Al-Qaida chimes in on Obama
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida criticized U.S. President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday with a racist diatribe that also predicted an ultimate U.S. defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The missive from No. 2 terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri was posted on an Islamist Web site and called the United States' first African-American president a "house negro" who appeared "to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims."
CNN said the message warned that the United States was losing its campaign in Afghanistan and leaned heavily on imagery of Malcolm X, the late African-American Muslim leader.
The Daily Voice, a U.S. Web site that specializes in news for the African-American community, said Malcolm X used the term "house negro" in the 1960s as a derogatory term for a black man who kowtowed to whites.
The Daily Voice analysis concluded: "The difference, of course, is that President-elect Obama would not be a mere house servant in the White House. Instead, he would be the head of the household."
The timing of the al-Qaida message was also noted by U.S. analysts who told ABC News that al-Qaida was silent for two months prior to the elections, which could indicate dissention within the organization over how to address the issue of Obama taking over the U.S. war on terror.
Frank, Shelby spar over auto bailout issue
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A bailout of U.S. automakers would be a life support measure and would not force them to change their business model or management, a Senate Republican said.
However, a House Democrat countered Wednesday a proposed $25 billion in aid would be a loan that has strings attached and would have to be repaid.
While Congress would like to save the automakers, "I believe their best option would be some type of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where they can renegotiate -- get rid of the management. These people have been the leaders of failure and they need to go," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said on CBS' "Early Show."
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., called bankruptcy "a favorite spectator sport for politicians and experts who don't have to engage in it. You have a whole network of suppliers, small businesses and others who would get stiffed, to use the legal term, in a bankruptcy."
Frank chairs the House Financial Services Committee and Shelby is the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
U.S. automakers say they need federal assistance or face the possibility of bankruptcy. Democrats have proposed providing $25 billion from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout while Republicans and the White House favor releasing an already approved $25 billion loan package designed to help the automakers refit their plants to produce energy-efficient vehicles.
Frank said the federal government would be the first in line to be repaid if any automaker filed for bankruptcy.
Shelby said he didn't think financial assistance would stop at $25 billion.
"I believe it'll be $100 billion. It will just prolong the agony. These companies are failures now," he said.
Bonfire may have sparked Calif.Tea fire
MONTECITO , Calif., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Prosecutors are deciding whether to charge a group of people who left a smoldering bonfire officials think sparked the Tea fire in California, officials said.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said 10 men and women, ages 18-22, built the bonfire on abandoned property and said they thought it was out when they left, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. Embers, fanned by winds, re-ignited it into a swift fire that destroyed 210 homes and injured 25 people in the Montecito area.
"It appears this was the result of carelessness," Brown said, not a deliberate act to start the fire that consumed 1,940 acres. "They have been cooperative."
Brown didn't identify the people being questioned but did say they lived in the area and attended the same school, which he also declined to name.
The men and women could be charged with negligence or recklessness with fire, Brown said. The district attorney's office will decide if charges should be filed once the investigation is complete, Brown said.
Economy spurring European anti-Semitism
BERLIN, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Jewish leaders say the global economic downtown is fostering anti-Semitic behavior in Germany and elsewhere in Central Europe.
A double-digit percentage increase in anti-Semitic incidents has been recorded in Germany, up to 800 since the beginning of the year, and Israel's ambassador to Hungary says there has been a similar rise in that country, which has been particularly hard-hit by the financial crisis, the Israeli Web site Ynetnews.com reported Wednesday.
In the East German city of Goethe this week, a pig's head was hung at the entrance to a Jewish cemetery, while in Budapest, uniformed members of country's extreme right gathered around synagogues and intimidated Jews by their presence, Ynetnews.com reported.
"Such violent incidents are becoming a routine thing," Ambassador Aliza Ben-Nun said. "The members of the far right are becoming more and more confident."
It's too soon to scientifically determine if the anti-Semitism upsurge is entirely due to economic conditions, Yehuda Bauer, scientific adviser to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum, told Ynetnews. "But," he said, "I can say that once there is an economic crisis, the anti-Semitic images of the greedy, exploiting Jew surface. This is a regular pattern."
Mexico pulls 500 Tijuana cops from duty
TIJUANA, Mexico, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Some 500 police officers in the Mexican border town of Tijuana were off the beat Wednesday after they were suspended from duty by the Mexican government.
Soldiers and federal agents replaced the city officers who were shipped off to a police academy Tuesday for re-training and background checks amid an ongoing and increasingly violent turf war among narcotics smugglers in the city.
The Los Angeles Times Wednesday said police have been accused of acting as lookouts, bodyguards and even hit men for drug traffickers over the years.
The Times said Tuesday's massive personnel shift appeared to be aimed at the gang controlled by Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental, who reputedly has the police under his thumb on Tijuana's east side.
Mortgage meltdown may impact colleges
ANN ARBOR, Mo., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A University of Michigan economist says higher education may be the next sector of the economy affected by the sub-prime mortgage mess.
Frank Stafford says a study by the university's Institute for Social Research indicates there is a connection between a family's home equity and college attendance of their adult children.
The institute's Panel Study of Income Dynamics found that parental home equity was a major predictor of college enrollment among a nationally representative sample of 745 families.
"About 64 percent of the children of homeowners were enrolled in college compared with about 33 percent of renters," said Stafford.
The University of Michigan study was conducted in 2005 when housing prices were at or near their high.
"Mortgages were easy to obtain and rapidly rising home equity led a lot of parents to feel that it was possible to help their children with college expenses," Stafford said.
The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research is among the world's oldest academic survey research organizations.
