World Breaking News

Japan pledges $5bln for Afghanistan over five years

2009-11-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

Media reports said the government also pledged two billion dollars in assistance for neighbouring Pakistan in a decision that came days before US President Barack Obama visits Tokyo on Friday and Saturday.

‘The government decided to extend five billion dollars in assistance to Afghanistan over the next five years,’ said a Jiji Press news agency report that was confirmed by a foreign ministry official.

The cabinet of centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama early Tuesday agreed the plan for the aid, likely to be disbursed through international organisations such as the UN Development Programme.

The main pillar is assistance, such as job training, to help former Taliban soldiers return to society, and the redevelopment of the capital city of Kabul, said Jiji and other media reports.

Since coming to power in September, Japan’s government has said it will end a naval refuelling mission that has supported the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, but has promised to step up aid instead.

Jiji said Hatoyama will explain the content of the assistance package at a summit with Obama on Friday.

Nobel-winning Russian physicist professor Vitaly Ginzburg dies at 93

2009-11-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

Ginzburg died late Sunday of cardiac arrest, the Russian Academy of Sciences said Monday.

Ginsburg won the 2003 Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists for their contribution to theories on superconductivity, the ability of some materials to conduct electricity without resistance.

In the early 1950s, Ginzburg worked on the government project that developed the Soviet hydrogen bomb, for which he won the Stalin prize and was showered with benefits and accolades.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Ginzburg authored several groundbreaking studies in various fields, such as quantum theory, astrophysics, radio-astronomy and diffusion of cosmic radiation in the Earth's atmosphere, that were of 'Nobel Prize caliber,' said Gennady Mesyats, the director of the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow, where Ginzburg worked.

'I can hardly list all the fields of physics to which he contributed ,' Mesyats said in televised comments Monday.

Ginzburg was born into a Jewish family in 1916, a year before the Bolshevik Revolution, and grew up in times of economic degradation and hunger, according to his autobiography written for the Nobel Prize Committee.

His career began in the late 1930s, a time of Stalinist purges and pervasive anti-Semitism. Ginzburg was blacklisted and faced persecution, but 'was saved by the hydrogen bomb,' he wrote in the autobiography.

He became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1953. He also was a longtime editor of a leading scientific magazine on theoretical physics and educated hundreds of disciples.

A vehement atheist, Ginzburg strongly opposed the growing role of the Russian Orthodox Church in state affairs after the 1991 Soviet collapse, protesting its attempts to have a say in political and secular matters and introduce religious lessons in schools.

'By teaching religion in schools, these Orthodox scoundrels want to lure away children's souls,' he told a Russian newspaper in 2007.

Several Orthodox Christian groups threatened to sue him for 'offending millions of Russian Christians.'

After receiving the Nobel prize, Ginzburg said he had given up hope of winning it after having been nominated regularly for the past 30 years.

'I had long ago forgotten to think about this,' he said. Despite his age, Ginzburg remained active as a scientist and public figure.

He also was a staunch believer in the global triumph of democracy and 'secular humanism' to help overcome such threats as terrorism, poverty and AIDS.

'I am still inclined to believe in the brilliant future of mankind,' he said in the autobiography.

Ginzburg will be buried this week in the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow, the resting place of many of Russia's most famous political, scientific and cultural figures.

New Zealand clinch series despite Aamir, Ajmal heroics

2009-11-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

ABU DHABI: New Zealand survived Mohammad Aamir's explosive half-century to clinch the series against Pakistan with a narrow seven-run victory in the third one-day international here on Monday.

Aamir, 17, hit an unbeaten 73 for his maiden half-century —the highest score by a number ten batsman in a one-day international —to bring Pakistan, chasing 212, close to an unexpected victory after they were 101-9.

Pakistan were bowled out for 204, giving New Zealand a sensational 2-1 victory in the three-match series. Pakistan won the first match by 138 runs on Tuesday before New Zealand levelled the series with a 64-run win on Friday.

Aamir and Ajmal added a Pakistan record of 103 for tenth wicket but, needing eight off the last over bowled by Jacob Oram, Ajmal holed out for a career-best 33 to end a sensational match.

The previous highest one-day score for a number ten batsman was 56 not out, made by Zimbabwe's Douglas Marillier against India at New Delhi in 2002.

When Ajmal joined Aamir Pakistan needed a mammoth-looking 112 runs in 16.5 overs, but Aamir set the tempo for an unexpected win by hitting Daniel Vettori for three sixes in one over.

Slowly and gradually, he and Ajmal approached the target, beating the previous tenth wicket partnership record by Pakistan in all one-day of 72 by Abdul Razzaq and Waqar Younis against South Africa at Durban in 1998.

Aamir, who hit seven boundaries and three sixes during his 81-ball knock, improved on his previous highest score of 24 made against Sri Lanka earlier this year.

In the end New Zealand kept their nerves and did not spoil the early good work by bowlers which saw Pakistan slump from 47- to 101-9.

Earlier, off-spinner Ajmal took a career-best 4-33 to raise hopes of a Pakistan win but Salman Butt (25), Khalid Latif (19), Umer Akmal (12) and Shoaib Malik (11) threw away wickets.

Pakistan got off to a solid 47-run start before Vettori triggered a slump, trapping Latif leg-before in the ninth over. That started the slump.

Captain Younus Khan continued his wretched form, edging Shane Bond to slips after making just three. In the previous over, Younus misjudged a single which resulted in Butt's run out.

Umer Akmal (12), Malik (11), Afridi (five) and Akmal (four) played reckless shots as Pakistan slumped badly.

Earlier Brendon McCullum, who scored a brilliant hundred on Friday, stood out once again with an aggressive 78-ball 76 which included three sixes and six boundaries.

New Zealand were well on course for a big score but once McCullum got out, caught and bowled by Shoaib Malik, Pakistani spinners led by Ajmal sparked a middle-order collapse to take last seven wickets for 47 runs.

New Zealand had raced to 72 by the 12th over, with McCullum reaching his fifty off just 47 balls.

It was paceman Umar Gul who provided the breakthrough, removing opener Aaron Redmond caught off Aamir for 21. This was Gul's 100th wicket in 67 one-day internationals.

Ajmal then came into his own, removing Martin Guptill (eight), Ross Taylor (44), Daniel Vettori (15) and Jacob Oram (two) to improve on his best one-day figures of 2-16 against the West Indies at Johannesburg in September this year.

Ross Taylor, who failed to score in the first two matches, helped McCullum add 50 for the third wicket before Ajmal trapped him leg-before.

Both teams now move to Dubai where they play two Twenty20 matches on November 12 and 13.

Germany celebrates fall of Berlin Wall

2009-11-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

With prayers, music and pomp, Germany on Monday, 9 Nov, 2009 remembered the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country's reunification.

Merkel asks US to cast aside unilateralism

2009-11-09T19:31:00.000-08:00

BERLIN: The United States should cede some of its powers to international organisations to create a ‘world order’, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday in an unusually sharp criticism of Washington before she led world leaders through the Brandenburg Gate — the climax of ceremonies marking 20 years since the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989.

‘We Europeans are used to this.... We have voluntarily given up many of our powers to Brussels and to the European Union,’ said the German chancellor.

‘But our American partners find it much more difficult to hand over powers to the International Monetary Fund or to any other international organisation,’ she said.

Within the EU, Germany has become used to accepting the will of the majority, even if it does not agree, but this has not yet lodged itself in the American psyche, she added.

‘What we need today is a much more multi-polar vision than that to which we have become accustomed,’ the chancellor said.’ This world will only be a peaceful and good world if we have more of a world order and more multilateral cooperation,’ she said.

On a recent trip to Washington, Angela Merkel received one of her greatest honours and biggest embarrassments in the space of a few hours.

She was the first German leader to address a joint session of Congress but, soon afterwards, she learned of an abrupt about-turn by car maker General Motors which was supposed to sell Germany’s Opel to her preferred bidder but decided to keep it instead.

Washington said the White House had played no part in the decision, but the German press described it as a bitter slap in the face for the chancellor.

Fall remembered

Ms Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, marched through the historic Brandenburg Gate with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and representatives from across the European Union.

The leaders joined more than 100,000 revellers who thronged the monument despite a steady cold drizzle.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and ex-Polish president Lech Walesa also appeared at the landmark, which now stands as the symbol of German unity.

‘It is not only a day of celebration for Germans,’ Ms Merkel said of the anniversary. ‘It is a day of celebration for the whole of Europe.’

In a surprise video address beamed into the ceremonies, US President Barack Obama said he still took inspiration from the courage of East Germans who stood up against their oppressive regime.

‘Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from (the east German state) Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent,’ he said.

‘But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sounded a sour note, saying the end of the Cold War did not justify any nation’s global dominance, in a clear swipe at the United States.

‘The transition to a new multipolar world is today very important for most countries, for all the countries in Europe and the world,’ he said.

Medvedev said Russia had often felt on the back foot since the Wall fell, despite assurances at the time that NATO would not expand eastward, as it since has.

‘We were hoping the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would be accompanied by a different degree of Russia’s integration into common European space,’ he added.

‘What have we received as a result? Nato is still a bloc whose rockets are targeting the Russian territory.’

British prime Minister Gordon Brown called the unity of Berlin, Germany and Europe ‘majestic’ achievements.

The Wall ‘was swept away by the greatest force of all -- the unbreakable spirit of men and women who dared to dream in the darkness,’ he said.

French President Nikolas Sarkozy said the global community still needed to live up to the promise of that euphoric night.

‘The fall of the Berlin Wall is an appeal, an appeal to all to vanquish oppression, to knock down the walls that throughout the world still divide towns, territories, peoples,’ he said.

Crowds surged to hear Berlin’s renowned State Opera orchestra play strains of Beethoven and Wagner and cheered the symbolic toppling of 1,000 giant styrofoam dominoes along two kilometres of the Wall’s former course, where border guards once had shoot-to-kill orders.

At least 136 people who tried to cross it were killed during the 28 years it stood. The Wall was raised in Aug 1961by the erstwhile East German government in an attempt to stop immigration to the West.

Following weeks of protests against the regime, East German authorities suddenly allowed people to travel to the West on the now epochal night of Nov 9, 1989.

After almost three decades as prisoners in their own country, stunned East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans on the other side.

Easterner Christel Schneider, now a 62-year-old bank employee, said the mood that night was electrifying.

‘I crossed the border into the West -- it was madness,’ she said, still breathless from the memories. ‘There were so many people that we were driving at a snail’s pace.’

US, Pakistan negotiate deal on nuke security

2009-11-08T02:39:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON: The United States has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine.

The journalist wrote that during meetings with current and former officials in Washington and Islamabad, he was told that the agreements would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis.

At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities, the report says.

The principal fear was that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead, Hersh notes.

The Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads and their triggers to be stored separately from each other, and from their delivery devices.

The arrangement serves as a safeguard in case of a quickly escalating confrontation with India but also makes the weapons vulnerable during shipment and reassembly, the report points out.

‘We give comfort to each other, and the comfort level is good, because everybody respects everybody’s integrity,’ Hersh quoted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as telling him in an interview about the security relationship with Washington.

‘Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban,’ Zardari went on to say. ‘A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan. It’s a fear being spread by the few who seek to scare the many.’

Meanwhile, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that his government had given US State Department non-proliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures, the report said.

Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question

2009-11-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

LONDON — The questions before the judges in Courtroom No. 1 of Britain’s Supreme Court were as ancient and as complex as Judaism itself.

Who is a Jew? And who gets to decide?

On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain’s community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another.

“This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. “It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.”

The case began when a 12-year-old boy, an observant Jew whose father is Jewish and whose mother is a Jewish convert, applied to the school, JFS. Founded in 1732 as the Jews’ Free School, it is a centerpiece of North London’s Jewish community. It has around 1,900 students, but it gets far more applicants than it accepts.

Britain has nearly 7,000 publicly financed religious schools, representing Judaism as well as the Church of England, Catholicism and Islam, among others. Under a 2006 law, the schools can in busy years give preference to applicants within their own faiths, using criteria laid down by a designated religious authority.

By many standards, the JFS applicant, identified in court papers as “M,” is Jewish. But not in the eyes of the school, which defines Judaism under the Orthodox definition set out by Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. Because M’s mother converted in a progressive, not an Orthodox, synagogue, the school said, she was not a Jew — nor was her son. It turned down his application.

That would have been the end of it. But M’s family sued, saying that the school had discriminated against him. They lost, but the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal this summer.

In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”

The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M’s mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”

The same reasoning would apply to a Christian school that “refused to admit a child on the ground that, albeit practicing Christians, the child’s family were of Jewish origin,” the court said.

The school appealed to the Supreme Court, which is likely to rule sometime before the end of the year.

The case’s importance was driven home by the sheer number of lawyers in the courtroom last week, representing not just M’s family and the school, but also the British government, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the United Synagogue, the British Humanist Association and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal ruling threw the school into a panicked scramble to put together a new admissions policy. It introduced a “religious practice test,” in which prospective students amass points for things like going to synagogue and doing charitable work.

Windfall Is Seen as Bank Bonuses Are Paid in Stock

2009-11-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

Bankers are likely to make unusually large gains on the stock grants and options they received after shares in their companies fell sharply during the financial meltdown.

Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House

2009-11-08T02:27:00.000-08:00

Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House voted to approve a $1.1 trillion, 10-year plan that Democrats said could be their defining social policy achievement.

Obama appeals for health care votes

2009-11-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama made a last-minute personal appeal to Democrats to pass landmark health care legislationSaturday as the House voted to advance debate on a bill to expand coverage to millions of the uninsured.

Emerging from a closed-door meeting with the president, Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted approval of the bill later in the day, adding, "We will pass health care reform."

"He came here to say, `This is what we said we would do in the campaign. Let's do it,'" Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said after the meeting.

The president later issued a public appeal from the White House Rose Garden.

"What's in our grasp right now is a chance to prevent a future where every day, 14,000 Americans continue to lose their health insurance, and every year, 18,000 Americans die because they don't have it," Obama said.

Not long after the president left the Capitol, the legislation cleared its first big hurdle on the House floor, as lawmakers voted 242-192 to approve a must-pass procedural measure setting the terms for the debate. Fifteen Democrats joined all 177 Republicans in voting to block the debate.

Obama made his trip to the Capitol complex as abortion rights lawmakers voiced anger at a last-minute concession granted to foes of the procedure, who were given a vote on their proposal for stronger restrictions on abortion coverage.

"There is a risk" that some in the Pro-Choice Caucus would vote against the legislation if the stricter curbs are adopted, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

The bill would cost $1.2 trillion over the next decade. It would provide health coverage to tens of millions of Americans who don't have it now, require most employers to offer it to their workers and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on a person's medical history.

"The status quo is unaffordable and unsustainable. Health care reform benefits all of us," said Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., as debate opened on the House floor.

House passage of the bill is crucial if Obama is to accomplish his top domestic priority and fulfill the biggest promise of his campaign last year. But the legislation still faces multiple hurdles, and a Senate vote on it might not occur until next year.

Republicans were united in their opposition to the bill.

"The American people need to understand this is about a government takeover of the whole health care system," said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga.

The most contentious issue is a new government-run insurance plan that would be offered alongside private coverage within new purchasing marketplaces, or "exchanges," where individuals and small businesses could shop for and compare options.

The abortion agreement was reached at midnight Friday after hours of intense negotiations brokered by Pelosi, D-Calif. Democratic Reps. Bart Stupak of Michigan, Brad Ellsworth of Indiana and other abortion opponents fought for and won an opportunity to insert tougher restrictions into the legislation during debate, despite fervent opposition from pro-choice liberals who are a driving force behind the overall bill.

"We wish to maintain current law, which says no public funding for abortion," Stupak said.

Federal law currently prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or situations in which the life of the mother is in danger. Left unresolved is whether individuals would be permitted to use their own funds to buy insurance coverage for the procedure in the federally backed insurance exchange envisioned under the legislation.

Stupak's amendment would deny abortion coverage to anyone who gets federal insurance subsidies or buys a policy from the government, except in cases of rape or incest or if the mother's life is in danger. People could buy separate policies covering just abortions using their own money.

DeGette called Stupak's amendment "the biggest restriction on a women's right to chose that's been considered on the floor of the House" in her 13 years in office.

The leadership's hope is that no matter how the vote on the abortion measure turns out, Democrats on both sides of the abortion divide will then unite to give the health care bill a majority over unanimous Republican opposition.

With Democrats' command of the necessary votes looking tenuous, Obama threw the weight of his administration behind the effort to round up support. Prior to his trip to the Capitol, he and top administration officials worked the phones to pressure wavering lawmakers.

Democrats hold 258 seats in the House and can afford 40 defections and still wind up with 218, a majority if all lawmakers vote.

After immigrant killed in NY, others tell of abuse

2009-11-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. – The high school buddies who trolled the streets looking for Hispanics to attack called it "beaner hopping."

"Jose, Kevin and I started popping and Jose punched him so hard he knocked him out," Anthony Harfford told police.

Harfford said he didn't do it often: "Maybe only once a week."

There had been other high-profile attacks on a growing Hispanic population on eastern Long Island before Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death a year ago Sunday on a street corner.

But it wasn't until the seven teens accused in the killing told police of the attacks — and Hispanic residents who had been long silent abouthate crimes came forward to confirm the stories — that officials began to realize what they were dealing with.

The year since the Lucero slaying has put a national spotlight on race relations here has seen the U.S. Justice Department launch a probe of hate crimes and police response to them. A national civil rights group released a study that found "a pervasive climate of fear in the Latino community" in Suffolk County.

Many victims said they had always been reluctant to contact police, fearing they would be asked about their immigration status. Just weeks after presiding at a funeral for Lucero, a preacher invited Hispanic crime victims to share their experiences. Dozens came forward.

"It was a bunch of people relieved that someone was listening," the Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter said. "They just wanted some sort of witness that their story was worth telling."

Many were unable to identify attackers, but prosecutors gleaned enough evidence to file charges in eight other attacks against the teens accused in the Lucero killing.

Not all were crime victims. One man came to the church with his telephone answering machine wrapped in plastic, Wolter said. He had received threatening phone calls from his landlord, peppered with anti-Hispanic slurs, and wanted advice on making it stop.

Wolter is hosting an interfaith service Saturday night, after a candlelight vigil organized by Lucero's family at the spot where he died.

Foster Maer, an attorney for Manhattan-based LatinoJustice, which called for the Justice Deaprtment investigation, said the Lucero killing "raised everybody's awareness of how bad it is."

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said officers don't ask victims whether they're illegal immigrants and said the probe would exonerate the department.

Dormer assigned a Hispanic officer to command a local precinct after the killing.

Lucero, 37, came to the United States when he was 21 and worked at a dry cleaner. He was walking with a friend shortly before midnight near the Patchogue train station when they were confronted by a mob of teens. His friend ran away, but Lucero was surrounded, prosecutors say.

He tried to fight back, flailing at the assailants with his belt. At some point, 18-year-old Jeffrey Conroy plunged a knife into Lucero's chest before running away, prosecutors said.

They strengthened their case against the teens this week when one pleaded guilty to conspiracy and hate crime charges and agreed to testify against the others.

Nicholas Hausch also admitted participating in other attacks on Hispanics, confessing he and his cohorts frequently used racial epithets when confronting victims. In one attack, Hausch said, they shot a BB gun at a Hispanic man.

Conroy attorney William Keahon told Newsday of Hausch, "I guarantee the jury will not believe a word that comes out of his mouth." Keahon did not return a call from The Associated Press.

Suffolk County has seen thousands of Hispanics settle there in recent years. U.S. Census figures show the number of Hispanics more than doubled from 7.1 percent of the population in 1990 to or 13.7 percent in 2008.

The Southern Poverty Law Center report titled "Climate of Fear; Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County," catalogued a litany of anti-immigrant attacks dating back a decade.

Two men are serving long prison terms for attempted murder after luring two Mexican laborers to a warehouse in 2000 with the promise of work, only to pummel them with shovels.

Last August, three young men were charged with hate crimes in the robbery and beating of an Ecuadorean man near the spot where Lucero was killed. Police said one man punched 22-year-old day labor Milton Balbuca in the face while the others kicked and punched him, yelling anti-Mexican slurs.

Margarita Espada, a playwright who emigrated from Puerto Rico, has written "What Killed Marcelo Lucero" for a local theater. The production features vignettes about the experiences of whites and Hispanics on Long Island.

"People will have the opportunity to see what happened," she explained. "It's a long-term issue because there is no trust. There's no hope."

Obdulio deLeon, a cast member who arrived from Guatemala 23 years ago, says even now, newcomers live in fear. The volunteer EMT said some are even afraid to call for a doctor when they're sick.

"They don't want to call 911," he said. "They don't want to call the ambulance or call police for anything. If they get beat up or they get picked on, they just let it be."

Muslim leader had troubling talks with suspect

2009-11-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist who authorities say went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood was so conflicted over what to tell fellow soldiers about fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan that a local Islamic leader was deeply troubled by it, the leader said Saturday.

Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said he was disturbed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's persistent questioning and recommended the mosque reject Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at the sprawling Army post.

Danquah said Hasan never expressed anger toward the Army or indicated any plans for violence, but during the second of two conversations they had over the summer, Hasan seemed almost incoherent, he said.

"But what if a person gets in and feels that it's just not right?" Danquah recalled Hasan asking him.

"I told him, `There's something wrong with you,'" Danquah told The Associated Press during an interview at Fort Hood on Saturday. "I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

Authorities accuse Hasan of firing more than 100 rounds Thursday in a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 29 others in the worst mass shooting on a military facility in the U.S. At the start of the attack, Hasan reportedly jumped up on a desk and shouted "Allahu akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" Hasan, 39, was seriously wounded by police and is being treated in a military hospital.

The military has said Hasan was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan, but family members suggested he was trying avoid serving overseas.

Hasan's relatives who live in the Palestinian territories have said they had heard from family members that Hasan felt mistreated in the Army as a Muslim.

"He told (them) that as a Muslim committed to his prayers he was discriminated against and not treated as is fitting for an officer and American," said Mohammed Malik Hasan, 24, a cousin, told the AP from his home on the outskirts of Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. "He hired a lawyer to get him a discharge."

The Army major also had previously questioned the U.S. war on terror.

A former classmate has said Hasan was a "vociferous opponent of the war" and "viewed the war against terror" as a "war against Islam." Dr. Val Finnell, who attended a master's in public health program in 2007-2008 at Uniformed Services University with Hasan, said he told classmates he was "a Muslim first and an American second."

"In retrospect, I'm not surprised he did it," Finnell said. "I had real questions about what his priorities were, what his beliefs were."

Danquah said his conversations with Hasan occurred following two religious services sometime beforeRamadan, the Islamic holy month that started in late August. He said the soldier, who transferred to Fort Hood from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in July, regularly attended services at the Killeen, Texas, mosque in his uniform.

During his talks with Hasan, Danquah, 61, said he told him that Muslims were fighting each other in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories and that American soldiers with objections to serving overseas had recourse to voice such concerns.

"As a Muslim, you come into a community and the way you integrate normally — I didn't see that kind of integration," he said. Danquah, a retired Army 1st sergeant and Gulf War veteran, did not tell the military about his conversations with Hasan.

"I didn't think it rose to that level of concern," he said, adding that he thought the military "chain of command should have picked it up" if Hasan had issues.

Most of the wounded from Thursday's attack remained hospitalized, many in intensive care. Hasan was transferred Friday to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood. Army officials late Friday gave no indication of his condition except to say he was "not able to converse."

The bodies of the victims arrived at Delaware's Dover Air Force Base on Friday night and autopsies were being formed, said Dover spokesman Air Force Maj. Carl Grusnick.

The White House said President Barack Obama would attend a memorial service Tuesday at Fort Hood. Earlier Saturday, Obama said in his radio and Internet address that the training designed to keep U.S. forces safe abroad prevented further deaths and ended the rampage at Fort Hood.

Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers Friday night at the post hospital. On Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry also visited the wounded and said the soldiers he met with were honored to serve their country.

"What I heard time after time in those hospital rooms is they're honored to be able to serve our country," Perry said during a news conference.

House Starts Debate on Health Bill

2009-11-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

President Barack Obama made a final appeal to House Democrats to vote for a health-care bill, saying "Now is the time to finish the job."

The president visited the Capitol on Saturday after the House opened debate on the sweeping legislation. Democratic leaders earlier Saturday agreed to allow a vote on an amendment from antiabortion Democrats, breaking a stalemate over abortion that was threatening the bill's prospects.

The House voted 242-192 in favor of a procedural rule that set the parameters for the final debate on the issue, which began Saturday afternoon. A voted was scheduled for Saturday evening. All Republicans and a few Democrats opposed the procedural measure.

If the House approves the bill, it would be the first time a chamber of Congress has passed legislation aimed at guaranteeing near-universal access to health care.

According to an aide, the president told the closed-door meeting of lawmakers; "It's tempting to say, 'I'm tired, it's hard, I'm getting beat up back in the district, it's just not worth it.' " But he called on them to reject that view, saying Democrats would be seen as failures if they don't pass the measure.

"I am absolutely confident that when I sign this bill in the Rose Garden, each and every one of you will be able to look back and say, 'This was my finest moment in politics,' " the president was quoted as saying.

Later, the president spoke at the White House and reiterated his support, touting endorsements by consumer and other groups.

"This is our moment to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us," Mr. Obama said. "Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard."

The $1.055 trillion bill would extend insurance coverage to 96% of nonelderly Americans, setting up exchanges where they could choose between private plans and a government-run insurance option. Funding would come in part from a new surtax on wealthy Americans. If the House passes a bill, it will still have to be reconciled with a bill still pending in the Senate.

A final vote on the health measure could come late Saturday or early Sunday morning. House Democratic leaders were still scrambling to come up with the 218 votes needed to pass the bill.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are in a "position to win today."

As the debate opened Saturday, Republicans denounced the bill as a government takeover of the health-care system. Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) noted that unemployment rate has topped 10% and accused Democrats of "misplaced priorities" with a "job-killing health-care takeover."

Abortion has divided Democrats, with antiabortion lawmakers saying they couldn't allow any federal funding of abortion under the new health-insurance exchanges the bill would establish.

Rep. Bart Stupak, an antiabortion Democrat from Michigan, explained his amendment before the House Rules Committee just after midnight Saturday. He said it provides that federal subsidies cannot be used to purchase a health plan including coverage for abortions other than in cases of rape or incest.