Rivals for Obama’s Senate Seat Keep Up Attacks

CHICAGO — The two candidates running for President Obama’s former Senate seat continued to attack each other on issues of character in their second debate here on Tuesday.

Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic state treasurer, and RepresentativeMark Steven Kirk, a five-term Republican congressman, met in an hourlong debate moderated by George Stephanopoulos, the anchor of “Good Morning America.” The candidates sparred over their pasts before discussing immigration, jobs and corruption at the debate at the ABC studio in downtown Chicago.

The candidates are locked in a close race, according to polls, with two weeks left until Election Day. The campaign has been increasingly negative, with each candidate attacking the other’s background in television ads.

Mr. Giannoulias returned to an issue that arose in the first debate, repeatedly asking Mr. Kirk whether he had ever been shot at during his time in the Naval Reserve. Mr. Kirk has acknowledged that he has made misleading statements about his service.“Congressman, it’s a simple question, were you shot at or not?” Mr. Giannoulias said.

Mr. Kirk replied that Mr. Giannoulias had no right to criticize him because he had not served in the military.

“The ultimate irony is that a man who spends most of his campaign for the Senate criticizing my military record and yet he never served a day in uniform himself,” Mr. Kirk said.

Both candidates have faced questions about their pasts. Mr. Giannoulias has received criticism for his time as a senior loan officer at his family’s bank, which was seized by federal regulators this year. Reports have found that the bank made loans to people with connections to organized crime.

Mr. Kirk said that he had admitted to making mistakes while his opponent had not fully come clean about his problems.

Unions and women: Democrats' last line of defense

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- If Democrats hope to retain their majority in Congress, it could take some "Women of Steel" to fire up the party faithful and get them to the polls on November 2.

Mary Jane Holland is one of 1,000 female members of the United Steelworkers gathered here to talk about how to mobilize her labor colleagues to re-elect what she calls "worker-friendly candidates" across the country.

She made the trip to Pittsburgh from West Bend, Wisconsin, where she is the president of her local USW chapter. She's been spending weekends knocking on doors, sending out voter information and urging fellow union members to vote.

"People hear negative things, and we're trying to be positive and trying to make sure they understand how these [candidates] are working for them day in and day out," Holland said.

She conceded many voters are upset because President Obama and congressional Democrats haven't turned a bad economy around yet, but she said they need to be patient.

Are we going to achieve everything in 18 months? No we're not going to. We know it is a slow process, just like women coming up in the union."

Tonya DeVore-Foreman is from Michigan, which has a 13.1 percent unemployment rate, the second-highest in the country. She said the sluggish economy is a reason to stick with candidates who back labor -- usually Democrats, she notes -- not reject them.

"We're losing our manufacturing base every day. The manufacturing base decreases, the loss of jobs continues to grow. And we feel it is very important to get labor-friendly, working-family-friendly candidates in office."

These are the women House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was trying to energize Monday when she visited the "Women of Steel" conference. She entered the convention ballroom to loud cheering and Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" blaring over the speakers. Women stood up, waving signs that said, "Best Speaker Ever."

It was a warm reception for a politician who has become a liability for many Democrats this election season. According to a recent CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll, more than half of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Pelosi. She has kept a low profile on the campaign trail this year, traveling the country fundraising, rather than doing public appearances with Democratic candidates.

Speaking to this friendly audience in Pittsburgh, Pelosi was able to do something many Democrats have avoided this cycle -- touting legislative victories on health care reform and Wall Street regulation and accusing Republicans of wanting to return to the Bush era.

"It's a choice, as the president said, of moving America forward or going back to the failed policies. I've said it before, I'll say it again: We're not going back and we're not going back and we're going to win because the Women of Steel, the Women of Steel are going to help us lead the way in our country to that great victory," Pelosi said.

The problem for Democrats is that the enthusiasm in this room is not necessarily shared by other Democratic voters.

A recent CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll shows women, who tend to support Democratic candidates over Republicans, are much less inspired to head to the polls than their male counterparts, who generally favor GOP candidates.

Thirty-eight percent of likely male voters said they were "extremely enthusiastic" about voting in the midterm elections, compared with just 23 percent of women who rated themselves the same way.

But DeVore-Foreman pushes back at polls showing voters who rallied for Obama in 2008 might be less enthusiastic now, saying union members will succeed in firing up those Americans.

"Polls talk about likely voters. One of the things we're gonna do is we're gonna bring people who weren't reached in those polls, and get them to vote. Because when working people vote, our voice is heard," DeVore-Foreman said.

She's reaching out to fellow union members, sending postcards to workers in other states with competitive races, reminding them how important these elections will be to pushing the labor agenda through Congress.

While these women know people are disheartened by the stalled economy, they remain confident that their efforts will turn the tide for Democrats on Election Day.

"People have been sitting back, waiting and looking looking and investigating," Holland said. "And when the election comes around, I think you'll see it especially in the union vote. I think they're gonna come out and vote, and it's gonna make the difference.

Obama rules out extending Bush-era cuts while pledging tax relief for middle class

President Barack Obama Wednesday warned the United States could not afford the 700-billion-dollar bill to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, picking a populist fight with Republicans.

Obama staked out a political position which will reverberate through the campaign ahead of mid-term elections in November in which his Democrats fear heavy losses.

"We are ready for this week, to give tax cuts to every American making 250,000 dollars or less," Obama said in a major economic speech in Cleveland, Ohio.

"For any income over this amount, the tax rates would go up to what they were under President (Bill) Clinton.

"This is not to punish folks who are better off -- it's because we can't afford the 700-billion-dollar price tag."

Republicans want all the tax cuts passed by ex-president George W. Bush to be renewed before the expire at the end of his year.

They argue that Obama will slow growth by hiking taxes on the rich, and deter some small business owners from creating jobs.

"Americans want jobs, not more government, more debt and more taxes," said Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.

"Let’s start today with a declarative statement against tax hikes on the small businesses that are critical to expand and create jobs."

Gypsy leader compares Sarkozy to Romania's pro-Nazi wartime leader

A Romanian Gypsy leader on Wednesday compared French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Romania’s pro-Nazi wartime leader, following the expulsion of hundreds of Gypsies from France.

Speaking during an annual Gypsy feast held on a hill at the foots of the Carpathian Mountains, Iulian Radulescu told the Associated Press that Gypsies - also known as Roma - are being unfairly expelled from France.
France has sent back about 1,000 Gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria in recent weeks as part of its crime fighting measures. Sarkozy has linked Roma to crime, calling the camps in which some of them live, sources of trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution.

There are between 10 million and 12 million Gypsies in the EU, most living in dire circumstances, victims of poverty, discrimination, violence, unemployment, poverty and bad housing. An estimated 1.5 million of them live in Romania, a country of 22 million, which has the largest population of Gypsies in Europe.

Both France and Romania are members of European Union, and under the rules governing the 27-member bloc its citizens can travel freely within the union, but the governments are also legally permitted to send citizens of other EU countries home if they can’t find work or support themselves.

The expulsions have been criticized from several quarters including the Roman Catholic Church and the United Nations, and even some members of Sarkozy’s government.

Dressed in a gray suit and sitting inside a white marquee tent, Radulescu said that hundreds of Gypsies are paying the price “for the crimes of the few.”

“It is not right to be expelled if you are a law-abiding citizen,” the 71-year-old Radulescu said.

Radulescu compared the expulsions to the ones carried out by Romania’s pro-Nazi dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who ruled the country during the World War II.

Antonescu deported 25,000 Gypsies from Romania to the Soviet region of Trans-Dniester in 1942. Some 11,000 Gypsies died from exposure, typhus, starvation and thirst after they were deported from Romania. A lack of wartime records makes it difficult to determine the overall number of Gypsies killed during the Holocaust, but according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, it is between 220,000 and 500,000.

“Sarkozy is doing what Antonescu did,” Radulescu said. He also urged Gypsy leaders to try and stop crime within their communities.

A French foreign ministry spokesman, Bernard Valero, dismissed the comments, saying he declined to enter into “fruitless debates.”

“We consider that it is an European problem that should be solved with an European solution,” Valero said.

The issue of expulsion will top the agenda of planned talks between French Immigration Minister Eric Besson and the Minister for European Affairs, Pierre Lelouche, who will visit Romania on Thursday, Valero said.

Romania’s President Traian Basescu sent his adviser Peter Eckstein to tell the revelers that he supports their freedom of movement within the European Union, but also urged them to send their children to school.

At the festival, Gypsies roasted pigs and chicken on open spits, while children played on merry go rounds and listened to Gypsy pop and French rap music.

Another Gypsy leader Florin Cioaba told hundreds gathered that they are being discriminated in Europe.

“There is one set of laws for European citizens and different laws for the Roma,” Cioaba said.


FRANCE 24

Three Times Square bomb suspects held by Islamabad police

AFP - Pakistan's police have arrested three suspects linked to a Pakistani-American accused in New York of the attempted car bombing of Times Square, a senior police official said Wednesday.

The three were detained in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, two weeks ago and had been interrogated for several days, police said.

"It has been proved that they had links with Faisal Shehzad (the car-bombing suspect arrested in New York) and had transferred money to him," Bani Amin, operations police chief in Islamabad, told AFP.

"Today we have lodged a formal case against them," said Amin, who named the three suspects as Shoaib Mughal, Mohammad Shahid and Hanbal Akhtar.

He said the three suspects also had close links with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leaders Hakimullah Mehsud and Qari Hussain, whose organisation has claimed responsibility for Shehzad's May 1 plot to bomb Times Square.

Mehsud is the chief of the TTP and Hussain is a militant commander of a TTP faction known as "Ustad-e-Fidaeen," which trains suicide bombers.

The TTP is based in Pakistan's tribal badlands on the Afghan border and has been blamed for some of the deadliest suicide attacks in the nuclear-armed country.

Pakistan acknowledged on July 26 that Shehzad had met the country's Taliban commander and several other people.

In June Shehzad pleaded guilty in a New York court to the Times Square car bombing attempt and warned that the United States faced similar attacks until it left Muslim lands.

Sky News broadcast a video in July, showing Shehzad and Mehsud shaking hands, smiling and hugging some time before the failed May 1 attack.

At the request of the United States Pakistan has opened an investigation into possible links between Shehzad and militant groups.

Pakistani-born Shehzad was pulled off a flight to Dubai two days after parking a car containing a bomb in Times Square.

He told a judge that he had undergone bomb-making training during a 40-day stay with the TTP in Pakistan, between December 9 and January 25.

On returning to the United States, Shehzad said, he had planned the bombing and had acted alone, telling the judge: "Nobody helped me."

By News Wires

Gainesville united in opposition to Koran-burning pastor

This dispute has bought the city and its religious communities together,” says Rev. Larry Reimer of Gainesville’s United Church. “We are coming to realise that we have much more in common with each other than we thought.”

Rev. Reimer insists the overwhelming majority of the Florida city’s population stands against the Islamophobic antics of the fringe pastor who wants to burn the Koran on Saturday’s anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Terry Jones – whose “Dove World Outreach Center” congregation musters barely 50 members – has caused international uproar after announcing plans to burn the Muslim holy text as a “stand” against the spread of radical Islam.

But despite the international attention, Rev. Reimer insists that Jones, an evangelical pastor who is also a second-hand furniture salesman, remains what he has always been – a fringe figure who does not represent the feelings of the local community.

‘We tried to ignore him’

Rev. Reimer said that until the story exploded the town’s various religious groups had hoped it was enough simply to ignore the bellicose Pastor Jones, who campaigned unsuccessfully against the election of an openly gay mayor last year.

“It’s a quirk of the modern media that his message has gone around the world,” he told FRANCE 24. “We tried to ignore him but he has just got so much attention.”

Rev. Reimer said some 25 clergy from the city’s Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities have come together for a series of inter-faith services and events ahead of Saturday’s 9/11 anniversary. These have included visits to the mosque, where his group will be attending Friday prays.

On Saturday, hundreds of people are expected to attend a candlelit vigil organised by the group in downtown Gainesville.

The national voice

The people of Gainesville are not the only ones to have expressed their dismay at the pastor's plans. Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the US National Council of Churches, rejected the idea that the majority of Americans were fearful of the presence of the Islamic faith in the country.

“It’s wrong to assume there is a wave of Islamophobia sweeping across the United States,” he told FRANCE 24. “And we feel it is important that the government speaks out and expresses the moral disgust felt by the majority of the population [at Pastor Jones’s planned burning of the Koran].

“We believe religious tolerance can be strengthened through this tragedy in Florida.”