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Bush presses for renewal of aid to Africa

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush is urging Congress to act on an aid package to Africa stalled by a handful of Senate Republicans.

The White House considers aid to Africa, including a global HIV/AIDS initiative, a signature piece of Bush's foreign policy, The New York Times reported.

However, plans to renew the aid -- which includes $50 billion for the HIV/AIDS initiative -- have sputtered in Congress as several Republican senators balked at some of its provisions.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said the bill is too expensive when the United States is experiencing massive budget deficits.

Tony Fratto, White House deputy press secretary said the president remained "very optimistic" that Congress would pass the global AIDS bill eventually.

"All of the discussions have been positive," he said.

During remarks Tuesday about his pending trip to Japan for the Group of Eight summit, Bush also urged other G8 members to "write checks for the sake of human rights and human dignity" and fulfill a 2005 pledge to increase financial assistance to Africa.

Obama's centrist moves upsetting the left

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- Likely Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's more centrist-sounding themes are giving his base constituency pause, liberal bloggers say.

Obama, D-Ill., recently criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for ruling child rapists couldn't be executed and did not oppose a decision overturning a gun ban. He also said he supported faith-based social work and announced he'd vote for a bill that would immunize from lawsuits telephone companies that allowed warrantless eavesdropping of their customers, all sending his liberal supporters into a swoon, USA Today reported.

"When a candidate decides to move to the center, he shouldn't move away from us," said Mike Stark, a University of Virginia law student who started an online group on Obama's Web site urging the candidate to vote against the wiretapping bill.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of a leading liberal blog, Daily Kos, says he plans to withhold a donation to Obama because of the wiretapping bill.

"It's sort of a defining issue right now," Moulitsas told USA Today. "It's huge."

Moulitsas said Obama's critics will support him in November.

Lee Miringoff, Marist Poll director, agreed that Obama's base won't abandon him, but warned the candidate runs a risk "anytime he moves from new-style politics ... to something that has a scent of old-school politics."

Colombia: Betancourt rejoices at freedom

BOGOTA, July 3 (UPI) -- Freed Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt Thursday was met by her children who she had not seen during six years as a captive of leftist rebels.

Betancourt, a one-time presidential candidate who was captured in 2002 by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, expressed joy at the sight of her two grown children, El Tiempo reported online.

Betancourt, 46, also recounted how Colombian forces dressed as FARC rebels duped her captors into transporting her and 14 other hostages in a helicopter, only to turn the tables on the rebels once the aircraft lifted off.

Three U.S. citizens, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, were among 15 hostages rescued Wednesday from leftist rebels in Colombia. The men, civilian contractors for the U.S. government, were captured in February 2003 when their plane crashed in the Colombian jungle.

The Colombian government has been fighting the FARC for more than 40 years.

U.N.'s Ban welcomed home to S. Korea

SEOUL, July 3 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was warmly welcomed Thursday on his first visit to his native South Korea since becoming the U.N. chief.

Ban will meet with South Korean officials as well as receive a U.N. flag from South Korea's first astronaut Lee So-yeon, who took it into space in April, Yonhap News Agency reported. He will travel to Japan Saturday to attend the G8 summit.

"I am so happy and moved to visit my homeland and meet you 18 months after I took office in January of last year," Ban told reporters and officials at a military airport near Seoul. "I should have come here earlier. I am so sorry for being late due to urgent international issues."

He repeated his call for South Korea to play a larger role in international affairs.

"The international society is faced with climate change, food shortages, and high oil prices," Ban said. "I think the South Korean government should make international contributions to match its national power."

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo greeted Ban, who was the prime minister's chief of staff when Han was president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2001, the news agency said.

U.S. contractors may lose Iraqi immunity

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- Employees of Blackwater and other U.S. military contractors may lose their shield from Iraqi prosecution under a new status of forces agreement.

The Iraqi foreign minister has said the new agreement will give Iraqi courts jurisdiction over actions by U.S. contractors, The New York Times reported. In the most controversial incident, Blackwater employees guarding a U.S. State Department convoy killed 17 people, including women and children, last year in Baghdad.

The State Department refused to comment on the report, The Virginian-Pilot reported. A Blackwater spokeswoman said that the company would only comment when it knows what is in the agreement.

"We don't go into details on the negotiations," spokesman Karl Duckworth said.

Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a contractors' trade group, said that only a few of the 180,000 contract employees working in Iraq are in security. He said that two-thirds are Iraqi nationals, already subject to the country's legal system, and most employees are involved in providing food service and other amenities.

British military eyeing improved carriers

LONDON, July 3 (UPI) -- The British Ministry of Defense has finalized contract talks worth nearly $6.4 billion aimed at constructing larger aircraft carriers, top officials say.

Defense Secretary Des Browne said the new defense contracts to build carriers which can support up to 40 aircraft would allow Britain to improve both its military and humanitarian operations worldwide, the BBC said Thursday.

The first advanced carrier model, Her Majesty's Ship Queen Elizabeth, should be in full service by 2014 and be followed by a similar carrier in 2016.

The contracts for the advanced maritime vessels will create or secure 6,200 jobs in Britain and Scotland, Browne said.

Yet defense analyst Andrew Brookes has opposed the new contracts, alleging the British government simply does not have the available funding for such a major military upgrade.

"We can't afford the cost of the aircraft carriers, the cost of the Joint Strike fighters to go on them, and all the replenishment, escort and protecting vessels," he told the BBC.

"We can't afford that without a major increase in funding which I can't see coming."