Articles by Super User

WASHINGTON – The senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee says that if ethnic and religious factions in Iraq fail to reach a genuine political settlement before the end of the year, the United States should put withdrawal on its agenda.

The comments by Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, suggest a shift in the position of mainstream Democrats. Most members of the party’s congressional delegation have so far accused Pres. Bush and his team of failing to come up with a viable strategy to win the war, but have stopped short of calling for a pullout timetable. read more

LONDON – British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) has owned Westinghouse since 1999. But now three heavyweight Japanese and South Korean companies are bidding to take it over amid U.S. concerns that foreign ownership of a major nuclear energy company could threaten national security. As a result, pressure is mounting on the British government, which owns BNFL, to sell the company to a U.S. business, according to the U.K.‘s Independent newspaper.

Among the contenders are Japan‘s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a long-time business partner of Westinghouse, and Toshiba, as well South Korea‘s Doosan Heavy Industries. But the most likely winner is apt to be General Electric, which has teamed up with the New York-based hedge fund Cerberus and Louisiana-based Shaw. read more

GENEVA – A growing number of nations are calling for UN oversight of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, arguing that no single country should be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global economy. To the surprise of the United States, even European Union negotiators have proposed “stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet,” as the International Herald Tribune put it.

The European decision to back the rest of the world in demanding the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet caught the U.S. negotiating team off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century. read more

SAKHALIN, Russia – Gazprom, the world’s largest gas firm, is eager to participate in the construction of a $7.4 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline that would bring gas from the gigantic South Pars fields in Iran to the two South Asian countries, the Press Trust of India reports.

The Russian energy giant has previously held talks with authorities in Iran and India to become involved in a consortium, to include also Indian Oil Corp and Gail (India) Ltd. that would lay the 2,000-mile pipeline. read more

LONDON – Amid renewed violence in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur, the UN has warned of possible war crimes prosecutions. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for an end to attacks, and for those responsible to be tried. The UN Security Council has ruled that the International Criminal Court can prosecute human rights violations in Darfur.

In one recent incident, pro-government Arab militias at a refugee camp reportedly killed 34 people. According to the BBC, the attackers are believed to be Janjaweed Arab militiamen, described as criminals by the Sudanese government. The government called it the first direct assault on a refugee camp since the conflict began more than two years ago. read more

WASHINGTON – As huge crowds assembled in the U.S. capital for anti-war protests in late September, biohazard sensors were picking up the presence of small amounts of potentially dangerous bacteria. According to the Washington Post, traces of the bacteria tularemia were found between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, but health officials claimed the levels were too low to be a threat.

"We pretty much feel there is no public health threat here," said Von Roebuck, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We just wanted to alert the medical community to watch out for cases." read more