Sunday, July 8, 2012

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libya’s first nationwide elections in nearly five decades brought hints Sunday of an Arab Spring precedent: Western-leaning parties making strides over Islamist rivals hoping to follow the same paths to power as in neighbors Egypt and Tunisia.

While final results from Saturday’s parliamentary election could still be days away under a two-tier selection system, unofficial and partial counts from Libya’s biggest cities suggested liberal factions were leading the Muslim Brotherhood and allies in a possible first major setback to their political surge following last year’s uprisings.

If the Libyan trend holds — which is still far from certain — it would challenge the narrative of rising Islamist power since the fall of Western-allied regimes from Tunis to Cairo. It also could display the different political dynamics in Libya, where tribal loyalties run deep and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood at times cooperated with the rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

“Anyone with past ties with old regime is hated, even despised,” said Fathi al-Fadhali, a pro-Islamist Libyan political analyst who lived in exile for 30 years. “Any political names associated with the regime are immediately politically burnt by that association.”

Ultimately, the 200-seat parliament will face the task of forming a government — which could become tests of strength for Islamists and secular forces over questions such as women’s rights, the extent of traditional Islamic law and relations with the U.S. and other Western nations that helped bring down Gadhafi.

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NATO: 6 NATO service members killed in eastern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday killed six NATO service members, on a day where a total of 29 people died from roadside bombs and insurgent attacks.

NATO said the blast was caused by an improvised explosive device but provided no further details about the attack and did not identify the dead service members. The statement said NATO’s policy is to allow “national authorities” to give details about the soldiers.

A surge in Afghan and coalition forces during the past two years routed Taliban fighters from many of their strongholds in the south, but the insurgents have stepped up their attacks this summer to take back key areas.

The service members’ deaths were the latest on Sunday caused by bombs planted by insurgents along roadsides, paths or mountain tracks.

In addition to the six NATO deaths, bombs and attacks killed 16 Afghan civilians, five policemen and two members of the U.S.-led coalition in southern Afghanistan, Afghan and NATO authorities said.

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In between scanning Twitter feeds, Facebook accounts, remember to check computer for malware

WASHINGTON (AP) — Internet providers have plans to help their customers Monday and others are braced for calls to helplines because thousands around the country whose computers were infected with malicious software more than a year ago faced the possibility of not being able to get online.

Internet users scanning their Twitter feeds or Facebook accounts Sunday were encouraged to add one more quick click to check their computer for malware.

Some providers may put technical solutions in place that will correct the server problem that could hit some computers after midnight EDT Sunday. It they do, the Internet will work, but the malware will remain on victims’ computers and could pose future problems, said Tom DeGrasso, an FBI supervisory special agent.

At 12:01 a.m. EDT, the FBI planned to shut down the Internet servers set up as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency obtained to keep the servers running expired, and it was not renewed.

The problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of more than 570,000 infected computers around the world. When the FBI went in to take down the hackers late last year, agents realized that if they turned off the malicious servers being used to control the computers, all the victims would lose their Internet service.

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‘You gotta go to work’: Motto right to the end of durable Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine

LOS ANGELES (AP) — He was a tubby tough guy with a pug of a mug, as unlikely a big-screen star or a romantic lead as could be imagined.

Yet Ernest Borgnine won a woman’s love and an Academy Award in one of the great lonelyhearts roles in “Marty,” a highlight in a workhorse career that spanned nearly seven decades and more than 200 film and television parts.

Borgnine, who died Sunday at 95, worked to the end. One of his final roles was a bit part as a CIA records-keeper in 2011’s action comedy “Red” — fittingly for his age, a story of retired spies who show that it’s never too late to remain in the game when they’re pulled back into action.

“I keep telling myself, ‘Damn it, you gotta go to work,'” Borgnine said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press. “But there aren’t many people who want to put Borgnine to work these days. They keep asking, ‘Is he still alive?'”

And yet people put him to work — and kept him working — from his late-blooming start as an actor after a 10-year Navy career through modern times, when he had a recurring voice role on “SpongeBob SquarePants,” became the oldest actor ever nominated for a Golden Globe and received the lifetime-achievement award last year from the Screen Actors Guild.

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Syrian army conducts exercises in show of force as Iran warns of regional ‘catastrophe’

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — In a show of force, Syria began large-scale military exercises Sunday to simulate defending the country against outside “aggression.” Damascus’ staunch ally Iran warned of a “catastrophe” in the region if no political solution to the 16-month-old Syrian conflict is found.

Tehran is Syria’s closest ally, and has stood by President Bashar Assad’s regime throughout the revolt against his rule despite a growing chorus of international condemnation. The relentless bloodshed has accelerated diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the crisis, and spurred some in the Syrian opposition to urge the West to intervene militarily to stop a conflict that activists say has left more than 14,000 people dead.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, dismissed talk of foreign intervention, saying “nobody can imagine a military attack against Syria. We believe it will not happen. If it happens, Syria will defend itself and will not need help from Iran.”

U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, who is the architect of an international plan to end the crisis, acknowledged in an interview published Saturday that the international community’s efforts to find a political solution to the escalating violence in Syria have failed. Annan arrived in the Syrian capital Sunday for talks with Assad, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said.

The West is reluctant to intervene in Syria in part because unlike the military intervention that helped bring down Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, the Syrian conflict has the potential to quickly escalate. Damascus has a web of allegiances to powerful forces including Shiite powerhouse Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah and there are concerns that a military campaign could pull them into a wider conflagration.

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As Romney raises cash in NY’s exclusive Hamptons, Democrats want details on offshore accounts

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Mitt Romney privately raised millions of dollars from New York’s elite on Sunday, as Democrats launched coordinated attacks against the likely Republican presidential nominee, intensifying calls for him to explain offshore bank accounts and release several years of tax returns.

The line of attack, dismissed by the Romney campaign as an “unfounded character assault,” follows new reports that raise questions about Romney’s personal wealth, which could exceed $250 million. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is expected to push the strategy throughout the coming week, underscoring their desire to portray Romney as disconnected from the middle-class voters he needs to win the presidency.

“He’s the first and only candidate for the president of the United States with a Swiss bank account, with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He’s one of several high-profile Democrats who spoke out on the Sunday morning news shows.

Romney may have unintentionally helped the Obama campaign.

Republican donors driving Mercedes, Bentleys — and in one case a candy red 2013 Ferrari Spider — crowded into a series of closed-door Romney fundraisers in the Hamptons, New York’s exclusive string of waterfront communities on Long Island’s South Shore. Wall Street bankers and brokerage house chiefs, among others, make the area their weekend playground. Romney’s Hamptons swing follows a weeklong vacation at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire.

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Egypt’s president reconvenes dissolved, Islamist-led parliament in defiance of military decree

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Islamist president fired the first volley Sunday in his battle with the nation’s powerful generals, calling on the Islamist-dominated parliament to reconvene despite a military-backed court ruling that dissolved it.

A week into his presidency, the surprise move by Mohammed Morsi threatened to plunge the country into a new bout of instability and violence, nearly 17 months after the ouster of authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

“This is the start of a battle that has for some time been brewing,” said Negad Borai, a prominent rights lawyer and activist. “In this battle, the military may be the weaker opponent since it is up against an elected president.”

Morsi’s decree appeared to take the generals off guard. In the first sign of an imminent crisis, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces held an “emergency meeting” shortly after it was announced. The official Middle East News Agency said the generals met to “review and discuss the consequences” of the decision.

The Supreme Constitutional Court, the tribunal that dissolved the legislature last month, was to meet Monday to discuss the issue.

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Scuffle between Chavez backers, foes stirs fears of potentially violent campaign in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez and his allies accused opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles on Sunday of trying to provoke violence by campaigning in areas that have been bastions of support for the incumbent leader.

Chavez accused Capriles of trying to spur violence as part of a broader plan aimed at creating widespread political upheaval ahead of Venezuela’s looming Oct. 7 presidential election.

“They are going to try to destabilize the country. I’ve been saying it and everybody should be alert,” said Chavez, speaking to soldiers during a ceremony to promote military officers.

The socialist leader spoke after a scuffle Saturday involving stone-throwing Chavistas and opposition sympathizers who joined Capriles as he led a march in the poor Caracas district of La Vega. Police forced him to turn back without completing the march.

“Yesterday, for example, a very lamentable incident occurred. But it’s evidence of this plan,” Chavez said, speaking in front of hundreds of uniformed soldiers at Venezuela’s largest military fort. “We must neutralize the destabilization plans.”

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Arsenic-loving bacteria? New studies contradict report of bugs that seemed to break the rules

NEW YORK (AP) — It was a provocative finding: strange bacteria in a California lake that thrived on something completely unexpected — arsenic. What it suggested is that life, a very different kind of life, could possibly exist on some other planet.

The research, published by a leading scientific journal in 2010, led to overheated speculation about how life might exist elsewhere — and quickly some dissent about the original finding.

On Sunday, that same journal, Science, released two papers that rip apart the original research. They “clearly show” that the bacteria can’t use arsenic as the researchers claimed, said an accompanying statement from the journal.

The saga began when scientists led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute published a paper that said the bacteria, found at Mono Lake in eastern California, could grow by substituting arsenic for phosphorus. The researchers had looked at Mono Lake because of its high arsenic levels, and they reported their conclusions from lab experiments.

Their paper raised eyebrows because phosphorus was considered essential to life, while arsenic, while chemically similar, is a poison.

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Detroit police: Woman hugs off-duty officer during dance; his service weapon fires, kills her

DETROIT (AP) — A woman celebrating the weekend before her 25th birthday was fatally shot Sunday when she hugged an off-duty police officer while dancing at a party, causing the officer’s service weapon to fire, according to police and her mother.

Adaisha Miller would have turned 25 on Monday, according to her mother, Yolanda McNair.

The shooting happened at an outdoor social gathering about 12:30 a.m., said police Sgt. Eren Stephens. It happened on the city’s west side.

According to Stephens, the woman “embraced the officer from behind, causing the holstered weapon to accidently discharge.” The bullet punctured Miller’s lung and hit her heart, and she died at a hospital.

Stephens said the Detroit officer will remain on administrative duties while authorities investigate the shooting and report their findings to the Wayne County prosecutor. The officer’s name was not released.