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Napolitano warns of homegrown terrorists

NEW YORK, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida sympathizers within U.S. borders are a threat domestically and abroad, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

Napolitano, addressing the American Israel Friendship League in New York Wednesday, said a rash of recent domestic arrests should "remove any remaining comfort from the notion that if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won't have to fight them here," The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Her comments came one day after President Barack Obama announced an additional 30,000 U.S. troops would be deployed to Afghanistan and warned that extremists have been dispatched from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region -- considered a safe haven for terrorists -- to the United States " to commit more acts of terror."

"Home-based terrorism is here," Napolitano said. "And like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront. ... Individuals sympathetic to al-Qaida and its affiliates, as well as those inspired by the group's ideology, are present in the U.S., and would like to attack the homeland or plot overseas attacks."

Ahmadinejad: Iran will produce its uranium

TEHRAN, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Iran will fuel its defiance of world powers by producing high-grade uranium for its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad, speaking in Isfahan, said Iran would produce 20 percent, high-grade uranium for its nuclear needs without outside help, Voice of America reported Wednesday.

He said Iran's requests to western nations for highly enriched uranium were used "to pressure us," and that the International Atomic Energy Agency was obligated to provide the fuel because Iran's nuclear program was for peaceful purposes.

Ahmadinejad said he wasn't concerned about a possible military action against Iran's nuclear facilities, despite talk of a possible strike by Israel, insisting, "neither Israel nor its backers can stop it (the country's nuclear program)."

During his remarks, Ahmadinejad also expressed disappointment with U.S. President Barack Obama, saying he wasn't happy about the direction dialogue between the two countries was taking.

More sanctions by the United Nations would be useless, Ahmadinejad said, because "it is impossible to isolate a country like Iran in (today's) multi-polar world."

Report says Shalit taken to Egypt

JERUSALEM, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A Kuwaiti newspaper reports kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is being held in Egypt until a deal to secure his release is finalized.

Ahmed Jabari, head of Hamas's military wing in Gaza, and Hamas official Mahmoud A-Zahar reportedly accompanied Shalit, who was transferred to Egypt several days ago, al-Jarida reported.

There was no Israeli response to the report.

Senior Egyptian officials said Shalit's transfer to Egypt, signaled the seriousness of the prisoner swap talks and will motivate Israel to move forward to secure a final deal, the International Middle East Media Center Web site said.

Hamas spokesman Osama Abu Khaled said two issues are holding up the deal, Israel Radio reported Thursday.

Khaled, currently in Damascus, said Hamas demands the release of 125 long-term prisoners incarcerated in Israel and has yet to finalize the relocation or deportation of some of them, Israel Radio said.

The main dispute is over which senior Palestinian prisoners considered symbols of the Palestinian struggle will be included in the deal, the Harretz said.

Even if Hamas responds to the latest proposal, the Israeli cabinet must approve the final list of prisoners and their names must then be published 48 hours in advance of Shalit's release to allow those who oppose the deal to petition the High Court of Justice, the paper said.

In June 2006, Shalit was on operational duty near the Gaza border when he was abducted and taken to Gaza where he has been held ever since.

Five get death sentences for China riots

URUMQI, China, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A Chinese court Thursday sentenced five people to death for murder and other crimes in the July Urumqi ethnic riots in northwest Xinjiang-Uighur region.

The people's court in the provincial capital of Urumqi sentenced two others to life imprisonment, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The short two-paragraph report gave no other details of the trial.

At least 17 people have so far received the death sentence for the July riots between Muslim Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese in which about 200 people died and another 1,600 were injured.

The riots erupted after months of simmering ethnic tensions as the Muslim Uighurs resent being ruled by Han Chinese. The Uighurs are a Turkic minority in China.

Putin: Russia to get tough on terrorism

MOSCOW, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Thursday promised to get tough on terrorism, responding to fears after a train attack killed 26 people last Friday.

Putin acknowledged that Russia faces a threat from internal terrorism, RIA Novosti reported.

The bombing that derailed a fast train provoked fears of a resurgence of terrorism in Moscow and other large cities. Russia was struck hard by terrorists in the 1990s and early 2000's, but since 2004, violence had been focused mainly on the North Caucasus region, the news agency said.

"We have done a lot to break the backbone of terrorism, but the threat has not yet been eliminated," the prime minister said during his annual question and answer session.

The attack on the Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed train also injured approximately 100 passengers and crew.

GAO looks at Bush civil rights enforcement

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A report on civil rights during the George W. Bush administration indicates the U.S. Justice Department sometimes rejected complaints without taking action.

The Government Accountability Office audit of the department's Civil Rights Division from 2001-2007 was to be released Thursday as the House of Representatives begins its first hearing on the division under the Obama administration, The New York Times reported.

The report indicated there was a significant drop in enforcement of several anti-discrimination and voting rights laws between the Clinton administration and subsequent Bush administration, reported the Times, which obtained a copy of the report. For example, actions brought by the division to enforce laws prohibiting race or sex discrimination in employment fell from about 11 a year under Clinton to about six a year under Bush.

The 180-page report also examined matters that were closed without further action. Several cases, including an accusation of officials in an unnamed state intimidating black voters, indicated supervisors rejected the recommendations of career lawyers to proceed, the report said.

Joseph Rich, a civil rights lawyer invited by Democrats to testify, said the report's data offered proof that the division was politicized in the Bush years. Rich spent 37 years in the Civil Rights Division and led its voting rights section.

Republicans, however, said they will use the hearing to charge the Obama administration politicized the division as well, the Times said. Their focus is on a decision to downgrade voter-intimidation charges arising from a 2008 election incident when two New Black Panther Party members stood outside a Philadelphia precinct in militia uniforms.