Remains spotted at Afghan crash site
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- NATO-led troops have found human remains, but no survivors, at the site of an Afghan airliner crash in the mountains near Kabul last week.
If all 104 people aboard the Kam Air Boeing 737 are confirmed dead, it would be Afghanistan's worst air disaster ever, reported the BBC Monday.
Five Slovenian mountain troops, dropped by helicopter into the crash site, confirmed the remains, but said it was impossible to determine how many bodies were involved.
Bad weather has hampered 100 Afghan soldiers who have climbed close to the crash site.
The plane, en route from Herat to Kabul, lost radio contact with air traffic controllers at Kabul airport Thursday, while flying in a heavy snowstorm.
U.N. encourages help for Palestinians
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the global community must encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to ease the Palestinian people's economic plight.
He told the 2005 session of the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People meeting Monday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York the Israelis and Palestinians must match their words with action.
"I urge all member states to help the parties meet their commitments and strengthen their cooperation, so that the opportunity for progress toward peace now at hand is firmly grasped," Annan said.
The secretary-general cited such recent positive developments as the election of new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who opposes violence and is committed to the so-call road map peace plan.
Annan also cited the recent restoration of security coordination between the two sides, and Tuesday's summit in Egypt between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas.
The road map is the plan drawn up by the diplomatic Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States. It calls for parallel and reciprocal steps by both sides, leading to two states living in peace by the end of this year.
Stevens clips McCain's wings on commerce
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has clipped the wings of the panel's former chairman as part of a reorganization plan.
Stevens, who took over for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after the former GOP presidential candidate was forced by term limits to give up the gavel, at the same time elevated the status of the committee's ranking Democrat, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Television Week said Monday.
Inouye was named the committee's co-chairman by Stevens which, though it is not an official designation, reflects the two men's longtime friendship as well as Stevens' desire to run the committee in a bi-partisan manner.
Under the reorganization plan Stevens put forward, the communications subcommittee that McCain had hoped to lead is abolished, with media industry issues being handled at the full committee level under the leadership of Stevens and Inouye. The reorganization dramatically reduces McCain's influence over legislation pertaining to the multi-billion dollar U.S. media industry.
Hill Democrats pan Bush's budget plan
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Congressional Democrats responded harshly to U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed Fiscal Year 2006 budget, which the White House released Monday.
Sen. Carl Levin. D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the spending document for its failure to deal honestly with the cost of current U.S. international commitments.
The Bush budget, Levin said, "hides the true size of the deficit because it does not include the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Saying the budget "reflects the wrong priorities for America," Levin said the proposed budget would, if enacted by the Republican congressional majority, "deepen the deficit ditch by making tax cuts, which go largely to the wealthiest Americans, permanent," and would make the fiscal morass even worse by adding personal retirement accounts to Social Security.
"At the same time," Levin argued, the budget plan "proposes cuts in many programs that affect America's families and communities, like education, environmental protection, funding for highways and sewers, small business loans, and programs important for manufacturing states like Michigan like the Advanced Technology Partnership Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program."
