Obama, Mubarak vow to redouble peace work
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak pledged Tuesday to intensify their efforts to achieve peace between Arab states and Israel.
The world leaders also indicated they thought conditions may be more favorable now than in previous years to advance Arab-Israeli peace efforts, but tempered their remarks by noting the complications that accompany the process.
"If all sides are willing to move off of the rut that we're in currently, then I think there is a extraordinary opportunity to make real progress. But we're not there yet," Obama said. "I'm encouraged by some of the things I'm seeing on the ground."
Mubarak said he has told Israeli leaders a temporary solution and "temporary borders" won't work.
"This issue has been ongoing 60 years. And we cannot afford wasting more time, because violence will increase, and violence has increased," the Egyptian leader said. "The level of violence is now much more than it was 10 years ago. Therefore, we need to find, to move to the final status solution and level."
During the media availability after their meeting, Obama and Mubarak said they discussed nuclear proliferation and Iran, the situation in Iraq and Somalia.
Mubarak also said they talked about human rights and democracy, for which he has been criticized by human rights groups. He said they discussed reform inside of Egypt in a frank but friendly manner.
"I told to President Obama very frankly and very friendly that I have entered into the elections based on a platform that included reforms," Mubarak said, "and therefore we have started to implement some of it and we still have two more years to implement it."
Conservative dynamo Robert Novak dies
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, one of the United States' most influential journalists, died in Washington Tuesday of brain cancer.
He was 78.
"He was someone who loved being a journalist, loved journalism and loved his country and loved his family," Novak's wife Geraldine told the Sun-Times Tuesday.
Among his journalistic endeavors, Novak will be remembered for identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative" in his column, as well as the name of the company she used as cover and informants who met with them. He reported the information was provided to him by two "senior administration officials," and the report eventually led to the obstruction-of-justice and perjury convictions of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, an aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Novak's long-running career contributed to his presence on the U.S. journalistic scene in newspaper columns, newsletters, books and on television.
On May 15, 1963, Novak teamed with Rowland Evans Jr. to create the "Inside Report" political column, the Sun-Times said. After Evans retired in 1993, Novak handled the column on his own.
Novak has called the Sun-Times home since 1966.
He was on several political talk shows, notably "The Capital Gang," "Crossfire" and "Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields."
Novak was born and raised in Joliet, Ill. His first newspaper jobs were with the Joliet Herald-News, and while a University of Illinois student, with the Champaign-Urbana Courier.
Novak's wife said he had returned home after being hospitalized last month. Novak's malignant brain tumor was discovered July 27, 2008.
Suicide bombing, palace attack rock Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Just two days before Afghanistan's elections, a suicide bombing killed five people and rocket fire damaged the presidential palace in Kabul, officials said.
The suicide bombing targeted a coalition forces envoy on Jalalabad Road, a major route through the capital, CNN reported.
Voters go to the polls Thursday for national and local elections.
Afghan security and medical officials said the blast killed five civilians and wounded 52 other people, including NATO International Security Assistance Forces.
The coalition forces said in a statement a car bomb was responsible for the blast, which damaged more than 17 Afghan and NATO military vehicles.
"Afghan and international security force partners are assessing casualties and damage," the statement said.
In the attack on Gul Khana Palace, a palace official said one person was injured when militants fired two rockets at it Tuesday. One rocket struck the palace, where the office of President Hamid Karzai is located. Karzai was in the building, but was not injured, the spokesman said.
Eight Russian ship hijackers arrested
MOSCOW, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Eight suspected hijackers of the long-missing cargo ship Arctic Star have been arrested by the Russian navy without firing a shot, authorities said Tuesday.
The lumber-bearing ship's odyssey apparently began in Swedish waters July 24, two days after it left port in Finland bound for Algeria, and ended about 300 miles from Cape Verde off the northwestern coast of Africa.
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said navy personnel arrested four Estonians, two Latvians and two Russians after finding and boarding the Arctic Star, nearly three weeks after the Russian ship was last heard from off Portugal, RIA Novosti reported.
Serdyukov said the ship's 15-member crew was unharmed during the ordeal, in which the hijackers allegedly approached the ship in a speedboat, boarded it and demanded that all communications equipment be turned off.
"The investigation into the hijacking is continuing on board the Ladny frigate," Serdyukov said in a statement to reporters. "We are taking measures to send the crew (of the Arctic Sea) back home."
The ship's captain had radioed its Finnish operator, Sochart, July 24 that armed hijackers disguised as police had boarded the ship and beaten crew members. Later that day, he radioed again to say they had left, but they apparently remained aboard the vessel, ordering it to continue southward through to the Atlantic Ocean, The New York Times reported.
Sponsors stunned by end-of-life ruckus
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Authors of the end-of-life counseling language in the U.S. House's healthcare reform bill say they're stunned at the brouhaha the provision has created.
Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., a heart surgeon and a co-sponsor of the counseling language, said the legislation's intent was to promote discussions between doctors and their patients about end-of-life issues, USA Today reported Tuesday. The provision would allow Medicare to reimburse doctors for their time in such counseling sessions, Boustany said.
But opponents to the measure, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have characterized it as laying the groundwork for a "death panel" to cut off medical care for elderly citizens.
Now, Boustany says proponents may have to forgo the issue and reconsider it "at some point when the temperature had cooled down."
"Frankly, this thing got really out of hand," he told USA Today.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., another sponsor, said he was surprised at the tenor of the debate.
"It's just beyond bizarre," he said. "At every point along the process, I got broad agreement from Democrats and Republicans alike."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and a key player in the healthcare debate, said recently during an Iowa healthcare town hall that the federal government shouldn't have a program "that determines if you're going to pull the plug on Grandma."
He since said he believes end-of-life directives were "a good idea," but within the context of the House bill's cost-cutting efforts, fears about such counseling are justified.
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Hurricane Bill bound for Americas
MIAMI, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Hurricane Bill strengthened over the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday on a westward path projected to pass the northern Caribbean, U.S. forecasters said.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Bill was a Category 2 storm with sustained winds near 105 mph with higher gusts. It was centered about 705 miles east of the Leeward Islands, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.
The first Atlantic hurricane of the season was moving west-northwest at 16 mph, a pace expected to continue through the day with a turn to the northwest Wednesday, the center said.
"Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 40 miles from the center, and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles," the center reported.
Various computer models indicate Bill would become a Category 3, or major, storm Wednesday with sustained winds up to 130 mph as it travels over warmer waters. Computer projections suggest Bill will take a northerly turn Friday and Saturday, and move between Bermuda and the Carolinas.
The center said a hurricane-hunter aircraft was being dispatched to fly over the storm Wednesday.
