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U.S. envoy arrives to pressure Pakistani president

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived Friday in Pakistan to suggest to the nation’s embattled president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, that he lift his emergency rule, senior State Department officials said.

Negroponte’s visit comes as political unrest roils the strategically critical nation. Musharraf has sworn in a new caretaker government, while opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has rejected the new regime, saying it’s not acceptable.

Negroponte spoke by phone with Bhutto on Friday, a senior State Department official told The Associated Press.

During the phone call Negroponte generally expressed U.S. opposition to Musharraf’s state of emergency declaration and support for Bhutto’s peaceful participation in the political process, the official told AP.

Bhutto and other opposition leaders have accused Musharraf of declaring emergency rule November 3 to maintain his hold on power and avoid an expected court ruling that would have nullified his election victory in October.

Musharraf has said the emergency rule will improve stability and foster peaceful parliamentary elections, which he said he would like to occur before January 9. Watch more about Pakistan’s critical next steps

Violent protests continued to rock city streets, and opposition party leaders have been jailed or placed under house arrest under anti-terrorism laws.

Despite a ban on political gatherings, about 500 protesters in the northwestern city of Peshawar clashed with police who used tear gas and batons, according to The Associated Press. In Lahore, about 3,000 students rallied at a university campus, the AP reported. The students denounced Musharraf, according to the AP, and praised another opposition leader Imran Khan, a former cricket captain whom police detained earlier this week.

Underscoring the importance the United States places on ending Pakistan’s emergency rule, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Thursday the more time Musharraf spends trying to enforce the emergency rule, the more resources he devotes to that process, the less are available to go after terrorists in his midst and ours. See why Pakistan is a key U.S. ally

U.S.-led forces fighting the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan rely on Pakistan for supplies. Morrell said 75 percent of all U.S. supplies for troops in Afghanistan flow either through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of fuel, which comes from Pakistani refineries.

So we are very much encouraging of him to get on with taking off his military uniform, holding free and fair elections, and getting back to law-based constitutional rule as quickly as possible, Morrell said.

However, the Pentagon is preparing plans in case the situation worsens and threatens U.S. supply lines, Morrell said. There are efforts under way right now to figure out contingency supply lines to our troops in Afghanistan, if it becomes necessary to alter the way we now support our troops in Afghanistan, he said.

Negroponte, formerly the top U.S. intelligence official, is expected to meet Musharraf and other Pakistani officials over the weekend.

Musharraf this week swore in seven handpicked allies as part of a caretaker government despite an earlier pledge to include people of a neutral band.

Prime Minister Mohammad Mian Soomro will lead the interim Cabinet. He previously was chairman of the Senate — a key post because the Senate chairman is acting president when Musharraf is outside the country.

Meanwhile, Bhutto was freed from house arrest Friday in Lahore. Police had detained her there since Tuesday. In an interview with Britain’s Sky News shortly after her release, Bhutto said Musharraf has shown he is an obstacle to democracy. The opposition leader has called for the Pakistani president to step down.

Bhutto was Pakistan’s first female prime minister, serving in the late 1980s and again in the mid-’90s. See a timeline of key events in Pakistan

During that time, she was accused of corruption, and she fled into self-imposed exile in 1999. She returned in October after Musharraf dropped anti-corruption charges against her.
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Bangladesh could face new flooding as cyclone moves inland

DHAKA, Bangladesh (CNN) — Low-lying areas of Bangladesh could face more flooding this weekend as a tropical cyclone that has killed hundreds heads inland, a forecaster said Friday.

Cyclone Sidr, with sustained winds of at least 131 mph (210 kph), made landfall Thursday night along the western coast of Bangladesh near the border with India, unleashing floodwaters.

Local officials said at least 500 people were killed.

But a United News of Bangladesh report put the death toll at at least 1,100.

The storm had weakened significantly by the time it reached eastern India on Friday night, but it was still loaded with moisture.

It’s now a rainmaker, snowmaker as it moves to higher elevations, and winds have dropped to 35 to 50 mph (56 to 80 kph) — below hurricane strength — according to CNN meteorologist Kevin Corriveau. The storm is moving northeast, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

But Bangladesh isn’t entirely safe, Corriveau added.

He said it’s possible rainfall from mountains will swell rivers, and by Sunday night or Monday the surge could reach already flooded locations in Bangladesh.

Forecasters predicted dry, clear weather with no wind in Bangladesh for the next two days, good news for search-and-rescue teams looking for casualties. See victims pick up the pieces after the storm

It was difficult to assess the damage and death toll because communications were cut. High tides swept away dozens of people.

We still don’t really know the extent of the damage. There are so many areas inaccessible, World Vision spokesman Vince Edwards said late Friday from a staging area near Dhaka. He said he hadn’t talked to team members in hours.

Given the 15-foot (roughly 5-meter) storm surge, much of the coastal area has been cut off, and there is almost a complete lack of electricity across the country, CNN’s Dan Rivers reported Friday.

Video footage shot from a helicopter Friday showed villages flattened and large numbers of people without shelter.

Areas along the coast received the brunt of the storm, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. The worst-hit districts were Patuakhali, Barguna and Jhalakathi. Sixty percent to 70 percent of homes in those areas were destroyed, according to local officials.

Members of the Bangladesh army and navy were trying to help.

U.S. military officials said Friday that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was ready to dispatch Navy vessels carrying 3,500 Marines to the region to help in recovery efforts.

It is expected that the USS Kearsarge and USS Wasp would move from the Gulf of Oman. The USS Tarawa recently left Hawaii, and it could go to Bangladesh as well, officials said.

Sidr’s powerful winds and lashing rain uprooted trees, leveled homes and even damaged buildings where residents sought shelter. Video footage from the height of the storm showed high, rolling waves along the coastal areas and winds blowing so hard palm trees were flattened.

On Friday, Nabiha Chowdhury with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said about 600,000 people had fled, adding that about 2 million people lived along the coast but said it was difficult to tell because tourists flock to the region.

The weather in the capital today is gloomy, no rain, a bit of wind. The electricity is out. It might take weeks to have the electricity come back, Chowdhury said Friday.

Red Cross rapid-assessment teams have been deployed and will assess the damage, talk to the people and see whatever is needed and immediately they contact us and tell us if there is a shortage or water, food, clothing, shelter, Chowdhury said. Watch how the cyclone spawns a large relief effort

She said 150 fishing boats were missing. The fishermen may have been caught in the storm and were unable to return to land, she added.

Bangladesh has a long history with deadly cyclones.

In 1991, a devastating cyclone killed at least 140,000 people, according to the United Nations. And in 1970, Cyclone Bhola struck Bangladesh — then East Pakistan — killing 500,000 people. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration considers that storm to be the 20th century’s greatest tropical system disaster.
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Senate panel issues subpoena for Utah mine owner

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Senate subcommittee probing this summer’s deadly Utah mine disaster has subpoenaed the mine’s co-owner, ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter said Friday.

The subpoena for Bob Murray — CEO and president of Murray Energy Group — directs him to appear before the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services on December 4.

Murray Energy operates the Crandall Canyon mine, where six miners were entombed in an August 6 collapse.

Efforts to reach them were suspended 10 days later, when two rescuers and a federal mining official were killed and six others were hurt in a second collapse as they tried to reach the area where the miners were working.

We’re going to get to the bottom of what went on there, said Specter, R-Pennsylvania.

Murray is an indispensable witness, and, candidly, he really flouted the authority and responsibility of the United States Senate to have his testimony to find out what happened so we could do our utmost to prevent future occurrences.

Murray failed to appear at a September 5 subcommittee hearing on the incident, Specter said.

At the time, Specter and committee chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, stressed the importance of Murray’s testimony to preventing future mine disasters and indicated they would subpoena the mine owner if necessary.

The subcommittee convened off the Senate floor last month to authorize the subpoena, an unprecedented event in its history, Specter said.

Throughout the efforts to reach the miners, Murray said that a small earthquake caused the collapse.

But seismologists said it was more likely that the collapse itself registered as a 3.9-magnitude quake on seismographs.

Last month, relatives of the dead miners told the House Committee on Education and Labor that the men were concerned about safety in the mine, but were afraid to push too hard out of fear of losing their jobs.

Murray Energy valued production over safety, said Cesar Sanchez, brother of miner Manuel Sanchez.

Steve Allred, brother of miner Kerry Allred, said miners at Crandall were involved in retreat mining — a dangerous practice in which thick pillars of coal holding up the roof of a mine are destroyed in efforts to dislodge more coal.

Murray conceded after the collapse that retreat mining had been done at Crandall, but said the practice was not being used at the time of the cave-in.

Family members of the dead miners have also accused the Mine Safety and Health Administration of not being vigilant enough about regulating the coal mining industry and of failing to keep families informed after the disaster, allowing Murray to take the lead for several weeks.
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Poll: Electability drives Giuliani lead in Nevada

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) — Now that the Democrats are done debating in Las Vegas, it’s time for the next act. Bring on the elephants.

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll of likely Nevada Republican caucus goers shows Rudy Giuliani in first place as a presidential nominee.

The former New York City mayor was the first choice of 29 percent in the survey out Friday.

Giuliani was campaigning in the Silver State earlier this week and said that we want to make sure that we give ourselves every chance to win Nevada.

Mitt Romney, who’s campaigning Friday in Las Vegas, is in second place, at 21 percent. The former Massachusetts governor is followed by Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, with 14 percent and Sen. John McCain of Arizona at 12 percent.

The remaining GOP presidential candidates are all in single digits: Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 8 percent; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 4 percent; California Rep. Duncan Hunter, 4 percent; and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, 3 percent. Check out the results of some key questions

Giuliani’s on top in Nevada because Republicans here think he’s the most electable. Sixty percent of those questioned in the survey said Giuliani has the best chance among the GOP White House hopefuls of beating the Democratic presidential nominee.

Giuliani also comes in first when asked who’s the most qualified candidate to be commander in chief and the most likely to bring change, the candidate who’s taken the most clear position on the issues, the candidate who says what he believes, and the strongest leader.

Romney leads in only one category in the survey — honesty — with Giuliani second.

But Iowa Republicans vote 15 days ahead of Nevada.

Romney is on top in the latest polls out of the Hawkeye state, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee breathing down his neck. We are serious. We are here to stay and we are here to play, Huckabee said.

And what about Giuliani? He comes in third in most of the recent polls in Iowa.

What about New Hampshire Republicans? They’re kind of important, since their state holds the first primary.

Romney has a bigger lead there in the latest surveys. He was governor of neighboring Massachusetts.

And among Republicans nationally?

It’s Giuliani first in all the polls, with all the other contenders bunched together behind him.

But with only 28 percent support in a poll of all the most recent national surveys, Giuliani is not exactly a formidable front-runner less than two months before the primaries.

One thing Giuliani does have going for him across the country, as in Nevada, is electability.

In Iowa, where Giuliani’s running third, he’s still considered the most electable Republican.

It’s the same story in New Hampshire. Romney leads, but Giuliani’s seen as most electable.

Before Republicans agree on who they want, they have to decide what they want. The most electable candidate or someone they may agree with more.

The poll was conducted from November 9-13 among 304 likely Republican caucus goers by telephone The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
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Rally urges hate crimes prosecutions, new AG responds

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Thousands of demonstrators encircled Justice Department headquarters in the nation’s capital Friday to demand the government crack down harder on hate crimes.

We have so many people, we surrounded the Justice Department and two blocks more, the Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN as the orderly crowd marched around the building where newly sworn-in Attorney General Michael Mukasey was working.

This is a real outcry, a real outrage from people around this country, Sharpton said.

Mukasey responded by assuring the marchers that the Justice Department shared their vision of wiping out hate.

Although there are limitations and challenges in bringing successful hate crimes prosecutions, the department takes each case seriously, Mukasey said in a statement.

As long as hatred and racism exist, the Justice Department will continue its hard and effective work on behalf of all victims of hate crimes, he said.

Marchers walked from Freedom Plaza to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, which they circled seven times, in an apparent allusion to the biblical story of the fall of Jericho.

The demonstration was led by Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and members of Sharpton’s National Action Network. Watch the leaders marvel at the size of the crowd

The protesters’ frustration stems from several racially charged incidents over the past year and a half: the police shooting of an unarmed man in New York, hours before his wedding, in November 2006; the appearance of nooses in several workplaces and schools; the case of a black teen charged with child molestation after having sex with another willing teen; and the story of a black West Virginia woman whom six white people allegedly raped, tortured and forced to eat animal feces as they berated her with racial slurs.

Particularly resonant was the Jena 6 case in Jena, Louisiana. Nooses were hung from an oak tree at a high school there last year. The federal government did not prosecute the three white teens responsible.

It was impossible under federal law as written today for us to go after these particular juveniles, Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for western Louisiana, told a congressional panel.

The noose incident at Jena was the beginning of months of racial tension that included the beating of a white student in December, allegedly by six black classmates. Two months ago, 15,000 to 20,000 protesters, including Sharpton and King, descended on Jena — a town of about 3,000 — to protest how authorities handled the cases of the six charged in that beating.

There’s Jenas everywhere, Sharpton said Friday. Which is why you saw thousands of us come to Jena and why you see thousands of us come now.

No one has the ability to get people to come on a cold day like this if people weren’t feeling that they have been disenfranchised and been treated unfairly. Clearly, Jena resonates because people are familiar with the Jenas in their areas.

Prosecutors say that in order to file federal hate-crime charges, they must find that the crime was motivated by race, religion, or ethnicity and that it interfered with a federally protected right.

There have been many reports of nooses discovered in workplaces and near schools and outside the homes of African-Americans across the country, Lisa Krigsten, counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, acknowledged Wednesday in a conference call.

The Justice Department is committed to addressing these recent incidents, racially motivated threats and acts of violence, she said. There is no question that hanging a noose is a powerful symbol of hate and racially motivated violence. It has no place in the great country we live in.

Rep. Artur Davis, D- Alabama, and others involved in Friday’s rally say the Department of Justice charged 22 people last year with hate crimes, compared with 76 people 10 years ago.

The numbers weren’t great in the Reno years. They are outright abysmal now, Davis said, referring to the 1993-2001 tenure of Attorney General Janet Reno.

We either need stronger laws or we need a more aggressive commitment from the Department of Justice, he said.

In a fact sheet released Thursday, the Justice Department said its Civil Rights Division has set records and achieved notable successes in prosecuting defendants for civil rights violations.

It said 189 defendants had been convicted of civil rights violations in fiscal year 2007, the largest number ever in the history of the department, breaking the previous year’s record of 181 defendants convicted.

Meanwhile, the number of reported hate crimes has declined, according to the FBI.

In 2005, when the latest FBI figures were released, the bureau said that the number of hate crimes reported that year was the lowest in a decade.

Hate crimes are among several categories covered under the umbrella of civil rights violations. Others include human trafficking, official misconduct, interference with access to reproductive health care, interference with the exercise of religious beliefs and destruction of religious property.
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