NEW YORK — Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face an international criminal investigation for the ‘shame of a needless war’ in Iraq.
Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of ‘grotesque distortion’ in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei’s and other arms inspectors inside the country.
The Iraq war taught him that ‘deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators,’ ElBaradei writes in ‘The Age of Deception,’ being published Tuesday by Henry Holt and Co.
Tornado damages St. Louis airport
ST. LOUIS — An apparent tornado tore through a section of St. Louis’ Lambert Field late Friday, lifting the roof off a concourse, injuring several people and forcing the airport to close.
Mayor Francis Slay said the airport would be shut down “indefinitely.”
Four people were hospitalized with minor injuries after glass shattered as the storm hit, airport spokesman Jeff Lea said. An unspecified number of other people were treated at the scene for cuts blamed on flying glass.
Passengers from at least two planes were stranded briefly on the runway. An Air National Guard facility at the airport was reportedly damaged.
A fierce line of storms struck central and eastern Missouri late Friday. Unconfirmed tornadoes were reported in several counties in the St. Louis area, and thousands of utility customers lost power.
Japan to spend $49B to rebuild
TOKYO — The Japanese government earmarked almost $50 billion in emergency spending Friday for the first step in the country’s largest reconstruction effort since World War II.
The $48.5 billion budget is likely to be followed by more spending, as Japan takes on the gargantuan task of rebuilding the section of its Pacific coastline ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Parliament is expected to pass the budget next week.
At least 14,133 people have been found dead, an additional 13,346 remain missing and more than 130,000 still live in evacuation centers. Government estimates put the total damage from the quake and tsunami at $300 billion.
Thailand-Cambodia fighting continues
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Fighting between troops from Cambodia and Thailand broke out for a second day today, a day after at least six soldiers were killed and thousands of civilians were forced to evacuate the battle zone.
Wachira Kitphan, an official in Thailand’s Phanom Dong Rak district, said both sides engaged in an artillery duel.
The fighting springs from decades-old competing claims over small swaths of land along the border, with nationalistic politics fueling tensions. Clashes have erupted several times since 2008, when Cambodia’s 11th century Preah Vihear temple on the border was given U.N. World Heritage status over Thai objections.
Cambodian officials said that in addition to skirmishes Friday near the ancient temples of Ta Krabey and Ta Moan and a third point, artillery fell on villages and other areas as far as 13 miles inside its territory.
Each side blamed the other for the resumption of fighting.
Not guilty plea in webcam case
TORONTO — The man accused of killing a Chinese student, attacked in her apartment as her boyfriend watched helplessly through a webcam, will “absolutely” plead not guilty, his lawyer said Friday.
“We want to put together a strong defense, and I anticipate that on behalf of my client,” said Steven Krys, who is representing 29-year-old Brian Dickson.
The body of York University student Liu Qian, 23, of Beijing was found April 15 in her Toronto apartment a few hours after her boyfriend witnessed what appeared to be the beginning of the attack before the webcam was shut off.
Ethics panel OK with Ensign choice
LAS VEGAS — The Senate Ethics Committee said scandal-scarred Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign made the right decision to turn in a letter of resignation Friday as he faced an unrelenting, but as yet unfinished, two-year probe of his conduct.
The panel’s chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the vice chairman, Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, issued a terse statement saying the committee had spent 22 months investigating “and will complete its work in a timely fashion.”
“Senator Ensign has made the appropriate decision,” the statement said.
The committee cannot take disciplinary action against Ensign once he is no longer a senator, and, with the Senate in recess, it is unlikely that the committee will be able to do so before Ensign’s May 3 resignation.
Many in U.S. not interested in royals
How fascinated are Americans with Prince William’s and Kate Middleton’s nuptials next week? According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, not very. Only 6 percent have been following news about the wedding very closely, and an additional 22 percent are following it somewhat closely.
Women are paying much more attention to the wedding than are men, particularly older women. A third of women under 40 are following news of the wedding at least somewhat closely, as are more than 4 in 10 women who are 40 or older. In comparison, half of men are not following news of the wedding at all.
Women also are more apt to say they expect to watch the broadcast of the royal wedding next week. Older women are even more likely to schedule an early morning wake-up call for Friday.
Judges bring back Blackwater case
WASHINGTON — An appeals court on Friday resurrected the case against four Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a 2007 shooting in a Baghdad public square that killed 17 Iraqi citizens.
A federal trial judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, threw out the case on New Year’s Eve 2009 after he found the Justice Department mishandled evidence and violated the guards’ constitutional rights.
But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Friday that Urbina wrongly interpreted the law. It ordered that he reconsider whether there was any tainted evidence against four of the five defendants — former Marines Evan Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; Donald Ball of West Valley City, Utah; and Dustin Heard of Knoxville, Tenn.; and Army veteran Paul Slough from Keller, Texas.
The Justice Department has dismissed charges against the fifth defendant, Nick Slatten, a former U.S. Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn.
High-fat diet may help repair kidney
LOS ANGELES — A high-fat “ketogenic” diet may reverse the kidney damage caused by diabetes, a study published online Wednesday by the journal PLoS One reports.
Past research has shown that lowering blood sugar through diet can prevent kidney failure but not reverse it in patients with diabetes. Lead author Charles Mobbs, a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, said that this study — in which mice were fed a high-fat diet of 5 percent carbohydrate, 8 percent protein and a whopping 87 percent fat — was the first to show that dietary intervention alone is enough to reverse kidney failure caused by diabetes.
— Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, New York Times
