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Showing posts with label UNITED STATED. Show all posts

Friday, 25 February 2011

Protesters hit by hail of gunfire in Libya march

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UNITED STATES

Libya – Protesters demanding Moammar Gadhafi's ouster came under a hail of bullets Friday when pro-regime militiamen opened fire to stop the first significant anti-government marches in days in the Libyan capital. The Libyan leader, speaking from the ramparts of a historic Tripoli fort, told supporters to prepare to defend the nation.

Witnesses reported multiple deaths from gunmen on rooftops and in the streets shooting at crowds with automatic weapons and even an anti-aircraft gun.

"It was really like we are dogs," one man who was marching from Tripoli's eastern Tajoura district told The Associated Press. He added that many people were shot in the head, with seven people within 10 yards (meters) of him cut down in the first wave.

Also Friday evening, troops loyal to Gadhafi attacked a major air base east of Tripoli that had fallen into rebel hands.

A force of tanks attacked the Misrata Air Base, succeeding in retaking part of it in battles with residents and army units who had joined the anti-Gadhafi uprising, said a doctor and one resident wounded in the battle on the edge of opposition-held Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from the capital.

The opposition captured two fighters, including a senior officer, and still held part of the large base, they said. Shooting could still be heard from the area after midnight. The doctor said 22 people were killed in two days of fighting at the air base and an adjacent civilian airport.

In Washington, the White House said it was moving forward with plans to impose unilateral sanctions on Libya in response to the regime's bloody crackdown in the 11-day-old uprising. Hundreds have been killed, but rebels have taken control of nearly the entire eastern half of the country, as well as cities close to Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital.

A White House spokesman said it is clear that Gadhafi's legitimacy has been "reduced to zero" — the Obama administration's sharpest words yet. The U.S. also temporarily abandoned its embassy in Tripoli as a final flight carrying American citizens departed from the capital.

The U.N. Security Council met to consider possible sanctions against Gadhafi's regime, including trade sanctions and an arms embargo. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged it take "concrete action" to protect civilians in Libya, saying "the violence must stop" and those responsible for "so brutally shedding blood" must be punished.

But Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In the evening, he appeared before a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters in Green Square and called on them to fight back and "defend the nation."

"Retaliate against them, retaliate against them," Gadhafi said, speaking by microphone from the ramparts of the Red Castle, a Crusader fort overlooking the square. Wearing a fur cap, he shook his fist, telling the crowd: "Dance, sing and prepare. Prepare to defend Libya, to defend the oil, dignity and independence."

He warned, "At the suitable time, we will open the arms depot so all Libyans and tribes become armed, so that Libya becomes red with fire."

The crowd waved pictures of the leader and green flags as he said, "I am in the middle of the people in the Green Square. ... This is the people that loves Moammar Gadhafi. If the people of Libya and the Arabs and Africans don't love Moammar Gadhafi then Moammar Gadhafi does not deserve to live."

Earlier his son, Seif al-Islam, was asked in an interview with CNN-Turk about the options in the face of the unrest. "Plan A is to live and die in Libya, Plan B is to live and die in Libya, Plan C is to live and die in Libya," he replied.

The marches in the capital were the first major attempt by protesters to break a clampdown that pro-Gadhafi militiamen have imposed on Tripoli since the beginning of the week, when dozens were killed by gunmen roaming the street, shooting people on sight.

In the morning and night before, text messages were sent around urging protesters to stream out of mosques after noon prayers, saying, "Let us make this Friday the Friday of liberation," residents said. The residents and witnesses all spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

In response, militiamen set up heavy security around many mosques in the city, trying to prevent any opposition gatherings. Armed young men with green armbands to show their support for Gadhafi set up checkpoints on many streets, stopping cars and searching them. Tanks and checkpoints lined the road to Tripoli's airport, witnesses said.

After prayers, protesters flowed out of mosques, converging into marches from several neighborhoods, heading toward Green Square. But they were hit almost immediately by militiamen, a mix of Libyans and foreign mercenaries.

"We can't see where it is coming from," another protester from Tajoura district — several miles (kilometers) from Green Square — said of the gunfire. "They don't want to stop." He said a man next to him was shot in the neck.

In the nearby Souq al-Jomaa district, witnesses reported four killed as gunmen fired from rooftops. "There are all kind of bullets," said one man in the crowd, screaming in a telephone call to the AP, with the rattle of gunfire audible in the background. Another protester was reported killed in the Fashloum district. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

After nightfall, protesters dispersed, and regime supporters prowled the streets, a resident said. As they have on past nights this week, many blockaded streets into their neighborhoods to prevent militiamen and strangers from entering.

Tripoli, home to about a third of Libya's population of 6 million, is the center of the eroding territory that Gadhafi still controls. The opposition holds a long sweep of about half of Libya's 1,000-mile (1,600- kilometer) Mediterranean coastline where most of the population lives.

Even in the Gadhafi-held pocket of northwestern Libya around Tripoli, several cities have also fallen to the rebellion. Militiamen and pro-Gadhafi troops were repelled Thursday when they launched attacks trying to take back opposition-held territory in Zawiya and Misrata in fighting that killed at least 30 people.

In an apparent bid to win public favor, parliament speaker Mohammed Abul-Qassim al-Zwai announced that the government would increase salaries and offer the unemployed a monthly salary. State TV reported the unemployed would get the equivalent of $117 a month and salaries would be raised 50 to 150 percent.

Support for Gadhafi continued to fray within a regime where he long commanded unquestioned loyalty.

Libya's delegation to the United Nations in Geneva announced Friday it was defecting to the opposition — and it was given a standing ovation at a gathering of the U.N. Human Rights Council. They join a string of Libyan ambassadors and diplomats around the world who abandoned the regime, as have the justice and interior ministers at home, and one of Gadhafi's cousins and closest aides, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who sought refuge in Egypt.

Libya's 11-member Arab League mission also announced its resignation in protest at the crackdown

On a visit to Turkey, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the violence by pro-Gadhafi forces is unacceptable and should not go unpunished.

"Mr. Gadhafi must go," he said.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has put the death toll in Libya at nearly 300, according to a partial count from several days ago. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed were "credible."

The upheaval in the OPEC nation has taken most of Libya's oil production of 1.6 million barrels a day off the market. Oil prices hovered above $98 a barrel Friday in Asia, backing away from a spike to $103 the day before amid signs the crisis in Libya may have cut crude supplies less than previously estimated.

The opposition camp says it is in control of two of Libya's major oil ports — Breqa and Ras Lanouf — on the Gulf of Sidra. A resident of Ras Lanouf said Friday that the security force guarding that port had joined the rebellion and were helping guard it, along with residents of the area.

Several tens of thousands held a rally in support of the Tripoli protesters in the main square of Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi, where the revolt began, about 580 miles (940 kilometers) east of the capital along the Mediterranean coast.

Tents were set up and residents served breakfast to people, many carrying signs in Arabic and Italian. Others climbed on a few tanks parked nearby, belonging to army units in the city that allied with the rebellion.

"We will not stop this rally until Tripoli is the capital again," said Omar Moussa, a demonstrator. "Libyans are all united. ... Tripoli is our capital. Tripoli is in our hearts."

Muslim cleric Sameh Jaber led prayers in the square, telling worshippers that Libyans "have revolted against injustice."

"God take revenge from Moammar Gadhafi because of what he did to the Libyan people," the cleric, wearing traditional Libyan white uniform and a red cap, said in remarks carried by Al-Jazeera TV. "God accept our martyrs and make their mothers, fathers and families patient."

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the bloc needs to consider sanctions such as travel restrictions and an asset freeze against Libya to halt to the violence and move toward democracy.

NATO's main decision-making body met in emergency session to consider the deteriorating situation. It said it would continue to monitor the crisis, but that it will not intervene. Participants at the NATO meeting decided it would be premature to discuss deployments or a no-fly zone over Libya, said a diplomat familiar with the discussions.

The U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay said reports of mass killings in Libya should spur the international community to "step in vigorously" to end the crackdown against anti-government protesters.

By PAUL SCHEMM and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press

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Conservatives now see attacking Michelle Obama as fair game

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UNITED STATES

Except for an ill-advised trip to an expensive Spanish resort last summer, Michelle Obama has escaped much of the criticism that has been directed at her husband, keeping a relatively low-profile while primarily focusing on childhood obesity, military families and the arts.

During her first two years in the White House, she was more Laura Bush rather than Hillary Clinton, but that has begun to change. Now, for conservative critics, it is open season on the first lady.

Obama’s admonishments on nutrition and advice on breastfeeding are examples of big government “nanny state” intrusion according to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.); her eating habits are evidence of her hypocrisy, according to Rush Limbaugh; her athletic physique is something to be lampooned on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website, which posted a cartoon showing her as overweight and eating a plate full of hamburgers.

To date, the East Wing has managed to stay above the fray, not wanting to take part in a point-counterpoint kind of debate. But to one academic expert on first ladies, the attacks seem unusually pointed.

“There’s so much anger in the criticism surrounding Michelle Obama,” said Myra Gutin, a Rider University professor and author of a biography of Barbara Bush and a book on 20th century first ladies. “It seems almost personal to me.”

Republicans have a simple response: Obama is now fair game because she is playing an increasingly political role in her husband’s administration.

When Obama made a string of campaign stops for Democratic candidates during the 2010 campaign, Republicans generally refrained from any attacks. But many of them point to the first lady’s e-mail to supporters earlier this month announcing the news that Charlotte had been picked as the host city of the 2012 Democratic National Convention as an example of her slow movement onto political turf.

And they say her support for the government playing a bigger role in advancing better nutrition is inherently political. “If the first lady doesn’t want criticism, then she shouldn’t propose policy,” said Republican strategist Mark McKinnon.

“While no one disagrees with encouraging good health, against the backdrop of her husband’s demonstrably invasive and expanding government, the fear is that her encouragement will cross over to government fiat,” said Mary Matalin, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

In contrast to Hillary Clinton, who was put in charge of her husband Bill Clinton’s health care initiative shortly after he became president, Obama’s role in health care policy has been minimal. Clinton, a former senator who is now secretary of state, was an entirely new model of a first lady and quickly became a target of what she called “the vast right wing conspiracy” before dialing back her public involvement in policy after health care crashed and burned.

Republican strategist John Feehery said conservatives may be seizing on the fact that Michelle Obama, like Hillary Clinton, is perceived to be more liberal than her husband. But he sees a difference between the current first lady and Clinton, who was perceived as a “real ideological threat.”

“Michelle Obama isn’t heading up a health care task force,” Feehery said, referring to Clinton. “Michelle Obama is talking about issues that are relatively important. I think she’s a fairly traditional first lady.”

In that sense she has resembled her predecessor, Laura Bush, who promoted literacy and woman’s issues in Afghanistan as first lady, and never attracted much controversy.

“The thought of attacking [Laura Bush] was just not in the mainstream,” said Anita McBride, who served as Bush’s chief of staff. “I can’t really say she took a pounding on anything like this. Sure, she had her missteps but you really didn’t see much criticism. I think people saw her as someone who softened the president.”

Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, was as accomplished as Clinton when she became first lady, but from the beginning sought a relatively low profile in the White House.

Asked by POLITICO recently if it’s a first lady’s role to delve into policy issues, Obama said: “We talked about this when I first came in, and I think every first lady has the right to—or the privilege of determining what their agenda will be and every first lady’s agenda is as different as every first lady.”

In her case, she made childhood obesity her main focus, though recently she has also spent time publicizing the needs of military families. Her kitchen garden and warnings about the dangers of junk food seemed fairly benign – at least in the beginning. But as the first lady began to talk specifics and a more policy-oriented role, her critics saw an opening.

Last summer, when she talked about telling her kids that “dessert is not a right,” it became an instant headline. Former Gov. Sarah Palin took a swipe at the line on her reality show as she made s’mores with her daughter. “This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert,” she said.

Around the same time, the first lady took heat for taking the private trip to Spain as unemployment plagued millions of Americans.

Some expected the attacks to continue when she hit the campaign trail to stump for Democrats in the midterm elections last fall. But her role in the campaign did not become an issue.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said Obama “became an easier target” by becoming more political recently with the DNC announcement. “She made herself more political and thus fed these kinds of attacks,” he said.

Still, even the Charlotte comments were fairly innocuous.

“Vibrant, diverse and full of opportunity, the Queen City is home to innovative, hardworking folks with big hearts and open minds,” Obama wrote. “And of course, great barbecue.”

But some Republicans saw the move as political because as one Republican strategist put it, “a party convention is inherently political” and not something a first lady usually deals with.

As Obama marked the first anniversary of the Let’s Move! campaign and began to ramp up efforts for the second year, the scrutiny that had largely escaped her became intense.

When the White House served up deep dish pizza and bratwurst at its Super Bowl party earlier this month, Obama was asked why.

“It’s about balance,” she told reporters during a luncheon at the White House earlier this month to mark the first anniversary of Let’s Move! “It’s always been about balance.”

At the luncheon, the first lady briefly mentioned breastfeeding and how children who are nursed “longer have a lower tendency to be obese.”

“We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child’s life. And what we’re learning now is that early intervention is key,” she said.

Her comments received wide coverage. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service announced that breast pumps could be tax deductable. And just like that, the story was on The Drudge Report.

The next day, Bachmann took the first swipe, criticizing Obama for trying to implement a “nanny state” based on her push to get mothers to breastfeed their children in order to help combat childhood obesity. Palin joined in two days later, taking a shot at the first lady while blaming her husband’s policies for the rising cost of commodities and items like milk.

“No wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody, ‘You’d better breastfeed your baby,’” she said. In a column, Michelle Malkin also chimed in, saying that the first lady and her “food cops” aren’t “interested in slimming down kids’ waistlines but rather “boosting government and public union payrolls.”

Big Government then ran its cartoon portraying an overweight Obama eating a plate full of hamburgers and French fries. And this week, after the first lady indugled in spareribs with her daughters over the holiday weekend in Colorado, Limbaugh weighed in – like Breitbart – on her appearance.

“I’m trying to say that our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you,” Limbaugh said.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote that Limbaugh was the right person to comment “being perhaps the finest example of the male form since Michelangelo sculpted David,” but the White House said nothing.

Not all Republicans think that attacking Obama is smart politics.

“Cheap shots against Michelle Obama are stupid,” Feehery said. “She’s a good first lady and I think that conservatives are better off keeping their focus on President Obama. There’s nothing I’ve seen from Michelle Obama that I’ve found offensive.”

And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has an interest in nutrition thanks to his own struggles with weight, was even more supportive.

“She’s been criticized…out of reflex rather than out of thoughtful expression,” he said Wednesday at a session with reporters in Washington. “It’s exactly what Republicans say they believe, which is you put an emphasis on personal responsibility…I thought that’s what we were about.”

politico

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Battle at army base broke Gadhafi hold in Benghazi

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UNITED STATES

The young men of Benghazi pounded the dreaded military barracks in the city center with everything they could find. They threw stones and crude bombs made of tin cans stuffed with gunpowder. They drove bulldozers into its walls. All under a blaze of gunfire from troops inside that literally tore people in half.

More than 100 were killed in three days of fighting. But in the end, the base fell and Moammar Gadhafi's forces fled, executing comrades who refused to shoot.

The assault on the base known as the "Katiba" was the defining battle in the fall of Libya's second largest city to the opposition uprising that has swept away Gadhafi's rule in the eastern half of the country.

Now children clamber over the abandoned tanks inside the base and families drive around inside the sprawling compound, gawking at what for years had been a sort of feared Bastille, where detainees disappeared and where Gadhafi stayed when he was in town.

The revolt in Benghazi, about 580 miles (940 kilometers) east of Tripoli, began with protests that centered in the square outside the city's courthouse overlooking the Mediterranean.

Thousands held rallies there for several days, turning it into a Libyan version of Egypt's famous Tahrir Square. On Feb. 17, the protests turned deadly, when troops opened fire, killing 14.

The next day, a funeral procession of thousands made its way to the cemetery, filing past the Katiba.

Accounts differ on whether mourners began throwing stones first or the soldiers of the Katiba opened fire without provocation. But the result was a massacre, with the city's main Al-Jalaa Hospital alone reporting 24 deaths in its morgue and hundreds of wounded.

On Feb. 19, a new procession thousands strong carried the dead from the previous day and once more passed the Katiba to the cemetery in an act of defiance.

"The people whose brothers had died the day before were in the first rank and they were the first to start throwing rocks," recalled Aboul Qassim Bujezia. "The soldiers in the Katiba opened fire and everyone in the first rank died."

The slight 27-year-old lay in his bed at home, recovering from his wounds that day. His father proffers an X-ray showing the 7.62 mm Kalashnikov slug lodged in the muscle of Bujezia's calf. The doctors say it is too dangerous to remove for now.

"People around me were shot in the neck, head and eye, some twice, God was with me that day," Bujezia said, describing how under heavy gunfire that day, the wounded were ferried to safety.

The city's only trauma ward, at Al-Jalaa Hospital, was buckling under the flood of casualties.

"It was miserable for us, it was a very bad three days, like in Gaza," recalled Dr. Hossam Majli.

What shocked the doctors most was that the soldiers were clearly shooting to kill, with most shots concentrated in the chest and heart, they said days later when the clean, brightly lit walls of the hospital showed little sign of the blood bath.

One of the few bodies remaining in the hospital's overflowing morgue attests to the ferocity. As the drawer slides open it reveals a bearded man's peaceful face. His body ends below his chest. His lower half was a red mix of shredded bone and muscle with a charred protruding spine — the likely effects of being hit by a rocket propelled grenades, guess the doctors.

Dr. Abdullah, who insisted his last name not be used, is the hospital's head of surgery and casualty unit, and has dealt with effects of violence several times in his career, including after U.S. airstrikes and attacks by Gadhafi's security forces. Most of his colleagues, though, were not ready for these kinds of injuries.

"There is a shortage of professional people to deal with these cases," he said. "Our nurses are from the Philippines and other countries and their embassies are withdrawing them and we will have no nurses."

Ayman Salam, a frail 28-year-old shot in the abdomen walking in the Feb. 19 funeral procession, was one of eight gunshot victims still in the hospital Thursday.

"They came out and started firing immediately. As I was shot I saw four others go down with me and I just lay there," he said in a whispery voice, covered with tubes and bandages.

Benghazi's youth focused their rage on the Katiba, throwing whatever they could at it.

"Every time they killed one of us, more came," said Mohammed Haman, a lanky 29-year-old sporting a bandanna and an American accent from six years living in Baltimore. "When they started shooting, we hit back with bricks."

Others fired homemade explosives known as "jalateen" — essentially gunpowder stuffed into a tin can normally used in the unsportsmanlike local style of fishing. They fired them over the high walls with spear guns, also used for fishing.

Others commandeered bulldozers and tried to breach the walls, often succumbing under heavy fire.

"You wouldn't believe how much they were trying to capture the barracks," said Dr. Abdullah. "The young people were making human shields for the drivers of the bulldozers," he added, describing how he received four people all shot in the chest at the same height, while guarding a bulldozer.

As the battle wore on, a mob descended on a local army base on the outskirts of town and forced the soldiers to give up their weapons, including three small tanks. Truckers drove them into town and rammed those too into the Katiba's walls.

Days later, the burned hulks of the armored vehicles can still be seen, stuck halfway into the breaches they made.

The fighting petered out by around 5 a.m. Feb. 20, with 30 people killed in the day's fighting, according to Al-Jalaa's morgue.

With the new day, another funeral cortege wended its way past the Katiba toward the cemetery.

This procession, however, contained a surprise. As it approached the barracks, a 49-year-old named Mahdi Ziu peeled out from behind with a car rigged with four propane tanks and filled with makeshift explosives.

He rammed the imposing gates, blowing them into a twisted pile of concrete and rebar, dying in the blast.

The battle was on once more. Again, it dragged on for most of the day, with the attackers joined by people from the eastern towns of Derna and Beyda, who had liberated weapons from local security bases.

It was the bloodiest day of the battle, with 42 bodies brought to Al-Jalaa's morgue.

It only ended that afternoon when the Interior Minister Abdel-Fattah Younis showed up with contingent of special forces from the nearby base who had stayed out of the battle.

Charged by Gadhafi with relieving the besieged barracks, Younis instead announced his defection and promised the soldiers of the Katiba safe passage out if they would leave eastern Libya.

And with that, the last remnants of Gadhafi's power left the city.

The final days inside the barracks were undoubtedly grim. In the Al-Jalaa morgue were eight badly burned bodies that doctors say had their hands tied behind them and bullets in their head. They are believed to have been soldiers who refused to fight.

The vast enclosure, filled with burned out buildings, is now a macabre tourist attraction. Children play on an abandoned tank that is still functional enough to raise and lower its huge main gun, much to their collective glee.

Metal doors open into strange dark tunnels leading underground, one to a large room with a heavy door, its purpose unknown. In one corner of the compound, people frantically dig into the soft earth with makeshift tools over rumors someone was buried within.

Soldiers now with the rebellion were also there to recover boxes of ammunition in the ongoing effort to retrieve the many weapons that fell into civilian hands during the days of chaos.

Near the entrance is the remnants of the imposing proscenium stand where Gadhafi once declared himself the king of kings of Africa, now fallen down. Nearly every building is covered with triumphant graffiti declaring "the New Libya."

"I'm 41 years old, and this is the first time I had ever been inside and its been sitting in the middle of Benghazi all this time," said Atif al-Hasiya, standing in front of the ravaged complex with a huge smile on his face.

By PAUL SCHEMM, Associated Press

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Monday, 14 February 2011

List of Grammy winners in some major categories

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UNITED STATES

Winners in selected major categories at Sunday's 53rd Annual Grammy Awards:

Album of the Year: "The Suburbs," Arcade Fire

Record of the Year: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Song of the Year: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

New Artist: Esperanza Spalding

Pop Vocal Album: "The Fame Monster," Lady Gaga

Pop Performance by a Duo or Group: "Hey Soul Sister," Train

Female Pop Vocal Performance: "Bad Romance," Lady Gaga

Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Just The Way You Are," Bruno Mars

Rock Song: "Angry World," Neil Young

Rock Album: "The Resistance," Muse

R&B Song: "Shine," John Legend & The Roots

R&B Album: "Wake up!" John Legend & The Roots

Rap Solo Performance: "Not Afraid," Eminem

Rap Song: "Empire State of Mind," Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

Rap Album: "Recovery," Eminem

Female Country Vocal Performance: "The House That Built Me," Miranda Lambert

Male Country Vocal Performance: "'Til Summer Comes Around," Keith Urban

Country Performance by a Duo or Group: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Country Album: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Latin Pop Album: "Paraiso Express," Alejandro Sanz

Contemporary Jazz Album: "The Stanley Clarke Band," The Stanley Clarke Band

Classical Album: "Verdi: Requiem," Riccardo Muti, conductor

Traditional Gospel Album: "Downtown Church," Patty Griffin

Dance Recording: "Only Girl (In The World)," Rihanna

Electronic Dance Album: "La Roux," La Roux

Alternative Music Album: "Brothers," The Black Keys

Spoken Word Album: "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook)," Jon Stewart

By The Associated Press

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Probe sought of Mubarak family's purported fortune

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UNITED STATES

Switzerland has frozen whatever assets Hosni Mubarak and his associates may have there, and anti-corruption campaigners are demanding the same of other countries. But experts say hunting for the deposed Egyptian leader's purported hidden wealth -- let alone recovering it -- will be an enormous task.

Mubarak's actual worth remains a mystery. A recent claim that he and his sons Gamal and Alaa may have amassed a fortune of up to $70 billion -- greater than that of Microsoft's Bill Gates -- helped drive the protests that eventually brought him down.

"Oh, Mubarak, tell us where you got 70 billion dollars!" protesters chanted in demonstrations before Egypt's ruler of 30 years was driven from office Friday, and left Cairo for a gated compound in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Corruption was endemic in Mubarak's Egypt where 40 percent of the country's 80 million people live on $2 or less a day, and critics accused officials of usurping the nation's wealth. Egyptians have long complained of an unspoken policy of sweetheart deals that allowed top officials and businessmen to enrich themselves.

In recent days, watchdog groups and private lawyers have demanded that the country's chief prosecutor launch criminal investigations against the Mubaraks and some of their wealthy associates. Scores of former government officials have already been banned from travel and several, among them four former Cabinet ministers, have had their assets frozen.

How far these investigations will go ultimately depends on the political will of Egypt's leadership, said Eric Lewis, a partner with Washington-based law firm Baach, Robinson & Lewis, which specializes in international asset tracing and has done work in Kenya and Pakistan.

"What you often find is that while there's a kind of political impetus that seems to want to do it, the reality is that the real urge for transparency is more symbolic than real," Lewis said.

Far-reaching corruption probes could test the resolve of senior military officials who are running the country in the transition period. Some warn that a purge of Egypt's tycoons could make economic recovery from the political crisis more difficult.

Anti-corruption campaigners are calling for a speedy investigation and are urging countries other than Switzerland to freeze assets pre-emptively. "It's going to be a very difficult task, but in the interest of public money, things need to move now," said Omnia Hussien, Egypt expert at the advocacy group Transparency International.

The Mubaraks have never publicly discussed their assets. Hosni Mubarak's official monthly salary as president, counting benefits, came to 4,750 Egyptian pounds ($808), in 2007 and 2008, according to a Cairo think tank.

Rumors of hidden riches, such as expensive real estate in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, were fueled by the cozy ties between the Mubaraks and Egypt's business elite. The sale of state companies and public land for cheap, starting in the 1990s, were key sources of enrichment for the two sides, said Ahmed Elsayed Elnaggar, editor of Egypt's Economic Report.

"Privatization ... is the biggest corruption process in Egypt all over its history, from the period of the pharaohs, until now," he said.

In the past six months, two leading real estate companies have seen projects challenged in court over such alleged links.

In a case that captivated the country, Talaat Moustafa Group saw its $3 billion planned Madinaty community challenged on claims it was illegally awarded to the firm without the required bidding process, at a loss of $26 billion to the public coffers.

The country's highest administrative court upheld a ruling that the government had to re-offer the land, a decision that threatened to cast doubt on more than 100 other such projects in Egypt. Instead, a government-appointed committee re-awarded the contract, essentially on the same terms, arguing that it was in the national interest to retain the existing ownership and that TMG's work on the land had altered its value.

TMG had been headed by Hisham Talaat Moustafa, a former parliament member who was subsequently stripped of his immunity and sentenced to 15 years for ordering the murder of his Lebanese diva girlfriend.

Palm Hills Development, specializing in upscale residential compounds, faced a similar case -- and its ownership structure is a case study of the ties between public officials and the business world. Relatives of the recently fired housing minister and of a transportation minister who resigned in 2009 either hold stakes in or are on the board of one of the major shareholders of Palm Hills.

Mubarak's younger son, 47-year-old Gamal, set himself up as the director of a London-based investment firm called Medinvest Associates Ltd. in 1996, but resigned in 2001. Said Kaba, a current director of Medinvest, said the company is no longer linked to Mubarak's relatives, telling the Sunday Times in London that he knew little about the family's possible U.K. investments.

Medinvest, based in a stone-front building in London's swank Knightsbridge neighborhood, is listed as having one employee and 50,000 pounds sterling (nearly $80,000) of issued capital -- the minimum needed to get a trading certificate, operate a business and borrow. The company's profit and turnover weren't disclosed. Its net assets were valued at just over 225,000 pounds (nearly $360,000).

Gamal Mubarak is listed as the owner of 28 Wilton Place, a six-story Georgian townhouse a few blocks from Medinvest's office.

The Cairo-based Mideast investment bank EFG-Hermes said Gamal Mubarak holds an 18 percent share in a subsidiary, EFG Hermes Private Equity. The bank said Gamal Mubarak's relationship with the company began in 1997, before he entered politics, and was made public at the time. The banks said it "does not manage funds for the Mubarak family, nor has it received -- directly or indirectly -- any benefits or special consideration from the Egyptian government."

Gamal Mubarak entered politics in 2000 and quickly rose to the top of his father's ruling National Democratic Party. He was fired from the party's political bureau last week in what appeared to be a failed attempt by the regime to buy time and defuse public anger.

While corruption complaints up to now have focused on former top officials, Egyptian lawyer Ibrahim Youssri said he is seeking a criminal investigation of the Mubarak family. Youssri said the general prosecutor agreed to meet with him Monday to review the evidence.

"This is a really positive sign," Youssri said.

Officials in the prosecutor's office were not immediately available for comment.

Egypt can only start the long process of recovering assets once it launches criminal investigations, said Daniel Thelesklaf, who heads the Basel-based International Center for Asset Recovery. After that first step, Switzerland can release bank information, to be followed by the return of assets following convictions, he said.

Last month, after the ouster of another Mideast autocrat, Tunisia's Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, Switzerland froze the bank assets, estimated at $620 million, of former Tunisian government officials.

Thelesklaf said recovering assets has become easier in recent years, with the adoption of international anti-corruption conventions. Egypt is a signatory, and so are the United Arab Emirates, touted as a possible retirement refuge for Mubarak.

The responsibility lies with the Egyptian authorities to get an investigation started, said Thelesklaf, noting that other countries with limited resources, such as Haiti and Nigeria, have managed to repatriate public funds. "If Nigeria can do it, Egypt can do it," he said.

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael in Cairo and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

Karin Laub and Tarek El-Tablawy, Associated Press

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Radical Indonesian cleric faces terrorism trial

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UNITED STATES

Indonesia's best-known radical Islamic cleric went on trial Monday on charges of forming a terrorist cell to plot high-profile assassinations and attacks on foreigners in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Abu Bakar Bashir, 72, faces a maximum penalty of death if found guilty.

"These charges against me are fabricated," the smiling, white-bearded imam said before arriving at the tightly guarded South Jakarta District Court in an armored personnel carrier. "All I ever wanted to do was defend Islam."

Indonesia, a mostly moderate and secular nation of more than 237 million people, has been hit by a string of suicide bombings blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaida-linked network co-founded by Bashir just over a decade ago.

More than 260 people in Indonesia have been killed by terrorist attacks since 2002, many of them foreign tourists.

Bashir, seen as a driving force behind the country's small but increasingly vocal hard-line fringe that advocates direct religious control of government, has been tried in recent years for conspiracy in those attacks.

But only lesser charges have ever stuck, such as violating immigration laws, for which he spent 26 months in jail.

This time, prosecutors insist, they have enough evidence for a terrorism conviction.

The fiery cleric was accused of helping set up, fund, arm and mobilize foot soldiers for a new terrorist cell uncovered last year in westernmost Aceh province as part of efforts to carve out an Islamic state.

Police say Al Qaida-in-Aceh was planning Mumbai-style rifle attacks and bombings on Western hotels and embassies and assassinations of prominent figures including on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The cell was also blamed for commando-styled robberies on banks last year, allegedly to help buy weapons, and several deadly attacks on police stations.

"The aim was to spread panic and to divide the people and the ruling government, thus paving the way for a takeover," prosecutor Muhammad Taufik said.

The courthouse, surrounded by more than 2,000 police, was packed with his supporters, most of the men wearing white skull caps and the women fully shrouded in black veils. They interrupted Taufik's reading of the 93-page indictment with shouts of "God is Great!" every time the cleric was mentioned by name.

Judges adjourned the trial until next week, when Bashir's lawyers are due to respond to the charges.

Indonesia's fight against terrorism has won praise, with hundreds of militants killed or captured and convicted, but extremists have proved to be a resilient foe.

While Jemaah Islamiyah has been severely weakened, new groups like the Aceh cell have continued to pop up.

At the same time, the country is grappling with religious tensions and violence.

Last week, 1,500 hard-liners attacked members of the Ahmadiyah — a minority Muslim sect — with sticks and machetes, killing three men. Days later, a mob set two Christian churches ablaze in furious reaction to a Christian's blasphemy sentence, which they saw as too lenient.

Prosecutors said Monday that Bashir told followers in North Sumatra province in July 2009 that "nonbelievers" — including officials who did not support the creation of an Islamic state — should be killed and their property seized.

"Before waging jihad, we must first occupy a territory, albeit small, and gain full control of it," he was quoted as saying.

Several months later, he allegedly met with bombmaker Dulmatin, since killed in an anti-terrorism raid, to discuss the creation of Al Qaida-in-Aceh for which he provided $140,000.

"The defendant supported illegal military training and provided funds to buy weapons, ammunition and explosives," Taufik said.

Bashir's lawyers dismissed the accusation as "absurd," arguing that prosecutors had based their case "on assumptions instead of facts."

By IRWAN FIRDAUS, Associated Press

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Airline group expects 3.3B air travelers by 2014

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UNITED STATES

Global airline travel will likely jump to 3.3 billion passengers by 2014 as Asia's fast economic growth drives the industry's expansion, the International Air Transport Association said Monday.

Asia will likely account for 45 percent of the 800 million increase in air travelers between 2009 and 2014, IATA Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani said at a news conference. China will be the fastest growing market for international passengers, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Malaysia, Bisignani said.

Asian carriers should earn about $4.6 billion this year compared with just $100 million of profit for their European competitors, reflecting the gap between the economic growth rates of the two regions, Bisignani said.

"Look at one number, GDP" he said. "When you see Singapore ... and China have double digit growth and in Europe we're struggling between 1 and 2 percent, that's how the industry is going."

The association expects gross domestic product in the Asia Pacific area to grow 6.6 percent this year, Europe to expand 1 percent and the U.S. to grow 1.5 percent.

Asia overtook North America as the largest aviation market in 2009 and will account for 30 percent of air traffic by 2014, while North America will slip to 23 percent.

Bisignani reiterated that the global airline industry will likely earn $9.1 billion this year, down from $15.1 billion last year as higher fuel costs eat into profits.

Fuel oil accounts for about 27 percent of an airline's costs and the industry will likely spend $156 billion on fuel this year from $139 billion last year, he said. The Geneva-based IATA expects Brent crude to average $84 a barrel this year, and every $1 above that will increase the industry's costs by $1.6 billion.

"Higher oil prices could spoil our party," Bisignani said.

By ALEX KENNEDY, Associated Press Alex Kennedy, Associated Press

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