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Richardson says Obama will unite country

PORTLAND, Ore., March 21 (UPI) -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson Friday endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in his bid to be the Democratic presidential nominee, calling him an thoughtful leader.

"Your candidacy is a one-in-a lifetime opportunity for our nation and you are a once-in-a-lifetime leader," Richardson, who left the Democratic nomination race in January, said during a Portland, Ore., rally.

Obama's speech on race "started a discussion in this country that is long overdue," Richardson said, adding he was "particularly touched" as a Hispanic-American.

"(You) will be a president who will bring this nation together and restore America's global leadership," he said as chants of "Yes we can" filled the auditorium. "I am very proud to endorse your candidacy for president."

Richardson, a member of the Bill Clinton administration, said Democrats were "blessed to have two great American leaders" in Obama, D-Ill., and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Expressing affection for the Clintons, Richardson said, "It's time however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and prepare for the tough fight" against U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Clinton's campaign said she and Obama "have many great endorsers" but "voters, not the endorsers, will decide the election."

Clinton's, McCain's passport data accessed

WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department Friday confirmed that passport files for Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton were breached, along with files of Barack Obama.

Sean McCormack, State Department spokesman, said the department searched to see whether other unauthorized accesses of the other remaining presidential candidates "and our search has turned up two."

"All three ... passports were breached," he said, explaining that a monitoring system in place for high-profile passport applicants flagged the unauthorized access.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has spoken with Obama , D-Ill., and Clinton, D-N.Y., and would reach out to McCain, R-Ariz., McCormack said.

He said a State Department employee accessed Clinton's file during a 2007 training session. Two contract workers were dismissed for looking into Obama's files. A third contract worker accessed without authorization Obama's and McCain's files.

"We are reviewing our options with respect to that individual's employment," he said.

He said department's inspector general and the Justice Department were working together.

He didn't say the investigation was a joint operation, characterizing it as a "hedge against any potential further action that might be required" beyond the inspector general's probe.

Once the investigation is completed, the results will be turned over to all congressional oversight committees, McCormack said.

He said the department knows of "a handful" of similar cases each year.

"But one's too many," he said.

Rice apologizes to Obama for passport hack

WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has apologized to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for three unauthorized looks at his passport files.

"I told him that I was sorry and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file," Rice said before her meeting with Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim in Washington.

The department's inspector general is conducting an investigation, she said.

Two State Department contract employees lost their jobs and a third was disciplined for looking up Obama's passport information without authorization. A monitoring system was tripped when Obama's records were accessed, most recently March 14.

"It appears on the first examination that indeed the system worked, in that there is a flag that goes up if there's any unauthorized look into files of that kind," Rice said.

However, senior management should have been notified and wasn't "to my knowledge," she said.

"None of us wants to have a circumstance in which any American's passport file is looked at in an unauthorized way," she said.

Obama speeches shift focus away from race

CHARLESTON, W.Va., March 21 (UPI) -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has started moving his campaign away from race, which caused a slip in recent polls, and onto other issues.

Polls indicate controversial racial remarks by Obama's one-time minister may have led to a lost in the popular polls, The New York Times reported Friday.

A Gallup Poll showed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., leadingObama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination for the first time since early February. Obama leads Clinton in the number of pledged delegates to the Denver convention in August.

In the Gallup survey of 1,209 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters taken before Obama gave his speech Tuesday, 49 percent favored Clinton while 42 percent favored Obama. The poll, taken from March 14-18, has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.

Obama's campaign has been tracking reaction to the Philadelphia speech to help determine whether he can move to other issues, such as the economic costs of the war in Iraq.

"When you're spending over $50 to fill up your car," Obama said at a rally in Charleston, W.Va., "you're paying a price for this war. When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you're paying a price for this war."

U.N. requests additional $1.1 billion

WASHINGTON, March 21 (UPI) -- The United Nations has requested almost $1.1 billion in extra financing for the upcoming two years, a 25 percent increase in U.N. spending.

Private U.N. documents reveal that the request marks the United Nation's most expensive budget in history, The Washington Post reported Friday.

A large amount of the inflated spending reportedly is rooted in U.S. President George Bush's calls for the United Nations to be more globally active. Peacekeeping operations in Sudan and other places, along with U.N. contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost billions, the report said.

During Bush's time in office the United Nation's yearly spending has increased more than 50 percent, to about $2.5 billion, the Post reported. Peacekeeping spending reportedly is three times what was before Bush came into office, with almost 110,000 diplomats in 20 operations overseas, a cost this year of some $7 billion.

The U.S. share is 22 percent of the U.N. administrative budget and 27 percent of funds needed for peacekeeping, the Post said.

Greece passes contentious pension reform

ATHENS, Greece, March 21 (UPI) -- The Greek Parliament passed a conservative pension reform bill after weeks of strikes that crippled the country, national media reported.

The 300-seat body voted 151 in favor, with 136 abstentions and 13 opposed Thursday as some 100,000 protesters clashed with police in Athens, the Kathimerini news agency reported.

The bill shepherded by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis merges more than 150 pension investment funds into about 13. Opposition members won a concession amendment that allows anyone completing 37 years of work to retire on a full pension, the report said.

For several weeks, rotating strikes by various unions threw living and commerce into turmoil, from a stock exchange shutdown to port and rail closures and no garbage collection.

The news agency said garbage workers were to resume collections after a 16-day strike, although it was expected to take a week to catch up.