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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2012 PAGE 5A
Israeli PM makes pitch to U.S. voters
B R I E F
Netanyahu wants someone to draw a ‘red line’ on Iranian nukes. By ANNE FLAHERTY Associated Press
AP PHOTO
Look ma, no traffic jams
A girl rides on a wave board in one of Belgium’s busiest streets during Car Free Day in downtown Brussels on Sunday. The campaign first originated in France in 1998, aiming to promote environmentally friendly transport and ease city traffic congestion.
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a direct appeal to American voters on Sunday to elect a president willing to draw a “red line” with Iran, comparing Tehran’s nuclear program to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and reminding Americans of the devastating repercussions of failed intelligence. His remarks were an impassioned election-season plea from a world leader who
insists he doesn’t want to insert himself into U.S. politics and hasn’t endorsed either candidate. But visibly frustrated by U.S. policy under President Barack Obama, the hawkish Israeli leader took advantage of the week’s focus on unrest across the Muslim world and America’s time-honored tradition of the Sunday television talk shows to appeal to Americans headed to the polls in less than two months. Tehran claims its nuclear program is peaceful. Netanyahu said the U.S. would be foolish to believe that, using football metaphors and citing example of past terrorist attacks on U.S. soil to appeal to his American audience. “It’s like Timothy McVeigh walking into
a shop in Oklahoma City and saying, ‘I’d like to tend my garden. I’d like to buy some fertilizer ...’ Come on. We know that they’re working on a weapon,” Netanyahu said. Obama and his top aides, who repeatedly say all options remain on the table, have pointed to shared U.S.-Israeli intelligence that suggests Iran hasn’t decided yet whether to build a bomb. Netanyahu disagrees, estimating that Iran is about six months away from having most of the enriched uranium it needs and warning that letting them reach the “goal line” would have disastrous consequences. Obama’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has said he is willing to take a
Al-Qaida transit accusations
yria accused neighboring Turkey Sunday of allowing thousands of S Muslim extremists to cross into its
TEANECK, N.J.
Gun threat delays game
One day after a “credible shooting threat” forced the postponement of their game, two northern New Jersey high school football teams finally squared off. The game between Northern Valley Regional High School and Teaneck was scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday in Teaneck. But it was called off 15 minutes before the opening kickoff and rescheduled for Sunday. When the game was played, Northern Valley Regional came away with a 34-14 victory. Teaneck police said they are still working to determine who made the threat and why it happened. Extra police officers were on duty at the school on Sunday, but no problems were reported during the game. JALISCO, MEXICO
Mutilated bodies found
The dismembered bodies of 17 men were found Sunday on a farm in central Mexico, in an area disputed by violent drug cartels, officials said. Jalisco state prosecutor Tomas Coronado Olmos said the bodies were dumped by a highway in the town of Tizapan el Alto near the border between Jalisco and Michoacan states. Authorities discovered the bodies while Mexicans celebrated Independence Day. Coronado Olmos didn’t reveal the identities of the slain but said the bodies were naked, mutilated and stacked with chains around their necks. Mexico’s drug cartels have regularly left behind such grisly remains as they battle for control of key trafficking routes and markets. PARIS
Court to hear topless case
A French court today will consider issuing an injunction against the French magazine Closer over its publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge. The news came as Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton , arrived in the Solomon islands for a two day visit. The couple have accused the magazine of violating her privacy by publishing the photos, taken while she was on a private estate in Provence, southern France. An Irish newspaper has since published the photos, while other European publications have said they are considering doing so. More than 200 police officers are involved in covering the couple’s visit, partly over concerns about the Solomon Islands’ volatile political situation.
tougher stance than Obama against Iran, although his campaign has declined to provide specifics.
Complaints about calls up sharply
DAMASCUS, SYRIA
territory, as the government and opposition said an explosion killed at least seven and cut off a main road leading south from the capital. In letters to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban KiMoon, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said Turkey allowed “thousands of al-Qaida, Takfiri and Wahhabi terrorists” access to the country in order to “kill innocent Syrians, blow up their properties and spread chaos and destruction.” Syrian authorities blame the antigovernment uprising that began in March last year on a foreign conspiracy and accuse Gulf countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the U.S, other Western countries and Turkey, of offering funding and training to the rebels, whom they describe as “terrorists.”
AP PHOTO
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is appealing to U.S. voters.
Federal do-not-call list was put in place nearly a decade ago to limit telemarketing sales calls. By JENNIFER C. KERR Associated Press
AP PHOTOS
A protester holds stone as others hang a flag at the entry of the gate of the U.S. consulate Sunday during a demonstration in Karachi, Pakistan. Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting an anti-Islam video produced in the United States clashed with police Sunday as they tried to march toward the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, while thousands of others held peaceful demonstrations in other parts of the country.
Violence continues
Hundreds protest against film and U.S. in Pakistan By ADIL JAWAD and BASSEM MROUE Associated Press
KARACHI, Pakistan — Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting an anti-Islam film broke through a barricade near the U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Karachi on Sunday, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed and more than a dozen injured. In a move that could escalate tensions around the Arab world, the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for protests against the movie, saying protesters should not only ’express our anger’ at U.S. embassies but urge leaders to act. The film, which denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, has sparked violent protests in many Muslim countries in recent days, including one in Libya in which the U.S. ambassador was killed. The U.S. has responded by deploying additional military forces to increase security in certain hotspots. In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the U.S. must be held accountable for the film, which was produced in the United States. The U.S. government has condemned the film. “The ones who should be held accountable and boycotted are those who support and protect the producers, namely the U.S. administration,” Nasrallah said. He called for protests today, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to call on their leaders to express their anger too. In Pakistan, police fired tear gas and
Supporters of a Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf or Movement for Justice burn an effigy of President Barack Obama on Sunday during a demonstation in Peshawar, Pakistan.
water cannons at the protesters in Karachi after they broke through the barricade and reached the outer wall of the U.S. Consulate. One protester was killed during the clash, said a spokesman for the Shiite Muslim group that organized the rally. All Americans who work at the consulate were safe, Rian Harris, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said. Thousands more held peaceful demonstrations against the film in other parts of the country. The protests were set off by a film called “Innocence of Muslims,” which
portrays Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester. Libya’s Interim President Mohammed el-Megarif said Sunday that the attackers who killed the U.S. ambassador in the country appeared to have spent months preparing and carefully choosing their date — the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He pointed to a second raid on a safe house. But the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, brushed aside his assessment, saying evidence gathered so far indicated it was a spontaneous reaction to the anti-Islam video and not a premeditated or coordinated strike.
WASHINGTON — So much for silence from telemarketers at the cherished dinner hour, or any other hour of the day. Complaints to the government are up sharply about unwanted phone solicitations, raising questions about how well the federal “do-not-call” registry is working. The biggest category of complaint: those annoying prerecorded pitches called robocalls that hawk everything from lower credit card interest rates to new windows for your home. Amid fanfare from consumer advocates, the federal do-not-call list was put in place nearly a decade ago as a tool to limit telemarketing sales calls to people who didn’t want to be bothered. The registry has more than 209 million phone numbers on it. That’s a significant chunk of the country, considering that there are about 84 million residential customers with traditional landline phones and plenty more people with cellphone numbers, which can also be placed on the list. Telemarketers are supposed to check the list at least every 31 days for numbers they can’t call. But some are calling anyway, and complaints about phone pitches are climbing even as the number of telemarketers checking the registry has dropped dramatically. Government figures show monthly robocall complaints have climbed from about 65,000 in October 2010 to more than 212,000 this April. More general complaints from people asking a telemarketer to stop calling them also rose during that period, from about 71,000 to 182,000. At the same time, fewer telemarketers are checking the FTC list to see which numbers are off limits. In 2007, more than 65,000 telemarketers checked the list. Last year, only about 34,000 did so. Despite those numbers, the FTC says the registry is doing an effective job fighting unwanted sales calls. “It’s absolutely working,” Lois Greisman, associate director of the agency’s marketing practices division, said in an interview with The Associated Press. But, she said, “the proliferation of robocalls creates a challenge for us.”
Chicago teachers to continue strike after shunning contract vote By TAMMY WEBBER Associated Press
CHICAGO — The Chicago teachers union decided Sunday to continue its weeklong strike, extending an acrimonious standoff with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over teacher evaluations and job security provisions central to the debate over the future of public education across the United States. Union delegates declined to formally vote on a proposed contract settlement worked out over the weekend with officials from the nation’s third largest school district. Schools will remain closed today. Union president Karen Lewis said
teachers want the opportunity to continue to discuss the offer that is on the table. “Our members are not happy,” Lewis said. “They want to know if there is anything more they can get.” She added: “They feel rushed.” She said the union’s delegates will meet again Tuesday, and the soonest classes are likely to resume is Wednesday. “We felt more comfortable being able to take back what’s on the table and let our constituents look at it and digest it. We can have a much better decision come Tuesday,” said Dean Refakes, a physical education teacher at Gompers
25 years, had instantly canceled classes for 350,000 students who just returned from summer vacation and forced tens of thousands of parents to find alternatives for idle children. The walkout was the first for a major American city in at least six years. And it drew national attention because it posed a high-profile test for teachers unions, which have seen their political AP PHOTO influence threatened by a growing reform movement. A student holds a placard in support The strike carried political implicaof striking Chicago school teachers as they march after a rally Saturday. tions, too, raising the risk of a protracted labor battle in President Barack Obama’s hometown at the height of the fall Elementary School and a delegate. The walkout, the first in Chicago in campaign.