DC police look to stop shooting paybacks; 5 dead

A possible feud among neighborhood crews, three shootings and five fatalities have authorities in the nation's capital trying to stop more paybacks in an area known for drugs and violence just 7 miles from the White House.
Tuesday night, a crowd sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting that killed four and wounded five had just returned from the funeral of man slain nearby. A 20-year-old man, who was wounded in a third shooting, is a suspect in the other two, authorities said Wednesday.
Police were trying to gather information to see if retaliation is planned and prevent it, said Assistant Police Chief Peter Newshan. He said neighborhood crews are more loosely associated than gangs.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier called the drive-by — the worst shooting in D.C. in at least 16 years — an egregious type of retaliation.
"It's ridiculous and the community is tired of it," she said. "There is no excuse for it."
Two men and a 14-year-old boy accused of driving the minivan from which the bullets were fired were charged with first-degree murder. One of the suspects, Orlando Carter, also has been charged with second-degree murder in the March 22 shooting of Jordan Howe, whose funeral was earlier Tuesday.
On March 23, Carter was shot in the head and shoulder hours after his brother was arrested in Howe's death, court documents said.
Friends and relatives of the drive-by victims returned Wednesday to the scene, where a blood-covered gauze package lay on a sidewalk that smelled of bleach. Teddy bears and candles were by the steps leading to the apartment building where the crowd was gathered when the shooting broke out.
The building's owner, William Cheek, said he had just walked across the street to buy a lottery ticket when he heard gunshots around 7:30 p.m. and saw many in the group on the ground. His grandson was among the six men and three women shot.
"I saw him breathe his last breath," Cheek said, a tear running down his face. "He was shot in the head."
Cheek didn't want to identify his grandson but said he was enrolled in a GED class, played basketball and hoped to become a long-distance bus driver. Court documents identified the victims as 17-year-old Tavon Nelson, 19-year-old William Jones III, 16-year-old Brishell Jones and 18-year-old Devaughn Boyd. The wounded were not identified because they are witnesses, police said.
"They got shot right on my porch," said Cheek, a case manager at a local community center with programs on substance abuse, job training and anger management.
Carter and Nathaniel Simms, 26, were arraigned and ordered held without bail. The teen also faces a murder charge and a family judge ordered him held at a juvenile facility, saying he was a danger and a risk for fleeing. He has nine convictions dating to 2005.
Defense lawyers for Carter and Simms argued that court documents didn't list probable cause or what role the two are accused of in the latest shootings.
Carter's brother, Sanquan Carter, was charged with murder in Howe's slaying. Court documents say Howe was killed over a missing gold-colored bracelet that apparently belonged to Sanquan. A witness said Orlando Carter was with his brother and was seen shooting a gun at the time of Howe's death, according to court documents.
In Tuesday's shooting, police said they arrested the three after officers chased the silver van into Prince George's County in Maryland and back into Washington and saw an AK-47 type weapon thrown out. Other weapons were found inside.
Ross Rauls said he had been to Howe's funeral with his friends and later headed to the gym, while the others went to Cheek's building.
"It's sad when the last thing you say to them is 'I'll see you later,'" he said.
He said the young men shot were not gang members.
"They weren't that type of people. It wasn't gang-related," Rauls said. "It's a classic case of the wrong place, the wrong time."
Rico Scott said one of those killed, DeVaughn Boyd, was his cousin.
Boyd was a high school senior who liked to go to the mall and the movies with friends, as well as parties that featured go-go music, a mix of soul, funk and Latin styles, Scott said.
It was at least the worst shooting in D.C. since 1994, when four men fired into a crowd at the O Street Market, killing a teenager and wounding eight other people.
Washington reported 143 homicides last year, the fewest in nearly 50 years.
Mayor Adrian Fenty — who cut short a family vacation to return to the city — said he spoke with the mothers of three of the shooting victims and said that they were "deeply broken."
"Everybody knows what a tragedy this is in our city," he said.

David Mikael Taclino
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Blast in Yemeni prison allows 40 prisoners to escape

A bomb exploded in a prison in the southern Yemeni province of Dalea on Thursday, injuring four inmates and allowing around 40 prisoners to escape, a government official said.
Witnesses and southern media said all those who fled the police jail belonged to Yemen's southern secessionist movement, which opposes the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Recent months have seen increasingly violent clashes between separatists and security forces, and analysts say impoverished Yemen could face a sustained insurgency from southerners unless the government seriously addresses their grievances.
North and South Yemen united in 1990, but many in the south -- home to most of Yemen's oil industry -- complain northerners have seized resources and discriminate against them.
Elsewhere in Yemen's south, an activist was shot dead and three others were injured when security forces dispersed a protest in the city of Radfan in Lahej province.
Western countries and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability in Yemen to launch attacks in the region and beyond.

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Afghan opium seizures soar in 2009

Opium seizures in Afghanistan soared 924 percent last year because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces, the top U.S. drug enforcement official said Thursday.
The Taliban largely funds its insurgency by profits from the opium trade, making it a growing target of U.S. and Afghan anti-insurgency operations. Afghanistan produces the raw opium used to make 90 percent of the world's heroin.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration now has 96 agents in the country who joined with Afghan counterparts and NATO forces in more than 80 combined operations last year, acting DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart said at a news conference in Kabul.
"That is the success of bringing the elements, civil, military Afghan partners together," Leonhart said.
Leonhart did not give figures for total amounts of drugs seized but said the increase was 924 percent between 2008 and 2009. International groups estimate that only about 2 percent of Afghanistan's drug production was blocked from leaving the country in 2008 for markets in Central Asia and Europe.
The booming drugs trade has compounded Afghanistan's many problems and deepened Western concern about the war-battered country's future and hopes it can emerge as a peaceful democracy.
In a sign of President Hamid Karzai's increasingly tetchy relations with key international allies, the Afghan leader on Thursday accused U.N. and European Union officials of interfering in last year's flawed presidential elections.
A day after the parliament rejected his revised election law, Karzai accused the officials of committing "vast fraud" in the disputed Aug. 20 ballot to push the election into a runoff.
Karzai singled out former U.N. deputy chief Peter Galbraith, who was fired in a dispute with his boss about how to deal with fraud allegations, and the head of the E.U. observers, retired French general Philippe Morillon.
Karzai was forced into a runoff after a U.N.-backed commission threw out nearly a third of his ballots, but it was scrapped when Karzai's main opponent dropped out. He then issued a decree giving him greater control over the official election fraud watchdog body which was turned down by parliament's lower house.
Karzai was installed for a second five-year term but his government remains weak as it faces a challenge from a resurgent Taliban.
Since the fall of the former Taliban regime in 2001 until 2007, the illegal cultivation of opium poppies skyrocketed. It has since started to decline, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has forecast that opium production could drop again in 2010.
Opium exports dropped from an estimated $3.4 billion in 2008, to $2.8 billion in 2009, the UNODC said. That represented a fall in opium's share of Afghanistan's gross domestic product from about one third to one quarter.
Leonhart said eradication efforts had already scored some success in the south, with opium cultivation down more than 30 percent in Helmand province that is responsible for half of Afghanistan's total production.
She said the DEA was working with U.S. forces moving into the Taliban heartland, including "significant operations" in Helmand, where the poppy harvest season is in full-swing.
"There is a very good plan put together to have very robust interdiction operations going forward there, eventually moving that to other provinces in the south," Leonhart said.
Such operations place the Afghan government and its foreign allies in a bind because eradicating poppy fields risks driving angry farmers, for whom opium poppy is a cheap, hardy, low-risk crop, into the arms of the insurgents because they fear loss of their livelihood.
Efforts to replace opium with other crops such as wheat and vegetables haven't scored wide success because profits for the farmers are much lower than for poppies.
Leonhart gave no details of the strategy for the south, but stressed that the focus was not on farmers but on seizing drugs and weapons, arresting traffickers, and tracing the profits of the trade.
"Because the money is what fuels the insurgency," Leonhart said.
In a sign that traffickers are striking back against such efforts, 13 people were killed Wednesday when a bomb concealed on a bicycle exploded near a crowd gathered to receive free vegetable seeds provided by the British government as part of a program to encourage them not to plant opium poppy.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although the acting provincial head of agriculture, Ghulam Sahki, said the blast could have been the work of drug dealers trying to stop the alternative crop program.
A recent NATO operation that drove militants from the Helmand town of Marjah struck at the heart of the Taliban opium business. While troops discovered acres (hectares) of poppy fields and numerous opium packing operations, farmers were left alone.
Also Thursday, India announced it was suspending teaching and aid operations in Kabul for two or three months following a February bomb attack that killed six Indian staff. Similar Indian aid efforts in four other Afghan cities remained up and running, said Indian Embassy spokesman J.P. Singh.
The Taliban have long opposed India's involvement in Afghanistan because of its ties to the Afghan group that helped the U.S. oust the Islamist regime in late 2001.
A mine blast Thursday morning in Shajoy district in the eastern province of Zabul killed two civilians and injured three, the Interior Ministry said. It blamed the attack on the Taliban.

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Calling All Celebrity Wannabees -- Aspiring Media Stars Can Now Trade Mark Their Names with the Intellectual Property Office

Trademark-Logo have announced that they are offering a special 30% discount for a limited number of applicants at the beginning of April for all UK Trade Mark registrations for the new Celebrity trademark classification announced recently by the IPO.
(PRWeb UK) March 31, 2010 -- With the announcement that the IPO are introducing a new classification for Celebrities, Trademark-Logo have announced that they are offering a special 30% discount for a limited number of applicants at the beginning of April for all UK Trade Mark registrations for this class.
Shireen Smith, principal of Azrights Solicitors who owns the Trademark-Logo service, said “This is a great time to launch this offer, but anyone wanting to take advantage needs to act quickly, as with the level of likely demand we are anticipating the offer to sell out fast..”
Huge interest is expected among those looking for stardom, or at least a place on reality TV, who would like to get the exclusive rights for the use of their name, and particularly for the more common names such as Denise, Tracey and Sophie for women, and Wayne, Kevin and Justin for men.
It is thought that parents in particular will want to secure these rights for their children in the hope that they may one day appear on ‘I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here’ showing off the benefits of the latest cosmetic surgery, and or as a boy duo with novelty hair styles on Pop Idol. Family discounts are available whereby they can trade mark 3 names for the price of 2.
With this new classification, applicants do not yet have to be a celebrity. However, they do need to have real expectations of being one in the next 5 years. If in this time they have not appeared on a well known TV program, the West End theatre, the Old Bailey or at least on page 3 of the tabloids, then they would stand to lose their trade mark rights.
There is even an added incentive for ambitious parents as they can register the trade mark up to 6 months before the birth of the child, in anticipation of their appearance on Kleenex ads.
Commenting on the new service, celebrity PR guru Max Storey said “This is a great idea – people who devote their whole lives to promoting themselves by any and all means deserve to be able to capitalise fully on their brand.”
However Intellectual Property specialist Mark Brand warned there could be problems. “What is going to happen where an established celebrity such as Katie Price finds someone else has trade marked the name ‘Katie’. She would probably have no option but to go back to calling herself Jordan again, which would be highly embarrassing for her”.
To prevent people squatting on trade mark names, in the hope of profiting by sales to others, applicants will need to show their celebrity potential to the IPO in a 5 minute routine, which can be posted on YouTube where they will be judged by a panel of experienced trade mark attorneys, intellectual property lawyers and academics.
However, would be celebrities are warned that the criteria for celebrity classification are strict, and that any sign of “real talent, skill or artistic merit” could invalidate their application.

 

















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Fuel efficiency rules aimed at advanced vehicle

The Obama administration is setting tough gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.
The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday were signing final rules requiring 2016 model-year vehicles to meet fuel efficiency targets of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The EPA, which received the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, will set a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, or the equivalent of what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard. The EPA is issuing its first rules ever on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
President Barack Obama, previewing the plan Wednesday, said it marked a reversal "after decades in which we have done little to increase auto efficiency." Obama said the standards would "reduce our dependence on oil while helping folks spend a little less at the pump."
Each auto company will have a different fuel-efficiency target, based on its mix of vehicles. Automakers that build more small cars will have a higher target than car companies that manufacture a broad range of cars and trucks. The standard could be as low as 34.1 mpg by 2016 because automakers are expected to receive credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other ways, including preventing the leaking of coolant from air conditioners.
Obama said the new requirements will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program, which will cover the 2012-16 model years. The new standards move up goals set in a 2007 energy law, which required the auto industry to meet a 35 mpg average by 2020.
A NHTSA official familiar with the plan, who was not authorized to speak publicly before Thursday's announcement, said the requirements would add about $1,000 per new vehicle by 2016 but would pay back that investment within three years. The rule is expected to save more than $3,000 over the life of the vehicle through better gas mileage.
Environmental groups have sought curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, and challenged the Bush administration for blocking a waiver request from California to pursue more stringent air pollution rules than required by the federal government. The request was granted by the Obama administration last year.
"The standards forthcoming under the 'clean car peace treaty' are a good deal for consumers, for companies, for the country and for the planet," said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Automakers have been working on an assortment of fuel-efficient technologies, including hybrids, electric cars and technologies that shut off an engine's cylinders when full power isn't needed.
Nissan is releasing its electric car, the Leaf, later this year, while General Motors is introducing the Chevrolet Volt, which can go 40 miles on battery power before an engine kicks in to generate power. Ford is bringing its "EcoBoost" line of direct-injection turbocharged engines, which provide a 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency, to 90 percent of its models by 2013.
Under the rules, automakers could earn credits by producing alternative fuel vehicles and by producing advanced technology cars.

David Mikael Taclino
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Custom may explain dumping of dead babies in China

Rural traditions of abandoning dead infants because they're considered bad luck may have played a role in the case of 21 babies' bodies found along a river in eastern China, apparently dumped by hospital mortuary workers.
The little bodies — at least one stuffed in a yellow bag marked "medical waste" — were found floating and strewn along the bank of a river on the outskirts of Jining city in Shandong province last weekend.
Police detained two mortuary workers at a hospital who were paid by the babies' families to dispose of the bodies.
One question that arose Wednesday was why would the parents of so many dead children simply abandon their remains?
Hospital procedures normally call for families to take away dead infants, the Shandong province-based Qilu Evening News reported. However, the death of a young child is considered bad luck among some rural families, and the body is often abandoned or buried in unmarked graves.
"According to customs in some places, dead infants are not considered to be a family member and will not be buried in family tombs," said Cao Yongfu, professor with Medical Ethic Institute of Shandong University.
Some families would rather leave the body at the hospital or pay someone to bury it, Ma Guanghai, deputy dean at Shandong University's School of Philosophy and Social Development, was cited as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Some local customs go even further. When a baby dies, the family burns its clothes, toys and photos — anything that would remind them the child ever existed. The traditions stem from China's agrarian past, where child deaths were common, and not considered something to dwell on.
Though the case has shocked the public, Cao said a more pressing issue was developing clear regulations on how the bodies of infants and fetuses should be disposed.
"It's necessary for China to issue a legal explanation on how to deal with the bodies of dead infants and fetuses, otherwise it is possible there will be loopholes in hospital management," he said.

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Japan to buy Electric Cars

Japan's first mass-market electric car went on sale in showrooms Thursday as the futuristic technology becomes more affordable amid a burgeoning price war.
The four-seater bubble-shaped i-MiEV from Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Japan's fifth-biggest automaker, costs 2.8 million yen ($30,500) after government incentives are figured into the price of 4 million yen ($43,000).
Proud i-MiEV buyer Chitoshi Okunuki, 72, placed an advance order at a higher price in August and was thrilled at Mitsubishi's decision Tuesday to cut the price by 620,000 yen ($6,700). That came the same day rival Nissan Motor Co. announced it will take orders for its own electric car, the Leaf.
"I'm so happy," said Okunuki, who runs a convenience store, during a visit to a Mitsubishi showroom. "It's so quiet, and there are no emissions."
With concerns about the environment growing, electric vehicles — long an expensive, experimental technology used in Japan mainly by government-related groups — are suddenly all the rage.
The key to their becoming widespread is certain to be pricing, and that is likely to continue a downward slide as competition intensifies.
Nissan, Japan's No. 3 automaker, said the Leaf, due to go on sale in December, will cost 3.8 million yen ($40,500) but that will fall to 3 million yen ($32,000) with government incentives.
The Leaf gets even cheaper in the U.S. at just over $25,000 because of a $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
Mitsubishi says it got about 2,000 advance orders in Japan for the i-MiEV, which stands for Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle. It is based on the company's gasoline-powered "i" minicar.
Also this week, Chinese automaker BYD started retail sales of its new electric car, the F3DM, for the equivalent of $25,000.
Ford Motor Co. is planning an all-electric Focus compact car for sale in late 2011.
Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, is planning an electric car for 2012. Prices have not been announced, but they are likely to be more within reach than the two-seater Tesla Roadster's $100,000.
Yasuaki Okamoto, auto analyst with Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, said Nissan, with partner Renault SA of France, was taking the lead in the pricing war in electric vehicles.
"It's a big trend that has been set into motion," he said. "The two bottleneck issues for electric vehicles are pricing and the availability of recharging stations."
The i-MiEV, with a cruising range of 160 kilometers (100 miles) on a single charge, can be recharged from a regular home outlet but that takes 14 hours.
It takes 30 minutes to recharge from a more powerful charging station. But in Japan there are only 60 nationwide.
All that doesn't bother Okunuki a bit. He was excited trying out the charging outlet on the side of the car, located where the gas cap would be in a regular car.
"It's best if the charging stations were everywhere like a gas stand," he said. "But I don't need to go far. I'm old."
He can't walk off with his car just yet. It is due to be delivered by the end of May.
Mitsubishi plans to sell 4,000 i-MiEV vehicles in Japan for the fiscal year through March 2011 and 5,000 more overseas, mainly in Europe. Sales begin in North America in 2011, according to Tokyo-based Mitsubishi.
Nissan is hoping to produce 50,000 Leafs worldwide in the car's first year.
Tsuyoshi Mizuochi, who manages a Mitsubishi dealership, said the i-MiEV has become a relatively easy sell since owners will enjoy lower costs in the long run because electricity is cheaper than gasoline.
"We would like to push the theme that we are protecting the earth," he said. "We are at a turning point when electric vehicles are going to become more commonplace."

David Mikael Taclino
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Six powers to start work on Iran sanctions: U.S. envoy

Six world powers, including China, agreed on Wednesday to start drawing up new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program in the next few days, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said.
U.S. envoy Susan Rice was confirming what diplomats had told Reuters -- that senior foreign ministry officials from Britain, the United States, France, Russia and Germany had reached agreement with China during a conference call.
"China has agreed to sit down and begin serious negotiations here in New York with the others in the (group of six) ... as a first step toward getting the entire Security Council on board with a tough sanctions regime against Iran," Rice said in an interview on CNN television.
"This is progress, but the negotiations have yet to begin in earnest," she said. "We have shared our thoughts on what elements should be in a tough U.N. Security Council resolution. We're gratified that ... now we're going to get down to the nuts and bolts of negotiations. That's what's necessary."
Rice said Washington and its allies will work "intensively in the coming weeks to build the strongest possible agreement to a set of sanctions that will put real pressure on Iran."
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he wants a new Iran sanctions resolution adopted within weeks, not months.
China's agreement is important because it has veto power on the Security Council, as do the United States, Britain, France and Russia.
The Western powers in the group hope to organize a meeting of the six powers at the ambassadorial level in New York in the coming days to get the process of drafting a sanctions resolution going, several diplomats told Reuters.
The basis for negotiations, diplomats said, will be a U.S. sanctions proposal that Washington agreed with its European allies and passed on to Russia and China around a month ago.
NEGOTIATIONS COULD DRAG ON FOR MONTHS
Moscow, like Beijing, reluctantly backed three previous rounds of U.N. sanctions against Tehran for refusing to halt enrichment as demanded by five Security Council resolutions. Iran rejects Western charges that its atomic program is aimed at developing bombs and says enrichment is a sovereign right.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is intended only to peacefully generate electricity.
Diplomats say China has been slowly and reluctantly falling in line with the other powers involved in the negotiations on Iran by backing the idea of new U.N. sanctions against Tehran, though Beijing, like Moscow, wants any new steps to be weak.
Although the four Western powers would like a resolution to be adopted next month, before a month-long U.N. conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in May, diplomats say the negotiation process could drag on at least until June as China and Russia work hard to dilute any proposed punitive steps.
But Moscow, Western diplomats say, has become increasingly impatient with Iran's rejection of a U.N.-backed nuclear fuel offer that would have moved Tehran's low-enriched uranium stocks to Russia and France to process it into fuel for an aging research reactor that produces medical isotopes.
Both Russia and China have privately urged Iran to accept the offer as a goodwill gesture, but Western diplomats said Beijing and Moscow did not receive any clear responses from Tehran. That, diplomats say, is one of the reasons China agreed to join negotiations on a new U.N. sanctions resolution.
"China said it was on the same page as Russia," a diplomat said, referring to Wednesday's conference call.
The U.S.-drafted sanctions proposal would expand an existing U.N. blacklist, with a new focus on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members and firms it controls.
A French call for energy-sector sanctions was left out of the U.S. draft, as was a proposed ban on transactions linked to Iran's central bank, which Germany opposed, diplomats said.
But it does call for expanding existing limits on arms trade with Iran into a full weapons embargo, with an inspection regime similar to one in place for North Korea and would blacklist several Iranian shipping firms.
 
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Google: Online attacks aimed at Vietnam's critics

Google Inc. accused Vietnam on Wednesday of stifling political dissent with cyberattacks, the latest complaint by the Internet giant against a communist regime following a public dispute with China over online censorship.
Like China, Vietnam tightly controls the flow of information and has said it reserves the right to take "appropriate action" against Web sites it deems harmful to national security.
The cyberattacks targeted "potentially tens of thousands," a posting on Google's online security blog said.
It said it was drawing attention to the Vietnam attacks because they underscored the need for the international community "to take cybersecurity seriously to help keep free opinion flowing."
Google apparently stumbled onto a scheme targeting Vietnamese-speaking Internet users around the world while investigating the surveillance of e-mail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists, one analyst suggested.
The attackers appear to have targeted specific Web sites and duped users into downloading malware programs, said Nart Villeneuve from The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. That may have allowed the infiltration and surveillance of activists, he said.
"This kind of stuff happens all the time in China," said Villeneuve. "It has a chilling effect. It silences people."
Google engineer Neel Mehta wrote in the posting, "these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country."
The mining project involving a subsidiary of Chinese state-run aluminum company Chinalco is planned for Vietnam's Central Highlands and has attracted strong opposition.
Foes fear the mine would cause major environmental problems and lead to Chinese workers flooding into the strategically sensitive region.
The computer security firm McAfee, which has investigated the malware, also discussed the attacks in a blog posting Tuesday.
"We believe that the perpetrators may have political motivations and may have some allegiance to the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam," wrote George Kurtz, McAfee's chief technology officer.
Vietnamese officials did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Last fall, the government detained several bloggers who criticized the bauxite mine, and in December, a Web site called bauxitevietnam.info, which had drawn millions of visitors opposed to the mine, was hacked.
The malware apparently began circulating at about that time, according the McAfee blog. It said someone hacked into a Web site run by the California-based Vietnamese Professionals Society and replaced a keyboard program that can be downloaded from that site with a malicious program.
Google says its dispute with China was triggered by a hacking attack that emanated from the mainland and attempts to snoop on dissidents' e-mail.
Last week, Google shut down its search operations in China, Vietnam's northern neighbor, after complaints of cyberattacks and censorship there. Google now redirects search queries from China's mainland to the freer Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
On Tuesday, many users of the Chinese Google search engine experienced difficulties. Analysts suggested the troubles may be linked to the company's decision to move to Hong Kong.
Google initially said it was an in-house technical problem but later shifted its explanation, blaming the "Great Firewall" — the nickname for the network of filters that keep mainland China's Web surfers from accessing material the government deems sensitive.
The sudden disruption and lack of explanation fit with how the government has brought companies to heel previously in the heavily monitored Chinese Internet industry, analysts said.
"I don't think anyone should be surprised," said Bill Bishop, a Beijing Internet entrepreneur and author of the technology blog Digicha. Tuesday's problems were payback by the government, he said, because "Google humiliated China."

David Mikael Taclino
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Rural tradition eyed after China dead babies

Rural traditions of abandoning dead infants because they're considered bad luck may have played a role in the case of 21 babies' bodies found along a river in eastern China, apparently dumped by hospital mortuary workers.
The little bodies — at least one stuffed in a yellow bag marked "medical waste" — were found floating and strewn along the bank of a river on the outskirts of Jining city in Shandong province last weekend.
Police detained two mortuary workers at a hospital who were paid by the babies' families to dispose of the bodies.
One question that arose Wednesday was why would the parents of so many dead children simply abandon their remains?
Hospital procedures normally call for families to take away dead infants, the Shandong province-based Qilu Evening News reported. However, the death of a young child is considered bad luck among some rural families, and the body is often abandoned or buried in unmarked graves.
"According to customs in some places, dead infants are not considered to be a family member and will not be buried in family tombs," said Cao Yongfu, professor with Medical Ethic Institute of Shandong University.
Some families would rather leave the body at the hospital or pay someone to bury it, Ma Guanghai, deputy dean at Shandong University's School of Philosophy and Social Development, was cited as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Some local customs go even further. When a baby dies, the family burns its clothes, toys and photos — anything that would remind them the child ever existed. The traditions stem from China's agrarian past, where child deaths were common, and not considered something to dwell on.
Though the case has shocked the public, Cao said a more pressing issue was developing clear regulations on how the bodies of infants and fetuses should be disposed.
"It's necessary for China to issue a legal explanation on how to deal with the bodies of dead infants and fetuses, otherwise it is possible there will be loopholes in hospital management," he said.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Moscow Bombings Weren't Breaking News

The news of the subway suicide bombings in Moscow on Monday - Russia's worst terrorist attack in five years - led news broadcasts around the world almost immediately after the event unfolded. But in Russia, viewers who tuned in to the country's three main television networks that morning had little reason to suspect anything was amiss - they were watching shows about cooking and makeovers.
The networks, all of which are controlled by the government or state-owned companies, stayed with their regularly scheduled programming as the tragedy unfolded, waiting for up to two hours to provide their first substantive reports on the attacks, which killed at least 39 people. Bloggers and political commentators say the slow response of the networks - Channel One, Rossia 1 and NTV - is indicative of the state of television journalism in Russia today: the major broadcasters have been so cowed by the Kremlin over the past decade, they're incapable of effectively covering events of vital national importance. (See pictures of the suicide bombings in Moscow.)
"This is a city with millions of people," says Arina Borodina, a television critic with the independent-minded Kommersant newspaper in Moscow. "Can you imagine an attack during rush hour in New York or Paris, and a television channel doesn't show anything for two hours?"
Channel One was the first to air a short announcement on the bombings at 8:30 a.m. Monday, about a half hour after the attacks, followed by a brief update at 9 a.m. But the network then proceeded to go back to its three hours of regularly scheduled broadcasting, which included a show about healthy living and another in which women get makeovers under the watchful eye of a prominent designer, before finally covering the tragedy live from the scene at noon. In an e-mail message, Channel One spokeswoman Larisa Krymova said the entertainment shows were not pulled because "they are not humorous programs, which are typically canceled in such events." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)
The other networks were even more delayed. State-owned Rossia 1 broadcast a short news report about an hour after the bombers struck, followed by a documentary about a famous folk singer and a police drama. NTV, which was once the benchmark for Russian television journalism and is now controlled by the state-owned gas giant Gazprom, was last to report on the bombings at 10 a.m. - a full two hours after the first blast. The story came "as soon as [the channel] had video footage from the scene of the tragedy," network spokeswoman Maria Bezborodova said in an e-mail. NTV's report was preceded by a cooking show called Culinary Competition and, curiously, a weekly crime wrap-up that did not mention the subway bombings.
Critics of the networks' coverage said news anchors could have at least advised viewers to refrain from taking the notoriously packed Moscow subway, particularly when it was unclear if there could be subsequent attacks. Russians increasingly rely on television for this type of information - according to a 2006 survey by the state-friendly polling agency VTsIOM, in fact, 85% of people prefer to get their news from the TV. But in the network vacuum of information Monday, millions of Russians turned to the Internet or radio for news on the bombings instead. (Read: "Moscow Bombings: Are Islamist Rebels Behind Them?")
Ever since then-President Vladimir Putin came to power a decade ago, the Kremlin has steadily reined in the coverage of the main television networks. In the 1990s, the channels tended to slant their coverage in favor of their oligarch owners, but they also produced incisive investigative reports previously unknown to a population raised on Soviet propaganda. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied dictating to the networks how major events should be covered, but Channel One, Rossia 1 and NTV almost never stray from the official line these days and often provide fawning coverage of Putin, now the Prime Minister, and the current President, Dmitri Medvedev.
Borodina said that Monday's delayed coverage was reminiscent of the networks' initial handling of the Beslan school crisis in 2004, when terrorists took hundreds of people hostage in a school in southern Russia. After a standoff of three days, security forces stormed the building, resulting in a gun battle that left more than 300 people dead, many of them children. For 30 minutes after the security forces' assault, however, Channel One continued to broadcast a film called Lady With a Parrot, while Rossia aired a travel show called In Search of Adventures. Of the three national networks, only NTV carried live reports from the scene right away. (See pictures of the aftermath of the Moscow bombings.)
Anna Kachkayeva, a professor at Moscow State University and television critic with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, says the reluctance of the networks to broadcast breaking coverage of Monday's attacks was only partially due to the pressure they feel to produce reporting acceptable to the Kremlin. She says the art of live coverage has also disappeared in the past 10 years as news broadcasts have become more and more scripted. "There just aren't very many people around anymore who can do live television," Kachkayeva says.
But not all television critics believe the networks botched the coverage of the suicide attacks. Anatoly Lysenko, a pioneer in contemporary Russian television who ran the station banned by the leaders of the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, says he thought the channels reported responsibly and helped avoid a citywide panic. "All terrorist attacks are done with the goal of getting news coverage and scaring society," Lysenko says. As to whether the networks likely consulted with senior government officials before airing their reports, he added: "Of course there was an exchange of opinions. Television in our country is too powerful to not be controlled."

David Mikael Taclino
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Dad of a fallen Marine perseveres against protests at military funerals

A father of a Marine killed in Iraq says he won't pay the legal fees of a protest group who picketed at his son's funeral in 2006 – at least not until he hears from the US Supreme Court on the matter.
Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in Iraq, learned Friday that a federal appeals court is requiring him to pay more than $16,000 in legal fees to the Westboro Baptist Church, a Christian fundamentalist group that demonstrates during military funerals to gain attention for its antigovernment, antihomosexual message. The group rallied at Matthew Snyder’s funeral in March 2006 in Westminster, Md., chanting antigay slogans and carrying signs such as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” says Albert Snyder’s attorney, Sean Summers.
The group was protesting about 30 feet from the church’s main entrance, and Mr. Snyder had to enter through a separate entrance, Mr. Summers says.
Snyder subsequently sued the Westboro group for emotional distress and won a $5 million judgment. But on appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding in favor of protecting the protesters' free-speech rights. About three weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to take the case and is expected to hear it in the fall. (Last year, the high court had declined to take up the issue.) Meanwhile, the circuit court has ordered Snyder, a salesman, to pay the church’s court expenses.
Snyder, of York, Pa., told Fox News on Tuesday that he would not pay the Westboro Baptist Church "until I hear from the Supreme Court."
“It’s fair to say that they are not getting any Christmas cards from Mr. Snyder,” adds Summers, in a phone interview. “He obviously thinks they are despicable and doesn’t understand why they would target him.”
The Westboro group has been protesting at military members’ funerals for years. The church leader, Fred Phelps, preaches that American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. (He was among those banned from Britain last year for fostering hatred or extremism.) The protests have nothing to do with the fallen service members' sexual orientation, and the church says its protests are held within a “lawful distance” of the funerals.
Ultimately, say some, the church protests are a matter of constitutionally protected free speech.
“I really don’t see that [the protest] was a violation of the First Amendment [principles]. It was a violation of decorum and good taste and all sorts of other things, but not a violation of the First Amendment,” says Charles Gittins, a civilian lawyer in Virginia.
But Summers argues that his client’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of religion were infringed by the protests and that, unlike at a public park where people are free to express themselves, a funeral setting draws a “captive audience” that requires attendees to be in a particular location – they can’t simply walk away.
Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Kansas, plans to protest in Florida on Wednesday, outside a funeral for a Marine killed in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan on March 22.
“Military funerals have become pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy, where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool,” states a press release posted on the church’s website, announcing the rally at a memorial service for Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson. At the bottom of the press release are printed the words “Thank God for IEDs,” referring to the roadside bombs that have killed thousands of troops in both wars.

David Mikael Taclino
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Obama agreed for oil drilling off coasts

Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced an expansive new policy that could put oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.
Speaking at Andrews air base outside Washington, Obama said, "This is not a decision that I've made lightly." He addressed the expected outcry from disappointed environmentalists by saying he had studied the issue for more than a year and concluded it was the right call given the nation's voracious thirst for energy and the need to produce jobs and keep American businesses competitive.
"We're announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America's natural resources," Obama said, according to his prepared remarks released in advance by the White House. "This announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy. And the only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and long term."
He added: "To fail to recognize this reality would be a mistake."
Obama made no secret of the fact that one factor in his decision was securing Republican support for a sweeping climate change bill that has languished in Congress. But Obama has long stated his support in favor of the "tough decision" to expand offshore drilling
The plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico. It allows new oil drilling off Virginia's shoreline and considers it for a large chunk of the Atlantic seaboard. At the same time, he's rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

David Mikael Taclino
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Hutchison ends back and forth on her career plans

Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison said Wednesday she is staying in the U.S. Senate, ending a series of back and forth announcements during the last year about her career plans.
The state's senior senator, flanked by Republican leader Mitch McConnell and junior Texas Sen. John Cornyn, told reporters in San Antonio that she will serve out her third term, which ends in 2012. She had previously said she would resign her seat in 2010 regardless of the outcome of the March primary battle for governor against incumbent Rick Perry, which she lost.
"Something has happened in our country that no one could anticipate," she said, noting "massive debt," health care legislation she opposed and the general direction of the nation. "It has caused me to look at the resignation in a different way."
The 66-year-old had previously cited her young children as motivation for returning to Texas full time, but she said Wednesday that her concern for the nation led her to believe her children were better served by her staying in the U.S. Senate and fighting for what she believes in.
She ended the 10-minute news conference, hastily called in San Antonio because McConnell was in town, without taking questions.
The decision comes after Republican Senate colleagues urged her to stay and 20 Texas Republican House members signed a letter lauding her years of service, which they said were needed in this period of "sweeping change."
"If you sense an audible sigh of relief in the air, it's every single Republican in the U.S. Senate," said McConnell, calling her an invaluable member. "These are unusual and unique times, and we need Kay Hutchison in the Senate."
Cornyn agreed, saying Hutchison could do greater good by staying and fighting.
"The easiest thing for her to do would have been to quit. The hardest thing for her to do was put her family and other considerations in the background and say 'I stayed when my country needed me,'" he said.
Hutchison said last year that she would step down by the end of 2009 to concentrate on her run for governor.
Then, in late fall, she said she felt she needed to remain in the Senate to battle President Barack Obama's health care initiative. She said she would stay until after the March 2 primary. And on the campaign trail in Texas in late February, Hutchison continued to say she would resign after the health care debate and that she would be gone by November 2010.
Her announcement Wednesday was not her first reneging on a decision to leave the Senate. When elected in 1994, she said she would limit herself to no more than two terms, but she sought a third term in 2006, saying she wanted to stay in the Senate to work on homeland security and tax issues. She also publicly toyed with running for governor twice before entering the 2010 primary.
Perry, who shaped his primary re-election fight against Hutchison railing against her as a Washington insider, now faces Democrat Bill White in the November general election.
Perry said Wednesday that he's glad she's there to fight health care and cap-and-trade energy legislation.
"I am pleased that Sen. Hutchison has decided to complete her term in the Senate and remain in the fight against Washington's imprudent, harmful policies," he said in a statement.
Hutchison was elected to the Senate in 1993 after serving as state treasurer and as a Texas legislator. She's the only woman elected to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.
Several Texas politicians from both parties have been waiting to run for Hutchison's seat. A Republican candidate would be favored to win that seat if she left, but Democrats saw it as a possibility to win back a Senate seat they haven't had for 17 years.
Roger Williams, a Republican running for the seat, said Hutchison's announcement wouldn't change his plans.
"Our campaign has more money, more volunteers and more momentum than anyone else. I have said from the beginning that I would be ready to run a campaign whether it was this year or in 2012," Williams said.
Democrat John Sharp also plans to stay in the race for 2012, said his spokesman Kevin Cecil.
"I certainly enjoyed visiting with Texans for the last year and a half and learning about their concerns as we waited for Kay Bailey Hutchison to resign," Sharp said in a statement."
In the governor's race, Hutchison initially was seen as a real threat to Perry because of her long tenure in office and her popularity in Texas.
Perry's campaign attacked her from the start as "Kay Bailout" and a Washington insider — a strategy she acknowledged late in the campaign had damaged her chances of winning the governorship.
"I didn't think that anyone could turn my success in producing results for Texas into a negative, but I think that he has attempted to do that and that is what I've been having to fight against," she said shortly before the primary.
She continually accused Perry of being arrogant and staying in office too long. He took over as governor in December 2000 when George W. Bush resigned to become president.

David Mikael Taclino
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Apple may unlock iPhone from AT&T

Sure, devotees of Apple's revolutionary iPhone are known for their zeal — that's why the device has been dubbed "the Jesus phone" in geek circles. But iPhone users have had their faith tested at times — chiefly by the spotty service coverage that comes via the iPhone's exclusive contract for AT&T wireless service.
As a result, the iPhone has bypassed a sizable chunk of the wireless market. Some would-be users don't want to leave their non-AT&T provider; others would have faced hefty penalties for pulling out of their existing wireless contracts for the sake of an AT&T deal.
So there was rejoicing anew in the tech world when the Wall Street Journal reported today that the days of the AT&T monopoly on iPhone service are drawing to a close.
According to the Journal, Apple is set to begin mass production on a new version of the iPhone this September. The new device would run on a wireless network known as "CDMA." That's the network that Verizon, Sprint and a handful of other wireless providers all use, as opposed to the GSM setup favored by AT&T and other providers.
This would mean, among other things, a major blow to AT&T's iPhone-centric business model. AT&T presently controls 43 percent of the U.S. wireless industry, the Journal notes, and has experienced growth for several consecutive fiscal quarters, thanks largely to the iPhone's enormous popularity. The tech blog Gizmodo hailed the news as something that would turn the cell phone market "upside down." But at least one tech industry watcher says that the industry's been burned by such rumors before, so she'll believe that the post-AT&T iPhone has arrived only when she's able to hold one in her hand.
"So much about the mobile industry in the U.S. has been dictated by the carriers," said CNET writer and frequent MSNBC tech contributor Caroline McCarthy in an email. "The move beyond the carrier constraints has to come from an existing power player in the market, like Apple's iPhone. But on the other hand, rumors of a non-AT&T iPhone have been around for so long that plenty of people have grown cynical about even that."

David Mikael Taclino
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Palin vs LL Cool J

Here's a chapter in the culture wars that no one saw coming: Sarah Palin and Fox News facing off against '80s rap star and actor LL Cool J.
Palin makes her hosting debut Thursday night on Fox, as captain of an interview special in Greta Von Susteren's 10 p.m. slot. The show is called "Real American Stories," and the New York Daily News explains that it chronicles "people who have overcome adversity and more."
Among the success stories Palin plans to highlight are those of country music star Toby Keith, former GE Chairman Jack Welch, and a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. LL Cool J (birth name James Todd Smith) was also included in the roster — which prompted some conservative commenters to gloat a bit.
Popular conservative blogger Allahpundit tweaked liberals who accuse Tea Party supporters of racist sympathies, saying they'll be "shocked to find the alleged Grand Dragon of the tea-party movement making chitchat with a hip-hop legend."
The problem is that no such chitchat was produced for the Palin show. LL Cool J, star of "NCIS: Los Angeles," tweeted Tuesday night: "Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW."
When contacted by Yahoo! News for comment, Fox News provided us with a statement:
"Real American Stories features uplifting tales about overcoming adversity and we believe Mr. Smith's interview fit that criteria. However, as it appears that Mr. Smith does not want to be associated with a program that could serve as an inspiration to others, we are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career."
Attempts to reach LL Cool J for comment proved unsuccessful. Perhaps he intends a more recent Twitter entry to serve as his rejoinder to the Fox statement: "Nobody can bring you peace but yourself."

David Mikael Taclino
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Flooding the New England

Flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England forced hundreds of people from their homes and businesses Wednesday, overwhelmed sewage systems and isolated communities as it washed out bridges and rippled across thoroughfares from Maine to Connecticut.
Three days of record-breaking rains tapered to a drizzle, then stopped before the waters in hard-hit Rhode Island finally crested. But authorities across New England warned that the flooding — far worse than an indundation two weeks ago in the same areas — could linger for days.
In Rhode Island, which bore the brunt of the storm, residents were experiencing the worst flooding in more than 100 years. A stretch of Interstate 95, the main route linking Boston to New York, were closed and could remain so through Thursday. Amtrak suspended some trains on its busy routes in the area because of water over the tracks.
Every resident of Rhode Island, a state of about 1 million, was asked to conserve water and electricity because of flooded sewage systems and electrical substations. The waters either stranded hundreds of people or sent them to shelters. Many of those who stayed behind appeared shell-shocked.
Angelo Padula Jr.'s auto restoration shop in West Warwick, Angelo Padula & Son Used Auto, stood in 10 feet of water from the Pawtuxet River — after 100 years in business, its likely death knell, Padula said.
"I think we're all done," he said. "If the federal government doesn't give us disaster money, I don't think we can ever come back from this. You're talking millions and millions of dollars in these businesses. Now I know how the people in New Orleans felt."
The flooding caps a month that set rainfall records across the region. Boston measured nearly 14 inches for March, breaking the previous record for the month, set in 1953. New Jersey, New York City and Portland, Maine, surpassed similar records. Providence registered its rainiest month on record, period, with a total of more than 15 inches of rain in March.
Gov. Don Carcieri called the flooding "unprecedented in our state's history." President Barack Obama had issued an emergency declaration late Tuesday for Rhode Island, ordering federal aid for relief and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate efforts.
Monica Bourgeois, 45, cried Wednesday morning as she stood outside her home in Cranston, where a sewer pump station gave out and hundreds of residents had evacuated by early Wednesday. The Pawtuxet had turned her lawn into a lake and flooded her basement with six feet of still-rising water.
"I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay for this," she said. "I'm extremely, extremely worried. Do you know how much a new furnace costs? We're just praying to God for some help."
Similar concerns plagued residents throughout New England. National Guard troops went into action in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. A pond dam in Porter, Maine, let loose Tuesday morning, sending a torrent of water down country roads but injuring no one. Water covered roads in New Hampshire.
Stonington, Conn., a coastal town on a peninsula, was largely cut off as two of its three bridges went out. A bridge also gave out in Freetown, Mass., isolating about 1,000 residents.
Non-essential state workers in Rhode Island were given the day off, and state officials asked schools and private businesses to consider closing, as well. Officials in Warwick, where a water and sewage treatment plant failed, asked residents not to launder clothes or flush toilets. The state also asked people to stay off highways and local roads.
Rhode Island officials warned that although the waters had begun to recede by Wednesday afternoon, the Pawtuxet was not expected to go below its banks before Saturday.
In Connecticut, the muddy earth beneath a Middletown apartment complex parking lot gave way, leaving two buildings teetering over the ravine of a river. Residents were taken to an emergency shelter at a high school.
Authorities also evacuated 50 units at a condominium complex in Jewett City in eastern Connecticut because a sewage treatment plant next door was under at least 4 feet of water.
In Massachusetts, the biggest concerns were in the southeastern part of the state, where a highway was closed. Heavy rains buckled a road in Fall River, near the Rhode Island border.
In Peabody, north of Boston, a court closed Wednesday because flooding made it inaccessible. Some residents there evacuated. Downtown businesses piled sandbags at their front doors and nearby streets were closed.
Demetri Skalkos, co-owner of McNamara's liquor store, said about three feet of water stood in the basement. He said he was worried about losing business over the traditionally busy Easter period.
"This is the Holy Week," he said. "... If we don't do business now, when are we going to do business?"

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Christian Militia in US (update)

Not guilty pleas have been entered in Michigan on behalf of eight of nine members of a Christian militia that prosecutors claim plotted to kill police officers and kick-start a violent revolution.
The eight were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, including the alleged ringleader, 44-year-old David Brian Stone.
Stone was among nine members of the Hutaree militia arrested after a series of raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. A court document says an undercover FBI agent and a cooperating witness were part of the federal probe.
A hearing to determine if they'll be released on bail began Wednesday for Stone and six others. One suspect's bond hearing will be Thursday.
The ninth suspect was in court in Indiana, and will be arraigned later in Michigan.
___
Associated Press Writer Tom Coyne in Hammond, Ind. contributed to this report.
Not guilty pleas have been entered in Michigan on behalf of seven of nine members of a Christian militia that prosecutors claim plotted to kill police officers. The seven were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The hearing was delayed while a lawyer for the alleged ringleader, 44-year-old David Brian Stone, traveled to the courthouse from Miami.
Stone was among nine members of the Hutaree militia arrested after a series of raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. A court document says an undercover FBI agent and a cooperating witness were part of the federal probe.
Hearings to determine if they'll be released on bail were expected later Wednesday for Stone and six others. One suspect's bond hearing will be Thursday.
The ninth suspect is in court in Indiana.

David Mikael Taclino
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Chechen Rebels, Responsible in latest Attack

A Chechen militant claimed responsibility Wednesday for this week's deadly subway bombings in Moscow, as two new suicide bomb attacks targeting police officers in southern Russia left 12 people dead.
Doku Umarov, who leads Islamic militants in Chechnya and other regions in Russia's North Caucasus, said in a video posted Wednesday on a pro-rebel Web site that Monday's twin suicide attacks were an act of revenge for the killing of civilians by Russian security forces. He warned that attacks on Russian cities will continue.
Umarov's statement was posted after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed to "drag out of the sewer" the terrorists who plotted the subway bombings, which killed 39 people and injured scores of commuters during rush hour.
Wednesday's suicide bombings in Dagestan, a volatile southern province east of Chechnya, could have been planned by the same group behind Moscow's bombings, Putin said.
"I don't rule out that this is one and the same gang," Putin said at a televised Cabinet meeting. President Dmitry Medvedev later called the attacks "links of the same chain."
The subway bombings in Moscow were the first suicide attacks in the Russian capital in six years and shocked a country that had grown accustomed to having such violence confined to its restive southern corner.
Umarov blamed ordinary Russians for turning a blind eye to the killing of civilians in the Caucasus by security forces and warned that more attacks on Russian cities are coming.
"I promise you that the war will come to your streets and you will feel it in your lives, feel it on your own skin," Umarov said in a video posted on kavkazcenter.com, a Web site affiliated with the rebels.
Officials at Russian law enforcement agencies refused to comment on Umarov's claim, but the Russian security chief has previously said that the subway bombings were carried out by militants from the Caucasus.
Moscow police have been on high alert since the subway attacks, beefing up roadblocks on highways leading into the city. The agency's chief said Wednesday that thousands of officers have been sent to patrol the subway, check on migrants from southern provinces and inspect warehouses that could hold arms caches.
In Wednesday's attack, a suicide bomber in a car detonated explosives when police tried to stop the car in the town of Kizlyar near Dagestan's border with Chechnya, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said.
"Traffic police followed the car and almost caught up — at that time the blast hit," Nurgaliyev said.
As investigators and residents gathered around the scene of the blast, a second bomber wearing a police uniform approached and set off explosives, killing the town's police chief among others, Nurgaliyev said.
In addition to the dead, at least 23 other people were injured, authorities said. Windows were blown out and bricks tumbled down at a school and a police station nearby.
Grainy cell phone video footage posted on the life.ru news portal showed the moment of the second blast, with officials wandering past a destroyed building before a loud clap rings out and smoke rises in the distance. Television pictures later showed a few gutted cars, damaged buildings and a 2-meter (six-foot) deep crater in the road.
Police and security services are a frequent target because they represent the Kremlin — the militants' ideological enemy — but also because of their heavy-handed tactics. Police have been accused of involvement in many killings, kidnappings and beatings in the North Caucasus, angering residents and swelling the ranks of Islamic militants.
A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said 916 people died in the North Caucasus in 2009 in violence related to the clashes, up from 586 in 2008. Another monitoring group, the Caucasian Knot, reported the region suffered 172 terrorist attacks last year, killing 280 people in Chechnya, 319 in Ingushetia and 263 in Dagestan.
The bloodshed has continued despite Kremlin efforts to stem it. Medvedev, who claims the militants have spread through the North Caucasus "like a cancerous tumor," this year appointed a deputy prime minister to oversee the troubled region and address the root causes of terrorism, including dire poverty and corruption.
Monday's subway bombings, carried out by two women, were the first terrorist attacks in Moscow since 2004.
The first blast struck the Lubyanka station in central Moscow, beneath the headquarters of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the KGB's main successor agency. The FSB is a symbol of power under Putin, a former KGB officer who headed the agency before his election as president in 2000.
About 45 minutes later, a second blast hit the Park Kultury station on the same subway line, which is near the renowned Gorky Park. In both cases, the bombs were detonated as the trains pulled into the stations and the doors were opening.

David Mikael Taclino
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