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Clinton in Afghanistan for inauguration

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Afghanistan to attend President Hamid Karzai's inauguration, said her visit is a chance to look at next steps.

"(This) is a specific opportunity for everyone to take stock of where we are and to determine how we're going forward together," Clinton said Wednesday while traveling to Afghanistan. "And I will be both talking and listening a lot to President Karzai and others with whom I'll meet to make sure that they understand our concerns and we understand their concerns."

In addition to attending Karzai's inauguration ceremony Thursday, Clinton will meet with Afghanistan's leadership, international partners and allies, U.S. troops and U.S. Embassy staff, the State Department said in a statement.

After landing in Kabul, Clinton met with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, CNN reported.

Her trip comes as President Barack Obama is considering whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, per McChrystal's request. A key factor in Obama's decision centers on the Afghan government's ability to partner with the United States to battle the Taliban.

Karzai also is under international pressure to clean up corruption within his government, and Clinton is expected to tell him he has to deliver.

"Well, we are asking that they follow through on much of what they have previously said, including putting together a credible anti-corruption governmental entity ... that truly can deliver on the concerns that we and the people of Afghanistan have about corruption," she said. "They've done some work on that, but in our view, not nearly enough to demonstrate a seriousness of purpose to tackle corruption. And it is going to be one of the (principle) requests that we make."

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Afghan minister hit with bribe allegations

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Afghanistan's mining minister allegedly accepted a $30 million bribe to award a major contract to a Chinese company, an unnamed U.S. official says.

The official, who reportedly has seen intelligence reports on the matter, said there is a "high degree of certainty" the alleged payment to Mohammad Ibrahim Adel was made within a month of the awarding of a $2.9 billion copper mining contract to the state-run China Metallurgical Group Corp., The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The same minister is now in the process of reviewing a bid from the Chinese company for another big iron ore mining contract for a deposit west of Kabul known as Haji Gak, the Post reported.

"This guy has done this already; we're in the same situation again," the official said.

Adel denied the allegations, telling the Post, "I am responsible for the revenue and benefit of our people. All the time I'm following the law and the legislation for the benefit of the people."

The allegations involving Adel and other instances of corruption are focusing international pressure on President Hamid Karzai to cleanse his Cabinet of ministers who have collected huge profits through bribery and kickbacks, the Post said.

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Obama: Gitmo closure deadline to be missed

BEIJING, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama says his administration will miss its self imposed deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, terrorism detainee camp.

During television interviews given during his trip to Asia, Obama indicated his mid-January deadline for closing Guantanamo would probably not be met and he did not give a new deadline, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

"We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year," Obama told Fox News in Beijing. "I'm not going to set a exact date because a lot of this is also going to depend on cooperation from Congress."

Obama campaigned on a promise to close the prison facility for "enemy combatants" as one of his top priorities, and ordered its closing as one of his first official acts. But his efforts to remove the 200 remaining detainees has run into opposition from foreign and domestic critics, the newspaper said.

Obama'a assessment came after the Department of Justice decided last week that five detainees -- including self-avowed Sept. 11, 2001, attacks mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- would be prosecuted in federal court in New York City instead of by military tribunals.

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Rights group: Decide Gitmo detainees' fate

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S government must resolve the fate of detainees still at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

"Over recent months, U.S. authorities have allowed the Guantanamo detentions to become a political football, and the politics of fear to trump human rights," Susan Lee, director of Amnesty International's Americas Regional Program, said in a release.

President Barack Obama, during interviews with U.S. broadcast media Wednesday in Beijing, said his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility by mid-January, acknowledging it was difficult to follow through on one of his first pledges as president, The New York Times reported.

Obama said he hoped to shut down the military detention facility sometime next year, but he did not set a new deadline.

Amnesty International has long called for the Guantanamo Bay detainees to be tried in an independent and impartial court -- not before a military commission -- or released.

"Now, as should have been the case from day one, the government should resolve these detentions by either bringing the detainees to fair trial or immediately releasing them," Lee said.

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White House reports $98B in bad payments

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama will issue an executive order to reduce the amount the federal government makes in improper payments, a White House official said.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the federal government made improper payments of more than $98 billion in fiscal 2009, with improper payments for Medicare accounting for nearly a third of the total, CNN reported.

Ninety-nine agencies and programs received $1.98 trillion in 2009, with $98 billion of the money -- or 5 percent -- coming in the form of improper payments, Orszag, the administration's budget guru, said during a Tuesday evening news conference. The 37.5 percent increase in the total over 2008 was due in part to improved detection, he said.

Orszag said he couldn't determine how much of the incorrect payments were because of fraud. He also did not have a breakdown on how much of the total bad payments involved spending from Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package.

Among the larger amounts of improper payments CNN listed were:

-- $24 billion for Medicare fee-for-service, out of a total of $308 billion received.

-- $18 billion for Medicaid healthcare for the poor, out of a total of $188 billion received.

-- $12 billion for Medicaid Advantage, out of a total of $77 billion received.

-- $12 billion for unemployment insurance, out of a total of $119 billion received.

-- $12 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit, out of a total of $48 billion received.

Obama's executive order, expected to be issued next week, will promote transparency, strengthen accountability and offer incentives to improve the government payment process, Orszag said.

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W.Va.'s Byrd longest-serving congressman

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- When the Senate was called to order Wednesday, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., became the longest-serving member of the Congress in U.S. history.

"Since coming to the Senate in 1959, Senator Byrd has cast more than 18,500 votes. No one else, past or present, even comes close," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said when recognizing the achievement."

The 92-year-old Byrd, plagued by recent bouts of illness, shifted from a one-time Ku Klux Klan chapter leader filibustering against the 1964 Civil Rights Act to endorsing Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination battle and spoke against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"He began his service in the House the same day Alaska became our 49th state, and was months into his Senate service when Hawaii became our 50th," Reid said shortly after the Senate was gaveled into session, noting West Virginia's senior senator had served in Congress longer than more than 25 percent of today's sitting senators -- and Obama -- have been alive.

Serving 56 years, 10 months and 16 days, Byrd eclipsed Arizona Democrat Carl Hayden, who served in Congress from 1912 to 1969, first in the House then in the Senate.

Byrd, who served as both majority and minority leader and currently is president pro tempore, had a reputation for using his knowledge of parliamentary procedure to either ram through or slow down legislation as it moved through the Senate.

"By virtue of his endurance, Robert Byrd has known and worked with many of the greats of the Senate. Because of his enduring virtue, he has long since established himself among them," Reid said. "There will never be another senator like Senator Byrd, and today's milestone is another record that will never be broken."