Purported bin Laden message warns Bush
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 30 (UPI) -- An audio message purporting to be from Osama bin Laden warned U.S. President George Bush not to be "too happy" over the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"Our flag hasn't fallen, thanks be to God," the voice says. "It has passed from one lion to another lion in Islam."
The speaker demands that the body of al-Zarqawi be returned to his family in Jordan.
Al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq who masterminded hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, was killed June 7 in an U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad.
The message in Arabic, goes on to say, "We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, until we drain your money and kill your men and send you home defeated, God willing, as we defeated you before, thanks to God, in Somalia."
Floodwalls, levees do well in Pa., .N.Y.
NEW HOPE, Pa., June 30 (UPI) -- Flood walls and levees have held their own in northeast Pennsylvania and New York against flooding that killed at least 14 people in four states.
"It appears that we have dodged a bullet," Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell told CNN.
Thankful it wasn't worse, officials expected millions of dollars in damage and a massive cleanup.
High waters also struck other areas, including Maryland, the District of Columbia, New Jersey and Virginia.
The swollen Delaware River in Pennsylvania crested Thursday and the river level was falling on the Susquehanna.
An evacuation order covering about 200,000 people was lifted for Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Some 6,200 people were reported evacuated along the Delaware River in New Jersey and 15,000 in Binghamton, N.Y.
House condemns bank data disclosure
WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to condemn recent news reports about a classified government program to monitor banking records.
The House approved a resolution Thursday urging the media to cooperate in keeping such programs secret, The New York Times reported.
The resolution passed 227-183, in a largely party-line vote, the newspaper said, after days of public criticism by President George W. Bush and other Republican officials -- targeted at The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, which published details about the program.
During a debate on the House floor Thursday, Republicans said the news accounts jeopardized the program, while Democrats accused Republicans of politicizing the issue and trying to intimidate the press.
"The recent front-page story in the aforementioned New York Times cut the legs out from under this program," said the resolution's author, Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio. "Now the terrorists will be driven further underground."
"We are here today because there hasn't been enough red meat thrown at the Republican base just before the Fourth of July recess," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
Bush called the newspaper reports "disgraceful" and a "great harm" to national security.
Israel revokes residency of Hamas officer
JERUSALEM, June 30 (UPI) -- Israel revoked the permanent resident status of four Hamas parliamentarians Friday, including the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem Affairs.
The minister, Khaled Abu Arafa, and the three other members of parliament were seized in a massive Israeli Defense Forces raid Thursday, the Jerusalem Post said. They had been warned of the action unless they resigned from Hamas within 30 days.
Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On announced the decision which in effect makes Arafa, Muhammad Abu Tir, Ahmed Abu Atoun and Mahmoud Totach foreigners in Israel. The prime minister, he said, "has no intention of playing games with Hamas."
As a result, they will forfeit National Insurance Institute benefits and access to Israel's health and education services and will need visas to stay legally in the country.
The arrested Hamas members reportedly began a hunger strike, ynet.news.com said.
Alleged U.S.-Canadian drug gang busted
BELLINGHAM, Wash., June 30 (UPI) -- A joint U.S.-Canadian investigation has grounded a group accused of using helicopters and planes to ferry drugs from British Columbia across the border.
The two-year effort was nicknamed Operation Frozen Timber. On Thursday, agencies from the two countries announced the arrest of 46 people and the seizure of four tons of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, aircraft and $1.5 million in cash, the Seattle Times reported.
Investigators believe the group took to the air because the crackdown on the northern border after the terrorist attacks of 2001 made trucking drugs into the United States far more difficult.
"We've had air smuggling on the southern border for years, but it's new to us on the northern border, in these types of numbers," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle.
Daryl Desjardins, owner of The Breakwater, a popular restaurant on Harrison Lake in British Columbia, allegedly served as a middleman, helping several organized crime groups from outlaw motorcycle gangs to immigrant gangs from Southeast Asia, the Vancouver Sun reported. He was arrested in May.
