanka were waiting to see what concessions Rajapaksa was willing to make.
"Now (there) is a historic opportunity, and hopefully things will change. But the demonstrable record so far is not particularly encouraging," said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, a political analyst and executive director of the Colombo-based Center for Policy Alternatives.Though Rajapaksa promised political compromise, the defeat of the rebels leaves a vacuum in the Tamil leadership.Prabhakaran killed many community leaders seen as a challenge to his authority. Others moved abroad, while many of those who remained active in politics either allied themselves with the government or were linked to the rebels and effectively sidelined.The bloody end to the war, which reportedly killed thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians, could also complicate peace efforts.
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Mullen: 2 Years to Turn Tide in Afghanistan
The nation's top military officer warned Monday that the deaths of Afghan civilians caught up in U.S. combat operations could cripple President Barack Obama's revamped strategy for the seven-year-old war. "I believe that each time we do that, we put our strategy in jeopardy," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. "We cannot succeed ... in Afghanistan by killing Afghan civilians."
Mullen said additional forces and new tactics can help the United States turn a discouraging tide in Afghanistan. He said he was hopeful that "in the next 12- to 24 months, that we can stem the trends which have been going very badly in Afghanistan the last three years."
But speaking at the Brookings Institution, Mullen sounded frustrated that as the first of 21,000 U.S. reinforcements arrive, Taliban insurgents are having a seemingly easy time using America's military prowess against it.Mullen pointed to this month's disputed U.S. airstrikes in Farah province, in which women and children were apparently among dozens of civilians killed. The United States says the Taliban is responsible for at least some of the deaths, but Mullen didn't spend much time defending U.S. actions.
The May 4-5 incident is still under investigation and Mullen indicated the details may always remain murky.
Mullen refused to rule out the use of unmanned drones, which the United States uses to target insurgent hideouts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Witnesses in the latest incident say a drone flew overhead before the U.S. bombs fell.
"We can't tie our troops' hands behind their backs," Mullen said.
Afghans blame U.S. airstrikes for the deaths and destruction in two villages in the western province. American officials say the Taliban held villagers hostage during the fight.
"We've got to be very, very focused on making sure that we proceed deliberately, that we know who the enemy is," Mullen said. "The enemy uses this very effectively against us."
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Primate Fossil Could Be Key Link in Evolution
Scientists say a 47-million-year-old fossil found in Germany may be a key link to explain the evolution of early primates, and, ultimately, modern human beings.
The fossil, of a young female that probably resembled a modern-day lemur, is described as "the most complete primate fossil ever found." It is small -- with a body about the size of a raccoon -- but it has characteristics found in later primates and in humans.
It has, among other things, opposable thumbs, similar to humans' and unlike those found on other modern mammals. It has fingernails instead of claws. And by examining the structure of its hind legs (one of which is partly missing), scientists say they can see evidence of evolutionary changes that would eventually lead to primates standing upright.Remains From a German Caldera
The find is being published next week in the online journal Public Library of Science - One (PLoS One for short). The cable channel History, which bought the North American documentary rights to the find, provided exclusive details to ABC News.
"She is a transitional species showing characteristics from both the non-human (prosimians and lemurs) and human (anthropoids, monkeys, apes and man) evolutionary lines," said the producers in a statement reviewed by the authors of the PLoS One paper.
It was discovered by amateur fossil hunters in 1983 in a mile-wide crater called the Messel Shale Pit, not far from Frankfurt. Scientists speculate that at one time the pit was a volcanic caldera, where animals got caught and their remains unusually were well preserved. The amateurs recognized that they had a very good fossil, but they did not recognize its potential importance.
The location, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been the source of many other fossils from the Eocene Period, about 50 million years ago.
The fossil was shown by collectors to Dr. Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo, who brought in colleagues from Oslo and from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt to authenticate the find. They bought the specimen so that it would not disappear into private hands.
Examination of the fossil went on for two years. They have called the specimen Darwinius masillae. The researchers were able to keep their work secret until word leaked out in the last week.
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Monday, 18 May 2009
U.S. to Issue Tougher Fuel Standards for Automobiles
WASHINGTON —The Obama administration will issue new national emissions and mileage requirements for cars and light trucks to resolve a long-running conflict among the states, the federal government and auto manufacturers, industry officials said Monday.President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California’s tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016.
The White House would not divulge details, but environmental advocates and industry officials briefed on the program said that the president would grant California’s longstanding request that its tailpipe emissions standards be imposed nationally. That request was denied by the Bush administration but has been under review by top Obama administration officials since January.advocates and industry officials briefed on the program said that the president would grant California’s longstanding request that its tailpipe emissions standards be imposed nationally. That request was denied by the Bush administration but has been under review by top Obama administration officials since January.
But Mr. Obama is planning to go further, putting in place new fuel economy rules that will combine the standards of California’s emissions law with the corporate average fuel economy program administered by the Department of Transportation. The effect will be a single national mileage rule that matches California’s strictest-in-the-nation standard.
Under the new standard, the national fleet mileage rule for cars would be roughly 42 miles a gallon in 2016. Light trucks would have to meet a fleet average of slightly more than 26.2 miles a gallon by 2016.
“This is a very big deal,” said Daniel Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign, a group that has pushed for tougher mileage and emissions standards with the goal of curbing the heat-trapping gases that have been linked to global warming. “This is the single biggest step the American government has ever taken to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Industry officials spoke on condition of anonymity about the program because they said they did not want to comment publicly in advance of the White House announcement.
The current standards are 27.5 miles a gallon for cars and about 24 miles a gallon for trucks. The new mileage and emissions rules will gradually tighten, beginning with 2011 models, until they reach the 2016 standards.
The auto industry is not expected to challenge the rule, which provides two things they have long asked for: certainty on a timetable and a single national standard.
The administration has been under a self-imposed June 30 deadline to decide whether to grant California’s application to impose new emissions rules. President Obama became personally involved in the issue because he is also trying to find a way to rescue the American automobile companies from their financial crisis.
One top industry official said the administration wanted to get the new mileage rules in place before General Motors makes a decision on a bankruptcy filing, which could happen by the end of the month.
The new rules also provide some certainty for Chrysler, which is already under bankruptcy protection, so that it can plan its future models.
Mr. Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency in January to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. The president also instructed the Transportation Department to draw up rules to supplement a 2007 law requiring a 40 percent improvement in gas mileage for autos and light trucks by 2020.
The Bush administration failed to write any regulations to enforce the 2007 law.
Daniel J. Weiss, an environmental policy analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress, said that under the White House plan, California would retain the ability to set its own emissions standards in the future when the current program expires.
He also said that the new administration program was very close in language and intent to a provision in the climate change and energy bill now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That bill calls for a "harmonization" of the California and federal regulatory programs to provide a nationwide standard.
He said the standards were being written so that the car companies would already be on track to meet the standards set in the first few years of the program. The cars and trucks that will be sold in that period are already in the design phase. But starting in 2013 and 2014, the new rules will begin to bite, Mr. Weiss said.
"The rubber really meets the road in 2014," he said.
Mr. Obama has been thinking about the future of the American automobile industry for years. In 2006, during his second year as a United States senator, he co-sponsored a bill to raise fuel economy standards and another to encourage the use of alternative fuels.
During the presidential campaign, he gave a speech in Detroit chastising the American automobile industry for doing too little to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and to improve the vehicles’ fuel efficiency.
"The auto industry’s refusal to act for so long has left it mired in a predicament for which there is no easy way out," Mr. Obama said.
That inaction has brought General Motors and Chrysler to their current dire state, requiring billions in federal bailouts and Chrysler’s forced marriage to Fiat to survive.
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Aid agencies scramble to help displaced in Sri Lanka
(CNN) -- Humanitarian aid agencies scrambled Monday to offer help to the tens of thousands of people in need after Tamil separatists declared an end to their quarter-century struggle in Sri Lanka. The United Nations said Monday that over the past few days some 65,000 people had fled what had been the fighting zone in northeast Sri Lanka, bringing to 265,000 the number of internally displaced people, which it refers to as IDPs.
"This latest massive influx of people, who have endured extreme conditions, will put an even greater strain on the transit and IDP sites that are already buckling under the pressure of the existing IDP population," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a written statement.The agency pledged to erect an additional 10,000 shelters to accommodate people streaming from the combat zone.
It reiterated its request for the Sri Lankan government to set aside land for the construction of emergency shelters, water and sanitation facilities and public buildings in Vavuniya, Jaffna, Mannar and Kilinochchi.
And it called on the government to improve conditions at 42 sites already hosting the displaced people, and to ensure adequate care and maintenance for them.
But the United Nations said its access to the sites in Vavuniya had been curtailed in recent days "and this affects our ability to monitor and distribute aid to the displaced. We hope this ends quickly."Suresh Bartlett, aid agency World Vision's national director, said, "The conventional war may be over but the real challenge now is to foster an environment where fractured and displaced Tamil communities can heal and have a real chance at creating a future for themselves and their children."
Among the pressing issues, he said, is getting people back to their land and homes as quickly as possible, which in some cases will require that land be demined and buildings be repaired.
About 80,000 of the displaced -- a third of the people in camps -- are children, who need emotional, psychosocial and educational support in addition to physical aid.
"It is important to get people home as quickly as possible so they can feel a sense of ownership over their own lives, recover their dignity and livelihoods and create an environment where their children feel safe," he said.
In a telephone interview from Colombo, Sri Lanka's most populous city, Bartlett said that the displacement camps are overcrowded, with two and three families staying in shelters intended for a single family.
"A lot more needs to be done," he said. "More land needs to be cleared, more shelters set up" and safe drinking-water supplies assured. "It's not easy and it's not straightforward."
He said many of the people still streaming into the camps are malnourished.
Though the end of the conflict marks a great opportunity, "we can do with all the international support that we can get at this time," he said.
Estimates put the number of civilians killed in the conflict at 70,000 to 80,000, but Bartlett acknowledged that the true number may never be known.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, the aid group also known as Doctors Without Borders, was trying to scale up on Monday, a spokeswoman said.
The group's head of mission, Hugues Robert, said the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization is staffing three hospitals in the region, where it was screening people seeking help to determine their needs, stabilize them, then treat them.
With fighting apparently ended, Robert predicted that the organization's team of 343 national staff and approximately 50 international staff will focus many of their efforts on providing post-operative care.
"We have a lot of wounded people," he said.
One area of need that remains largely unaddressed, he said, is mental health.
Amnesty International called for steps to be taken to ensure civilians and captured fighters are protected.
"The Sri Lankan government must ensure that its forces fully respect international law, including all provisions relating to protecting civilians from the effect of hostilities," said Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director, Sam Zarifi.
Amnesty International called on the Sri Lankan government to give humanitarian agencies full access; to allow independent observers to monitor the situation to guard against human-rights violations; and to register displaced people as a safeguard against enforced disappearances.
Zarifi called on the international community to deploy monitors. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly called the end of fighting "an opportunity for Sri Lanka to turn the page on its past and build a Sri Lanka rooted in democracy, tolerance, and respect for human rights."
He said it is "vital for the government to provide for the needs of the civilians now living in relief camps. Providing food, water, shelter, basic health care, and sanitation as well as expediting their return to their homes should be a top priority for the government."
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Netanyahu Resists Obama's Call for Two-State Solution at Mideast Talks
President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree peace needs to come to the Middle East but their visions may differ, as the U.S. leader called Monday for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians and Netanyahu made no mention of a nation for the Arab people.President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree peace needs to come to the Middle East but their visions may differ, as the U.S. leader called Monday for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians and Netanyahu made no mention of a nation for the Arab people.
Netanyahu said he is ready to restart peace talks right away as long as Palestinians immediately recognize the Jewish state.
"We don't want to govern the Palestinians, we want to live peacefully, we want them to govern themselves absent a handful of powers that could endanger the state of Israel. And to this end there is a clear goal, the goal has to be an end to conflict," Netanyahu said while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office. "We're ready to do our share. We hope the Palestinians will do their share as well. If we resume negotiations, as we plan to do, then I think that the Palestinians will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state; will have to also enable Israel to have the means to defend itself. If those conditions are met -- Israel's security conditions are met, and there's recognition of Israel's legitimacy -- its permanent legitimacy, then I think we can envision an arrangement where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in dignity, security and in peace," he said.
Obama said the Israelis must stop building settlements in the West Bank and should follow the outline from the Annapolis Conference convened during the Bush administration that laid out a "roadmap" to peace.
"I have said before and I will repeat again that it is, I believe, in the interests not only of the Palestinians but also the Israelis and the United States and the international community to achieve a two-state solution," Obama said.
"There is no reason why we should not seize this opportunity and this moment for all parties concerned to take seriously those obligations and to move forward in a way that assures Israel's security and stops the terrorist attacks that have been such a source of pain and hardship," he continued.
Before his Feb. 10 election, Netanyahu derided the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which stalled late last year, as a waste of time. Also raising hackles among Palestinians and the U.S. has been increased settlement activity, with settlers announcing Sunday that government officials have begun taking bids to build infrastructure for a fledgling Jewish community deep in the West Bank.
On the other hand, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, said Sunday in Jordan that Netanyahu would abide by agreements signed by his predecessors, including the U.S.-backed Mideast peace plan calling for a two-state solution to the conflict with Palestinians.
Peres said progress depended on an end to attacks by Hamas militants and greater Palestinian efforts to ensure Israel's security. Netanyahu said he does not want another Gaza on Israel's border, where rockets frequently rain down on Israeli towns.
Meanwhile, sources close to the Israeli government recently told FOX News that Netanyahu was to seek assurances from Obama that neighboring Arab nations will back the weak Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas in concessions for peace.
Netanyahu said realities on the ground are changing.
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Reports: Sri Lanka Kills Tamil Tiger Leader
Sri Lanka declared Monday it had crushed the final resistance of the Tamil Tigers, killing the rebel group's leader along with his son and other commanders, according to reports.
The death of Velupillai Prabhakaran came as the government claimed to have seized control of the island state for the first time in 26 years, ending Asia's longest-running war.
Prabhakaran was ambushed and shot dead while trying to flee government troops as special forces closed in on the last rebel fortifications, state television reported.
However, the account of events was disputed by a military spokesman who said there had been no formal identification of Prabhakaran's body, the Times of London reported. The body, as well as the bodies of other slain rebels will undergo DNA and forensic tests, officials told the Times.
State television broke into its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran's death, and the government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country confirming he was killed along with top deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman.
The announcement sparked mass celebrations around the country, and people poured into the streets of Colombo dancing and singing.
Prabhakaran's death has been seen as crucial in bringing closure to this war-wracked Indian Ocean island nation. If he had escaped, he could have used his large international smuggling network and the support of Tamil expatriates to spark a new round of guerrilla warfare here. His death in battle could still turn him into a martyr for other Tamil separatists.
Sri Lanka's army chief, Lt. Gen. Sareth Fonseka, said on television that his troops routed the last rebels from the northern war zone Monday morning and were working to identify Prabhakaran's body from among the dead.
"We can announce very responsibly that we have liberated the whole country from terrorism," he told state television. It was widely presumed Fonseka was waiting for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to announce Prabhakaran's death.Fonseka and the commanders of the other security forces were scheduled to formally inform the president of the victory Monday evening.
Senior military officials said troops closed in on Prabhakaran and his final cadre early Monday.
He and his top deputies then drove an armor-plated van accompanied by a bus filled with rebel fighters toward approaching Sri Lankan forces, sparking a two-hour firefight, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Troops eventually fired a rocket at the van, ending the battle, they said. Troops pulled Prabhakaran's body from the van and identified it as that of the rebel leader, they said. The attack also killed Soosai, the head of the rebels' naval wing, and Pottu Amman, the group's feared intelligence commander, the officials said.
Suren Surendiran, a spokesman for the British Tamils' Forum, the largest organization for expatriate Tamils in Britain, said the community was in despair.
"The people are very somber and very saddened. But we are ever determined and resilient to continue our struggle for Eelam," he said, invoking the name of the Tamils hoped-for independent state. "We have to win the freedom and liberation of our people."
But in Colombo, which had suffered countless rebel bombings, people set of fireworks, danced and sang in the streets.
"Myself and most of my friends gathered here have narrowly escaped bombs set off by the Tigers. Some of our friends were not lucky," said Lal Hettige, 47, a businessman celebrating in Colombo's outdoor market. "We are happy today to see the end of that ruthless terrorist organization and its heartless leader. We can live in peace after this."
The chubby, mustachioed Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang in the late 1970s into one of the world's most feared insurgencies. He demanded unwavering loyalty and gave his followers vials of cyanide to wear around their necks and bite into in case of capture.
At the height of his power, he controlled a shadow state in northern Sri Lankan and commanded a force that including an infantry, backed by artillery, a significant naval wing and a nascent air force.
He also controlled a suicide squad known as the Black Tigers that was blamed for scores of deadly attacks. The rebels were branded a terror group and condemned for forcibly conscripting child soldiers.
Earlier, the military announced it had killed several top rebel leaders, including Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony, also a rebel leader. The military said special forces also found the bodies of the rebels' political wing leader, Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the rebels' peace secretariat, Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and one of the top military leaders, known as Ramesh.
The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority after years of marginalization at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
Government forces ousted the rebels from their shadow state in the north in recent months and brought the group to its knees. Thousands of civilians were reportedly killed in the recent fighting.
Senior diplomats had appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire in recent weeks to safeguard the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone, but the government refused, and denied persistent reports it was shelling the densely populated war zone.
Diplomats in Brussels said Monday the European Union will endorse a call for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions were ongoing.
The rebels were also accused of using the civilians as human shields and shooting at some who fled.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says there have been "very grave allegations" of war crimes on both sides of the conflict adding "they should be properly investigated."
The U.N. said 7,000 civilians were killed in the fighting between Jan. 20 and May 7. Health officials in the area said more than a 1,000 others were killed since then.
On Monday, more than a thousand angry Sri Lankans protested outside the British Embassy in Colombo, pelting it with rocks and eggs and burning an effigy of Miliband and throwing it inside the compound. Protesters held posters calling Miliband a "white Tiger," and several tried to climb the embassy's high walls.
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