Early Bird summary
Wednesday’s Early Bird leads with the Wall Street Journal reporting that President Barack Obama is hoping to boost the flagging war effort in Afghanistan by sending 17,000 reinforcements. Most of them will be deployed to small, remote bases such as Seray, a walled compound of trenches and fortified buildings near the Pakistan border. Many of these new outposts will be in eastern and southern Afghanistan, the most violent parts of the country.Last year was the bloodiest yet in Afghanistan for U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghan forces -- as well as for Afghan civilians -- since the start of the U.S.-led war in 2001. American and Afghan officials expect 2009 to be worse; 30 American soldiers have already been killed in Afghanistan this year compared with 155 in all of 2008. The violence has been triggered by the resurgent Taliban, which is expanding its operations with revenues from the country's flourishing opium trade. There are currently about 52,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including about 35,000 U.S. troops.
Likewise, the Financial Times of London reports that Robert Gates, US defense secretary, on Tuesday stressed that it was “impossible” to determine when US troops would return home from Afghanistan, underscoring the increasingly tough security situation in the war-torn country.Barack Obama recently approved the deployment of another 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan as he shifts the focus of the US military from Iraq to the central Asian country amid increasingly brazen attacks by the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Currently, about 38,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef is a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, according to the Houston Chronicle. He spent almost four years in Guantanamo. He wears a black turban, has a thick beard — and is never without his Apple iPhone.The ultra-conservative Taliban banned modern technology like the Internet and TV during its harsh 1996-2001 rule, but those items have boomed in Afghanistan since the regime’s 2001 ouster, helping to bring the country into the 21st century.Zaeef, who reconciled with the Afghan government after being released from U.S. custody, says he uses his iPhone to surf the Internet and find difficult locations, employing the built-in GPS. He even checks his bank account balance online.“It’s easy and modern and I love it,” Zaeef said as he worked his fingers across the iPhone’s touch screen last week. “This is necessary in the world today. People want to progress.”
USA Today reports that President Obama, in one of his first efforts to "reset or reboot" the nation's icy relationship with Russia, said Tuesday he has told Moscow that the United States might not need to build a controversial missile-defense system in Eastern Europe.In a letter sent last month to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Obama included a big if — the system could be scrapped, he said, if Iran halted its quest for a nuclear weapon.Obama said he did not press Russia to exert its influence over Iran or issue a "quid pro quo" for not building the system. "What I said in the letter was, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for, a missile-defense system," he said.
Washington Times reports that first lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday observed women's history month by touring a memorial for women in the military. She said the country must do all it can to support not just the servicemembers on active duty, but their families, too.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the White House says President Obama has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban on gays serving openly in the military.The administration would not say how soon that might happen or whether a group of experts would be commissioned to study the issue in depth, as some Democrats have suggested.
The Christian Science Monitor reports Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, recently issued a directive asking his subordinate commanders to reduce the use of civilian contractors on at least 50 bases and small installations across Iraq and, where possible, provide employment to Iraqis instead.Mr. Obama announced last week that all US troops would leave Iraq by mid-2010.Over the course of the next year or so, most of the 150,000 civilian contractors working in Iraq – more than the total number of US troops there now – will have to leave Iraq and return to Peru, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines as well as the US.
The New York Times reports that a coordinated, commando-style ambush on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan on Tuesday revealed embarrassing security gaps in an increasingly unstable country.With eight dead in Lahore, not even cricket, a cherished national pasttime, seemed secure after 12 gunmen carrying sacks of weapons attacked a bus bearing the Sri Lankan team and then escaped in motorized rickshaws. A video of the attacks was broadcast around the world, destabilizing images for a nation under siege from an insurgency by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Unmanned aircraft have begun targeting Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, a shift in strategy by the Obama administration that may reflect efforts to pre-empt a Taliban spring offensive against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to the Washington Times.The U.S. military avoided hitting Mr. Mehsud's forces in 2007 and 2008, during the Bush administration, when the Taliban leader waged a campaign of suicide bombings inside Pakistan and humiliated the Pakistani army in his tribal stronghold near the Afghan border.
Do-it-yourself security teams are becoming a fixture in and around Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, as residents grow wary of the Taliban's growing presence – and doubtful of the government's ability to protect them, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Some officials have backed the vigilantes, even supplied them with weapons, raising concerns they may fall into the wrong hands.But residents are more worried about security. "It's the only way we can stay safe," says Khan. "Our survival against the Taliban lies in our personal efforts to guard ourselves."
According to the Washington Post, a bill to end cost overruns in major weapons systems would create a powerful new Pentagon position -- director of independent cost assessments -- to review cost analyses and estimates, separately from the military branch requesting the program.Those reviews, unlike in the current process, would take place at key points in the acquisition process before a weapons program can proceed, according to legislation sponsored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
The F/A-18 crash that killed four family members in a San Diego neighborhood on Dec. 8 was caused by poor maintenance on the plane and a series of critical errors by the pilot and officers trying to guide him to an emergency landing, a Marine investigation report released Tuesday concluded, according to the Los Angeles Times.Among the worst of the mistakes was the pilot's decision, made with his squadron bosses, to bypass a runway on Coronado and attempt to land at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, 11 miles farther away. The pilot could easily have landed his jet at the closer North Island Naval Air Station, the investigation concluded.
The super-secret National Security Agency, traditionally reluctant to share its code-breaking secrets, is joining a new, highly classified social network that links its analysts for the first time with thousands of colleagues at other U.S. intelligence agencies, according to the Baltimore Sun.Gone are what used to be those rock-solid paradigms of intelligence: providing information only to those who need to know and limiting access to locked, specialized "compartments."Until now, a Pentagon analyst working on Afghanistan, for instance, might not know about highly sensitive NSA intercepts of opium smugglers discussing payoffs to Taliban insurgents.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: The New York Times leads with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that the White House will be sending two senior officials to Syria this weekend. (Slate Magazine)
2. Marine Corps punishes 13 for San Diego jet crash: Thirteen Marines have been disciplined for errors that led a disabled jet fighter to crash in a San Diego neighborhood last December, killing four members of one family, service officials told lawmakers on Tuesday. (Associated Press)
3. U.S. Afghan supplies cross Russia: A first shipment of non-military supplies has crossed Russia on its way to US forces in Afghanistan, Russia's Interfax news agency has said. (BBC)
4. Iran sees Obama ‘on wrong path’: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the new US president is following the same misguided track in the Middle East as his predecessor. (BBC)
Leading newspaper headlines
The New York Times leads with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that the White House will be sending two senior officials to Syria this weekend. The move is seen as a first step in the Obama administration's expected effort to revive relations with a key player in the Middle East that hasn't had a U.S. ambassador for more than four years. The Washington Post leads with the administration's efforts to boost confidence in the economy as well as the government's moves to tackle the ongoing crisis. A day after the stock markets reached new lows, White House officials seemed to be on a mission to instill hope in the American people that things will get better as the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department launched a program to finance new lending for consumers and businesses.
All the optimistic talk in the world couldn't stop more grim statistics from coming down the pipeline. USA Today leads with news that automakers had a horrible February. Many thought it couldn't get any worse than January, but last month sales were down 41.4 percent. If the rate expands throughout the whole year it would translate into a mere 9.1 million new sales, the worst number since 1981. The Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox leads with a new poll that shows Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of President Obama and his agenda. Although 70 percent are very dissatisfied with the economy, Obama still enjoys a 60 percent approval rating and around two-thirds of Americans say they feel "hopeful" about his presidency. Most surprising is that 41 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, a huge increase from the 26 percent who said the same thing in mid-January. The Los Angeles Times leads with local elections. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was re-elected and will serve a second four-year term.
The NYT says the move to quickly send envoys to Syria suggests the Obama administration sees the country as a potential "key" to "tackle three interlocking challenges in the Middle East: the nuclear threat posed by Iran; long-simmering tensions between Israel and Syria; and the grinding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians." The WSJ emphasizes that improving relations with Syria is part of the effort to isolate Iran. Improving relations with Syria could pressure Iran to accept direct talks with the United States and might push Arab states to negotiate with Israel. White House officials also hope that it could help reduce the number of weapons that flow into regional hotspots, including Iraq. Clinton announced the move during a visit to Jerusalem, where Iran was one of the main topics of discussion with Israeli leaders.
The hopeful talk on the economy came from multiple officials yesterday. Even Obama got into it and "made his first direct attempt to boost equity prices," as the WSJ puts it. After weeks of talking about the poor state of the economy he inherited, Obama abruptly shifted yesterday and noted that we might be at a point where "buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it." Obama also told Americans to not read too much into the stock market, which he compared to a political tracking poll. "You know, it bobs up and down day to day," he said. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." The WSJ notes that it is "dicey for a president to talk about stock prices" but it seems the White House has taken the view that no matter how much they try to prop up the economy, all of it will fail if Americans remain pessimistic.
In testimony before the Senate budget committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke emphasized the need for the government to keep on working to stabilize the financial markets. The WP notes that he "offered a more mixed assessment of the potential impact of stimulus" but the NYT homes in on how it looked like he was tacitly endorsing Obama's plans to increase spending. Of course, Bernanke didn't come out and express support for any specific proposals, but he may have provided Democratic lawmakers with some important ammo. The NYT notes that his comments "were reminiscent" of the support that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gave to President Bush's tax cuts, which many think was instrumental in defeating Democratic opposition to the plan.
The WSJ points out that Bernanke abandoned his typical "sober and professional demeanor" when he talked about how the Fed "really had no choice" but to bail out American International Group. "If there's a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one," he told lawmakers. "AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system."
Top of document
Marine Corps punishes 13 for San Diego jet crash
By RICHARD LARDNER – 17 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thirteen Marines have been disciplined for errors that led a disabled jet fighter to crash in a San Diego neighborhood last December, killing four members of one family, service officials told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Four officers at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego have been relieved of duty for directing the F/A-18D Hornet to fly over the residential area, the officials said. Nine other military personnel received lesser reprimands.
With his jet having engine problems, the pilot should have been told to fly over San Diego Bay and land at another base that sits on the tip of a peninsula, the officials said.
The Marine Corps has not decided whether to discipline the pilot, who ejected safely, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told The Associated Press.
"He probably won't fly anymore," said Hunter, a Marine veteran.
Hunter was among the lawmakers who received a closed-door briefing Tuesday on the results of the Marine Corps' investigation into the Dec. 8 crash.
During the 90-minute session, Lt. Gen. George Trautman, the Marine Corps top aviator, and other officers described a series of mechanical and human errors that could have been avoided, Hunter said.
The jet's right engine went out due to an oil leak shortly after the fighter left the deck of the Navy aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on a training flight. The aircraft can fly on one engine, so losing power in one of the General Electric turbofan engines was not cause for extreme concern. At the same time, however, the plane was having trouble moving fuel from its tanks to the engines.
Marine Corps aviation rules dictate that a plane with such mechanical failures should land immediately. The investigation determined the best and safest option was to bring the aircraft down at Naval Air Station North Island near Coronado.
"It turns out, North Island said three different times, 'You're cleared to land here,'" Hunter said.
Yet the pilot didn't understand what was happening, and a lack of communication between him and the ground crew kept the plane on course for Miramar, according to Hunter.
A familiarity with Miramar was also a factor. The runways there are also 4,000 feet longer than at North Island, which allows more room for error when guiding in a damaged aircraft.
As the jet approached Miramar, the left engine failed because it was getting too little fuel, leaving the plane without power. Seventeen seconds later, the pilot ejected.
The 50,000-pound aircraft slammed into a neighborhood, sending flames and plumes of smoke skyward.
Four members of a family were killed in their home — Young Mi Yoon, 36; her daughters Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months; and her mother, Suk Im Kim, 60. Kim was visiting from South Korea.
Top of document
US Afghan supplies cross Russia
Pakistani supply routes have been hit by repeated Taleban attacks
A first shipment of non-military supplies has crossed Russia on its way to US forces in Afghanistan, Russia's Interfax news agency has said.
A train carrying goods left the Latvian port of Riga last week and reached Kazakhstan by way of Russia, after Moscow agreed to allow such journeys.
In coming months, hundreds of supply trains will reach Afghanistan via Russia and central Asian countries.
Taleban attacks on routes in Pakistan prompted the hunt for alternatives.
The US embassy in Latvia said Washington was aiming to send 20 to 30 shipments of supplies each week to Afghanistan via Latvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Russia and Nato reached the deal on Afghan supplies in April last year but Russia's brief war with Georgia in August prevented the agreement being put into practice, as Russian ties with Nato deteriorated.
Western forces in Afghanistan have been struggling to put down a Taleban insurgency.
Last month, US President Barack Obama pledged to send 17,000 more troops in a bid to stabilise the war-torn country, bringing the number of US forces in Afghanistan to more than 50,000.
Top of document
Iran sees Obama 'on wrong path'
Ayatollah Khamenei was opening a forum on supporting the Palestinians
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the new US president is following the same misguided track in the Middle East as his predecessor.
Barack Obama is on the same "wrong path" as George Bush despite his pledge of new thinking, the Ayatollah says.
When he was sworn in, Mr Obama said the United States was ready to talk to Iran if it unclenched its fist.
But Ayatollah Khamenei says although Mr Obama came to power with slogans about change he is still committed to Israel.
Speaking at a conference in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei said Israeli leaders should be brought to trial for their last military incursion into Gaza, in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed.
"Supporting Palestinians is a mandatory duty," he said, in an appeal for all Muslims to join forces against what he called "Zionist criminals".
'Path to salvation'
Ayatollah Khamenei's speech comes as Hillary Clinton continues her first mission to the Middle East since becoming Secretary of State.
She has been meeting Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to pursue the strategy of establishing separate Palestinian and Israeli states, side by side.
Iranian leaders, including Mr Khamenei and the President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, are opposed to this two-state policy.
Mr Khamenei said it was a mistake to say the only way to save the Palestinians was by negotiation.
"The way to salvation," he said, "is to stand firm and resist."
Top of document
Wednesday’s Early Bird leads with the Wall Street Journal reporting that President Barack Obama is hoping to boost the flagging war effort in Afghanistan by sending 17,000 reinforcements. Most of them will be deployed to small, remote bases such as Seray, a walled compound of trenches and fortified buildings near the Pakistan border. Many of these new outposts will be in eastern and southern Afghanistan, the most violent parts of the country.Last year was the bloodiest yet in Afghanistan for U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghan forces -- as well as for Afghan civilians -- since the start of the U.S.-led war in 2001. American and Afghan officials expect 2009 to be worse; 30 American soldiers have already been killed in Afghanistan this year compared with 155 in all of 2008. The violence has been triggered by the resurgent Taliban, which is expanding its operations with revenues from the country's flourishing opium trade. There are currently about 52,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including about 35,000 U.S. troops.
Likewise, the Financial Times of London reports that Robert Gates, US defense secretary, on Tuesday stressed that it was “impossible” to determine when US troops would return home from Afghanistan, underscoring the increasingly tough security situation in the war-torn country.Barack Obama recently approved the deployment of another 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan as he shifts the focus of the US military from Iraq to the central Asian country amid increasingly brazen attacks by the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Currently, about 38,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef is a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, according to the Houston Chronicle. He spent almost four years in Guantanamo. He wears a black turban, has a thick beard — and is never without his Apple iPhone.The ultra-conservative Taliban banned modern technology like the Internet and TV during its harsh 1996-2001 rule, but those items have boomed in Afghanistan since the regime’s 2001 ouster, helping to bring the country into the 21st century.Zaeef, who reconciled with the Afghan government after being released from U.S. custody, says he uses his iPhone to surf the Internet and find difficult locations, employing the built-in GPS. He even checks his bank account balance online.“It’s easy and modern and I love it,” Zaeef said as he worked his fingers across the iPhone’s touch screen last week. “This is necessary in the world today. People want to progress.”
USA Today reports that President Obama, in one of his first efforts to "reset or reboot" the nation's icy relationship with Russia, said Tuesday he has told Moscow that the United States might not need to build a controversial missile-defense system in Eastern Europe.In a letter sent last month to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Obama included a big if — the system could be scrapped, he said, if Iran halted its quest for a nuclear weapon.Obama said he did not press Russia to exert its influence over Iran or issue a "quid pro quo" for not building the system. "What I said in the letter was, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for, a missile-defense system," he said.
Washington Times reports that first lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday observed women's history month by touring a memorial for women in the military. She said the country must do all it can to support not just the servicemembers on active duty, but their families, too.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the White House says President Obama has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban on gays serving openly in the military.The administration would not say how soon that might happen or whether a group of experts would be commissioned to study the issue in depth, as some Democrats have suggested.
The Christian Science Monitor reports Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, recently issued a directive asking his subordinate commanders to reduce the use of civilian contractors on at least 50 bases and small installations across Iraq and, where possible, provide employment to Iraqis instead.Mr. Obama announced last week that all US troops would leave Iraq by mid-2010.Over the course of the next year or so, most of the 150,000 civilian contractors working in Iraq – more than the total number of US troops there now – will have to leave Iraq and return to Peru, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines as well as the US.
The New York Times reports that a coordinated, commando-style ambush on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan on Tuesday revealed embarrassing security gaps in an increasingly unstable country.With eight dead in Lahore, not even cricket, a cherished national pasttime, seemed secure after 12 gunmen carrying sacks of weapons attacked a bus bearing the Sri Lankan team and then escaped in motorized rickshaws. A video of the attacks was broadcast around the world, destabilizing images for a nation under siege from an insurgency by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Unmanned aircraft have begun targeting Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, a shift in strategy by the Obama administration that may reflect efforts to pre-empt a Taliban spring offensive against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to the Washington Times.The U.S. military avoided hitting Mr. Mehsud's forces in 2007 and 2008, during the Bush administration, when the Taliban leader waged a campaign of suicide bombings inside Pakistan and humiliated the Pakistani army in his tribal stronghold near the Afghan border.
Do-it-yourself security teams are becoming a fixture in and around Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, as residents grow wary of the Taliban's growing presence – and doubtful of the government's ability to protect them, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Some officials have backed the vigilantes, even supplied them with weapons, raising concerns they may fall into the wrong hands.But residents are more worried about security. "It's the only way we can stay safe," says Khan. "Our survival against the Taliban lies in our personal efforts to guard ourselves."
According to the Washington Post, a bill to end cost overruns in major weapons systems would create a powerful new Pentagon position -- director of independent cost assessments -- to review cost analyses and estimates, separately from the military branch requesting the program.Those reviews, unlike in the current process, would take place at key points in the acquisition process before a weapons program can proceed, according to legislation sponsored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
The F/A-18 crash that killed four family members in a San Diego neighborhood on Dec. 8 was caused by poor maintenance on the plane and a series of critical errors by the pilot and officers trying to guide him to an emergency landing, a Marine investigation report released Tuesday concluded, according to the Los Angeles Times.Among the worst of the mistakes was the pilot's decision, made with his squadron bosses, to bypass a runway on Coronado and attempt to land at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, 11 miles farther away. The pilot could easily have landed his jet at the closer North Island Naval Air Station, the investigation concluded.
The super-secret National Security Agency, traditionally reluctant to share its code-breaking secrets, is joining a new, highly classified social network that links its analysts for the first time with thousands of colleagues at other U.S. intelligence agencies, according to the Baltimore Sun.Gone are what used to be those rock-solid paradigms of intelligence: providing information only to those who need to know and limiting access to locked, specialized "compartments."Until now, a Pentagon analyst working on Afghanistan, for instance, might not know about highly sensitive NSA intercepts of opium smugglers discussing payoffs to Taliban insurgents.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: The New York Times leads with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that the White House will be sending two senior officials to Syria this weekend. (Slate Magazine)
2. Marine Corps punishes 13 for San Diego jet crash: Thirteen Marines have been disciplined for errors that led a disabled jet fighter to crash in a San Diego neighborhood last December, killing four members of one family, service officials told lawmakers on Tuesday. (Associated Press)
3. U.S. Afghan supplies cross Russia: A first shipment of non-military supplies has crossed Russia on its way to US forces in Afghanistan, Russia's Interfax news agency has said. (BBC)
4. Iran sees Obama ‘on wrong path’: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the new US president is following the same misguided track in the Middle East as his predecessor. (BBC)
Leading newspaper headlines
The New York Times leads with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that the White House will be sending two senior officials to Syria this weekend. The move is seen as a first step in the Obama administration's expected effort to revive relations with a key player in the Middle East that hasn't had a U.S. ambassador for more than four years. The Washington Post leads with the administration's efforts to boost confidence in the economy as well as the government's moves to tackle the ongoing crisis. A day after the stock markets reached new lows, White House officials seemed to be on a mission to instill hope in the American people that things will get better as the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department launched a program to finance new lending for consumers and businesses.
All the optimistic talk in the world couldn't stop more grim statistics from coming down the pipeline. USA Today leads with news that automakers had a horrible February. Many thought it couldn't get any worse than January, but last month sales were down 41.4 percent. If the rate expands throughout the whole year it would translate into a mere 9.1 million new sales, the worst number since 1981. The Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox leads with a new poll that shows Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of President Obama and his agenda. Although 70 percent are very dissatisfied with the economy, Obama still enjoys a 60 percent approval rating and around two-thirds of Americans say they feel "hopeful" about his presidency. Most surprising is that 41 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, a huge increase from the 26 percent who said the same thing in mid-January. The Los Angeles Times leads with local elections. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was re-elected and will serve a second four-year term.
The NYT says the move to quickly send envoys to Syria suggests the Obama administration sees the country as a potential "key" to "tackle three interlocking challenges in the Middle East: the nuclear threat posed by Iran; long-simmering tensions between Israel and Syria; and the grinding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians." The WSJ emphasizes that improving relations with Syria is part of the effort to isolate Iran. Improving relations with Syria could pressure Iran to accept direct talks with the United States and might push Arab states to negotiate with Israel. White House officials also hope that it could help reduce the number of weapons that flow into regional hotspots, including Iraq. Clinton announced the move during a visit to Jerusalem, where Iran was one of the main topics of discussion with Israeli leaders.
The hopeful talk on the economy came from multiple officials yesterday. Even Obama got into it and "made his first direct attempt to boost equity prices," as the WSJ puts it. After weeks of talking about the poor state of the economy he inherited, Obama abruptly shifted yesterday and noted that we might be at a point where "buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it." Obama also told Americans to not read too much into the stock market, which he compared to a political tracking poll. "You know, it bobs up and down day to day," he said. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong." The WSJ notes that it is "dicey for a president to talk about stock prices" but it seems the White House has taken the view that no matter how much they try to prop up the economy, all of it will fail if Americans remain pessimistic.
In testimony before the Senate budget committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke emphasized the need for the government to keep on working to stabilize the financial markets. The WP notes that he "offered a more mixed assessment of the potential impact of stimulus" but the NYT homes in on how it looked like he was tacitly endorsing Obama's plans to increase spending. Of course, Bernanke didn't come out and express support for any specific proposals, but he may have provided Democratic lawmakers with some important ammo. The NYT notes that his comments "were reminiscent" of the support that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gave to President Bush's tax cuts, which many think was instrumental in defeating Democratic opposition to the plan.
The WSJ points out that Bernanke abandoned his typical "sober and professional demeanor" when he talked about how the Fed "really had no choice" but to bail out American International Group. "If there's a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one," he told lawmakers. "AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system."
Top of document
Marine Corps punishes 13 for San Diego jet crash
By RICHARD LARDNER – 17 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thirteen Marines have been disciplined for errors that led a disabled jet fighter to crash in a San Diego neighborhood last December, killing four members of one family, service officials told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Four officers at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego have been relieved of duty for directing the F/A-18D Hornet to fly over the residential area, the officials said. Nine other military personnel received lesser reprimands.
With his jet having engine problems, the pilot should have been told to fly over San Diego Bay and land at another base that sits on the tip of a peninsula, the officials said.
The Marine Corps has not decided whether to discipline the pilot, who ejected safely, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told The Associated Press.
"He probably won't fly anymore," said Hunter, a Marine veteran.
Hunter was among the lawmakers who received a closed-door briefing Tuesday on the results of the Marine Corps' investigation into the Dec. 8 crash.
During the 90-minute session, Lt. Gen. George Trautman, the Marine Corps top aviator, and other officers described a series of mechanical and human errors that could have been avoided, Hunter said.
The jet's right engine went out due to an oil leak shortly after the fighter left the deck of the Navy aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on a training flight. The aircraft can fly on one engine, so losing power in one of the General Electric turbofan engines was not cause for extreme concern. At the same time, however, the plane was having trouble moving fuel from its tanks to the engines.
Marine Corps aviation rules dictate that a plane with such mechanical failures should land immediately. The investigation determined the best and safest option was to bring the aircraft down at Naval Air Station North Island near Coronado.
"It turns out, North Island said three different times, 'You're cleared to land here,'" Hunter said.
Yet the pilot didn't understand what was happening, and a lack of communication between him and the ground crew kept the plane on course for Miramar, according to Hunter.
A familiarity with Miramar was also a factor. The runways there are also 4,000 feet longer than at North Island, which allows more room for error when guiding in a damaged aircraft.
As the jet approached Miramar, the left engine failed because it was getting too little fuel, leaving the plane without power. Seventeen seconds later, the pilot ejected.
The 50,000-pound aircraft slammed into a neighborhood, sending flames and plumes of smoke skyward.
Four members of a family were killed in their home — Young Mi Yoon, 36; her daughters Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months; and her mother, Suk Im Kim, 60. Kim was visiting from South Korea.
Top of document
US Afghan supplies cross Russia
Pakistani supply routes have been hit by repeated Taleban attacks
A first shipment of non-military supplies has crossed Russia on its way to US forces in Afghanistan, Russia's Interfax news agency has said.
A train carrying goods left the Latvian port of Riga last week and reached Kazakhstan by way of Russia, after Moscow agreed to allow such journeys.
In coming months, hundreds of supply trains will reach Afghanistan via Russia and central Asian countries.
Taleban attacks on routes in Pakistan prompted the hunt for alternatives.
The US embassy in Latvia said Washington was aiming to send 20 to 30 shipments of supplies each week to Afghanistan via Latvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Russia and Nato reached the deal on Afghan supplies in April last year but Russia's brief war with Georgia in August prevented the agreement being put into practice, as Russian ties with Nato deteriorated.
Western forces in Afghanistan have been struggling to put down a Taleban insurgency.
Last month, US President Barack Obama pledged to send 17,000 more troops in a bid to stabilise the war-torn country, bringing the number of US forces in Afghanistan to more than 50,000.
Top of document
Iran sees Obama 'on wrong path'
Ayatollah Khamenei was opening a forum on supporting the Palestinians
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the new US president is following the same misguided track in the Middle East as his predecessor.
Barack Obama is on the same "wrong path" as George Bush despite his pledge of new thinking, the Ayatollah says.
When he was sworn in, Mr Obama said the United States was ready to talk to Iran if it unclenched its fist.
But Ayatollah Khamenei says although Mr Obama came to power with slogans about change he is still committed to Israel.
Speaking at a conference in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei said Israeli leaders should be brought to trial for their last military incursion into Gaza, in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed.
"Supporting Palestinians is a mandatory duty," he said, in an appeal for all Muslims to join forces against what he called "Zionist criminals".
'Path to salvation'
Ayatollah Khamenei's speech comes as Hillary Clinton continues her first mission to the Middle East since becoming Secretary of State.
She has been meeting Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to pursue the strategy of establishing separate Palestinian and Israeli states, side by side.
Iranian leaders, including Mr Khamenei and the President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, are opposed to this two-state policy.
Mr Khamenei said it was a mistake to say the only way to save the Palestinians was by negotiation.
"The way to salvation," he said, "is to stand firm and resist."
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