Readwrotes Blog

By Scott Stearns Nouakchott, Mauritania 19 July 2009 " title="Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz speaks to journalists after casting his vote at a polling station in central Nouakchott, Mauritania, 18 Jul 2009 " src="http://www.voanews.com/english/images/AP-Mauritania-Mohamed-Ould-Abdel-Aziz-eng-210-18jul09.jpg" border="0" height="210" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="210"> Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz speaks to journalists after casting his vote at a polling station in central Nouakchott, Mauritania, 18 Jul 2009 Mauritania's former military leader has won election as president. Opposition candidates are rejecting the results of a vote meant to return the country to constitutional rule. Final results from Mauritania's electoral commission show former General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz winning more than half of the ballots cast - making...

By Paula Wolfson Washington 19 July 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama is stepping up his campaign for health-care reform as concerns rise in Congress about the cost and scope of various proposals before the legislature. US President Barack Obama (File) Reforming the nation's health-care system is a priority for the president. He says it is mandatory for the nation's long term economic health. "Even as we rescue this country from this crisis, I believe we have to rebuild an even better economy than we had before. That means finally controlling the health-care costs that are driving this nation into debt," he said. But the legislative process has proven extraordinarily difficult, with lawmakers squabbling over the size and cost of reform. Mr. Obama is stepping up the pressure with a series of direct appeals to the public and a formal press conference Wednesday, which is expected to be dominat...

By David Gollust New Delhi 19 July 2009 U.S.-Indian differences about dealing with global warming were on display Sunday as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began talks with Indian officials in New Delhi. India's environment minister said his country cannot accept binding limits on carbon emissions under a proposed global climate change treaty. The two governments say they want to see an agreement come out of the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. But comments by senior U.S. and Indian officials, after an informal meeting on the subject Sunday in a New Delhi suburb, make clear a wide gap remains between industrialized powers and major developing countries like India on how to deal with the problem. The Obama administration supports absolute reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by the industrialized nations, and wants emerging economies like India and China to slow the grow...

By Robert Berger Jerusalem 19 July 2009 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Israel's right-wing government has reacted angrily to fresh American criticism of Jewish settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a demand by the United States to halt a project to build apartments for Jews in disputed East Jerusalem. "United Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel," Mr. Netanyahu told the Cabinet, and he said, "Israeli sovereignty in the city is indisputable." The Prime Minister spoke after Israel's ambassador to Washington was summoned to the State Department and told that an East Jerusalem project financed by an American millionaire must be stopped. Mr. Netanyahu said Jews are entitled to live anywhere in Jerusalem. He said it would be an international scandal if Jews were not allowed to live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London or Par...

By VOA News 19 July 2009 Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette, STS-127 mission specialist, operates controls on the aft flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour during flight day two activities The astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station used a pair of robotic arms Sunday to install equipment ahead of Monday's spacewalk. Crew members Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn configured their space suits and tools, and reviewed procedures for further construction work. But crew members found their efforts were hampered when one of the space station's two toilets malfunctioned. As a result, crew members of the space shuttle Endeavour are restricted to using the shuttle's sole commode. Officials with the U.S. space agency, NASA, said the problem is not a big one, but could become serious if the toilet remains out of commission for more than a few days. Astronauts completed the first spacewalk ...

By VOA News 19 July 2009 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon surface Legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who landed on the moon 40 years ago Monday, says the United States should set its sights on a mission to Mars. Aldrin appeared on the television news program Fox News Sunday, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 's lunar landing. Aldrin said Mars appears to be a more suitable and habitable environment for human beings. He said he would like NASA to come up with a plan that does not abandon trips to the moon, but instead focuses on a mission to Earth's neighbor, the planet Mars. Former US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, holding picture of himself during the opening of an exhibition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing in Hong Kong Space Museum (File) Astronauts have not returned to the Earth's moon since 1972. Aldrin described the lunar surface as "magnificent desolation," ...

By VOA News 19 July 2009 A Pakistani homeless family fixes their damaged hut caused by heavy monsoon rainfall, at a slum in Hyderabad, Pakistan on Saturday, 18 July 2009 Heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan's south have killed at least 26 people and cut off electricity in the country's largest city, Karachi. The rainfall started Saturday and flooded areas of the port city. Officials say some of the victims died from drowning and electrocution. Others were killed by collapsing homes. The 15 centimeters of rainfall damaged hundreds of buildings and downed power lines across the city. Pakistani officials say they are working to restore electricity and control the situation. Despite the downpour, meteorologists are predicting almost a third less rainfall this year. Karachi suffers from outdated infrastructure and a poor drainage system that leaves parts of the city vulnerable to flooding. Some information for this r...

By Ayaz Gul Islamabad 19 July 2009 A civilian helicopter has crashed in Afghanistan, killing 16 people and injuring five others. The crash occurred as U.S. military officials condemned the Taliban's release of a video showing an American soldier captured in Afghanistan. NATO officials say a Russian-made helicopter came down soon after it took off from the Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan. But they have ruled out the involvement of insurgents in the incident. This is the second crash within the past week in Afghanistan, where international forces rely heavily on aircraft for cargo and transport flights. Growing insurgent attacks make it difficult for travel by road. A Russian MI-26 transport helicopter was reportedly shot down while it was ferrying supplies to a remote British base Tuesday in the southern Helmand Province. Six crew members died on board the aircraft. Meanwhile, a spokesman for ...

By Edward Yeranian Cairo 19 July 2009 Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asgar Soltanieh, says Tehran is "not limiting IAEA access to its nuclear sites, according to Iranian government TV. Iran's International Atomic Energy Agency envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, is denying a news report that Tehran is blocking the U.N. nuclear agency from "upgrading monitoring of its atomic activities." The Iranian News Network reports that Soltanieh accused the Associated Press of "distorting the facts." The AP, quoting diplomats in Vienna, reported Friday that Tehran "would have the means to test a (nuclear) weapon within six months," and that it is "resisting IAEA attempts to increase surveillance of its enrichment site (related to) its increased size and complexity." Soltanieh told the Iranian News Agency that Tehran is "allowing normal...

By VOA News 19 July 2009 The Chinese government says security forces shot dead 12 ethnic Uighurs during the deadly July 5 riots in the capital of western Xinjiang region. Xinjiang's governor, Nuer Baikeli, told reporters that three Uighurs died on the spot and nine died on the way to a hospital, or during hospital treatment. Such acknowlegments by Chinese officials are rare. " alt="Uighur ethnic minority man puts on his prosthetic leg as Chinese Paramilitary police patrol a street in Urumqi, China, 16 Jul 2009 " src="http://www.voanews.com/english/images/AP-Uighur-ethnic-minority-man-puts-on-his-prosthetic-leg-as-Chinese-Paramilitary-police-patrol-a-street-in-Urumqi-eng-210-16jul09.jpg" border="0" height="210" hspace="2" vspace="2" width="210"> Uighur ethnic minority man puts on his prosthetic leg as Chinese Paramilitary police patrol a ...

By VOA News 19 July 2009 U.S. government officials say the Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle high-value terror suspects. CIA headquarters in Virginia, VOA TV Officials told two major U.S. newspapers The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post about the creation of the unit on the condition of anonymity, saying the government task force on interrogation methods has not yet reported to the president. Officials say the unit's primary purpose would be intelligence gathering, rather than building criminal cases for prosecution. The team would also devise new interrogation methods. Officials say the task force has not yet determined what agency should run the new unit, but it will not be the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA headed up interrogations under the Bush administration. The small, specialized unit would be composed of personnel from the...