Nation/World Briefly
Published 9:51 pm Sunday, December 16, 2007
WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee vowed Sunday to press ahead with the congressional investigation of the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes despite the strenuous objections of the Justice Department.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan said Congress would call witnesses and demand documents in order to probe the CIA’s decision to destroy videotapes of the interrogations of two suspected al-Qaida operatives.
On Friday, the Justice Department said it would not cooperate with any congressional investigation, contending that giving lawmakers information could subject the inquiry to political pressures. Hoekstra and the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, have requested all of the CIA’s records related to the creation and destruction of the tapes.
The tapes were created in 2002 and destroyed three years later. The reason cited was concerns that if they were leaked, the identities of the CIA interrogators would be compromised. They reportedly showed CIA officers interrogating Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaida suspect linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, plot, using a technique known as waterboarding.
N.C.: Representatives marry
Rep. Mary Bono, who was married to late singer-turned-politician Sonny Bono and replaced him in Congress after his death, married U.S. Rep. Connie Mack on Saturday, according to Bono’s sister. Mack is a Republican representative from Florida. He and Bono, R-Calif., had been dating for two years. Bono replaced Sonny Bono in Congress in a special election in 1998.
Florida: Twister destroys jail
An apparent tornado demolished a jail building and overturned vehicles early Sunday in central Florida, authorities said. No injuries were reported. One of two minimum-security annex buildings at the Pasco County Jail in Land O’ Lakes was destroyed, a sheriff’s spokesman said. The approximately 125 female inmates it housed had been evacuated moments earlier to the main jail.
Turkey: Priest stabbed
A Catholic priest was hospitalized after being stabbed, apparently in the stomach, following Sunday Mass at St. Anthony’s church in the port city of Izmir, the Italian Embassy in Turkey said. Police said they detained the suspected attacker. The assault was the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in Turkey.
Colombia: American killed
A U.S. woman was shot and killed as she vacationed with her Colombian husband in Bucaramanga in a robbery that netted $200 and a laptop computer, police said on Sunday. Local authorities said Jean Oviedo, 37, is from South Carolina.
Mexico: Leaking oil well capped
Oil workers have capped a damaged oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico that spilled crude and natural gas for almost two months after a deadly collision with a drilling rig, Mexico’s state-owned oil company announced Sunday. Roughly 420 barrels of oil per day spilled from the damaged platform since late October.
Pakistan: Bird flu contact probed
International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia’s first outbreak of bird flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted through human contact, officials said Sunday. Four brothers — two of whom died — and two cousins from Abbotabad were suspected of being infected by the H5N1 virus, a WHO spokesman said. A man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens were also suspected of having the virus.
Britain: Al-Qaida ‘exaggeration’
Britain is in danger of “exaggerating” the threat from al-Qaida, the former top adviser on terrorism to Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quoted Sunday as saying. Richard Mottram, who retired last month from his post as an adviser on intelligence and security, said focusing too tightly on the terrorist movement risked underplaying other important threats such as climate change or a possible flu pandemic, a British newspaper reported.
Israel: Gaza rocket hits kibbutz
A rocket fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza wounded a 2-year-old boy in Kibbutz Zikim, an Israeli communal farm less than a mile from Gaza, Israeli police and rescue services said Sunday.
Canada: Nuclear reactor fired up
Canada’s state-owned atomic energy company said Sunday it has reopened a nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, after its shutdown created a critical shortage of radioactive isotopes used to diagnose and treat cancer patients in Canada, the U.S. and many other nations. The National Research Reactor provides half the world’s supply of the isotopes.
From Herald news services
