World/Nation Briefs April 5, 2011

Holder says 9/11suspects to facemilitary panel

WASHINGTON - Yielding to political opposition, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen will be referred to military commissions for trial rather than to a civilian federal court in New York.

The families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have waited almost a decade for justice, and "it must not be delayed any longer," Holder told a news conference.

Holder had announced the earlier plan for trial in New York City in November 2009, but that foundered amid widespread opposition to a civilian court trial from Republicans and even some Democrats, particularly in New York. Congress passed legislation that prohibits bringing any detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States.

Maneuvering continues as shutdown looms

WASHINGTON -

Congressional Republicans maneuvered on two fronts Monday in the federal spending showdown, demanding Democrats agree to more than $33 billion in swift cuts to avoid a government shutdown at the same time they readied a separate plan to slash deficits by a staggering $4 trillion over a decade. With little progress evident on the first track, President Barack Obama invited key lawmakers to the White House in search of a deal to avoid a partial shutdown Friday at midnight.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said he would attend on behalf of Republicans. But he also emphasized in a statement that the $33 billion total often cited "is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors."

Boehner has said repeatedly he does not want a shutdown. Yet a new public opinion poll underscored the political dilemma confronting the leader of a conservative majority swept into power with the support of tea party supporters.

In a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 68 percent of tea party adherents said lawmakers should stick to their principles in the budget negotiations, even if it means the government shuts down.

Radioactive water dumped into the sea

TOKYO - Workers began pumping more than 3 million gallons of contaminated water from Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, freeing storage space for even more highly radioactive water that has hampered efforts to stabilize the reactors.

It will take about two days to pump most of the less-radioactive water out of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, whose cooling systems were knocked out by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Radioactivity is quickly diluted in the ocean, and government officials said the dump should not affect the safety of seafood in the area.

Since the disaster, water with different levels of radioactivity has been pooling throughout the plant. People who live within 12 miles have been evacuated and have not been allowed to return.

UN helicopter targets Ivory Coast's Gbagbo

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - A United Nations helicopter fired at strongman Laurent Gbagbo's forces on Monday as France authorized its military to take out his heavy weapons, an unprecedented escalation in the international community's efforts to oust the entrenched leader.

The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had requested France's military participation. Gbagbo lost presidential elections in November but has refused to cede power to Alassane Ouattara even as the world's largest cocoa producer teetered on the brink of all-out civil war.

The two men have vied for the presidency for months, with Ouattara using his considerable international clout to financially and diplomatically suffocate Gbagbo. Forces backing Ouattara launched a dramatic offensive last week, seizing control of the administrative capital and other towns before heading toward Abidjan.

Libyan rebels push back into oil town of Brega

BREGA, Libya - Rebel fighters pushed back into this hard-fought oil town on Monday, seizing half of Brega and pledging to drive out Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces in hours in an advance that would open a vital conduit for oil sales by the opposition.

Control of Brega's small refinery and Mediterranean port could significantly boost the rebels' hunt for revenues they can use to purchase heavy weapons for the fight against Gadhafi's better-equipped troops and militiamen.

Lightly armed and loosely organized opposition forces have surged into and beyond Brega several times in recent weeks from their strongholds in eastern Libya, only to be driven out by Gadhafi loyalists exploiting the rebels' inability to hold territory. In recent days the opposition has placed the front lines under the control of former military men, creating a more disciplined advance against Gadhafi's forces.

- The Associated Press