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NITED NATIONS – The outspoken U.N. General Assembly president on Tuesday accused the United States of demonizing Iran's president and criticized the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant for Sudan's leader on war crimes charges in Darfur. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Roman Catholic priest from Nicaragua with openly leftist views, also reiterated that the more he thinks about the conditions that Israel imposes on the Palestinians, the more he tends "to think about apartheid." During a wide-ranging press conference, d'Escoto insisted he wasn't being divisive or promoting his own agenda — but was just fulfilling his duty as...

SAN FRANCISCO - -- The NAACP filed lawsuits Friday against two banks, alleging they discriminated against African Americans by using racist practices in mortgage lending. The class actions against Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, and Illinois-based HSBC claim that black home owners were more than 30 percent likely to be issued a higher interest rate than white borrowers with the same qualifications. They say the banks used institutionalized, systematic racism against African Americans. "These banks have a pattern of charging black people more, even though they have good credit, good assets and good incomes," NAACP President and CEO Benjamin...

A senior Vatican official on Saturday attacked US President Barack Obama for "arrogance" for overturning a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas. It is "the arrogance of someone who believes they are right, in signing a decree which will open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life," Archbishop Rino Fisichella was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera daily.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton called rival Barack Obama a risky choice to lead U.S. foreign policy even as Obama gained ground on her in the battleground U.S. state of Ohio on Monday. In a foreign policy speech, Clinton said Obama had veered between pledging to meet leaders of hostile nations like Iran and Cuba if elected in November to warning of U.S. military action against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. "He wavers from seeming to believe that mediation and meetings without preconditions can solve the world's intractable problems, to advocating rash, unilateral military action without cooperation...

President Hugo Chavez on Friday accused neighboring Colombia of plotting a military attack against his government with US support. "A military aggression against Venezuela is being prepared" by Colombia, Chavez said. He warned Colombia not to attempt "a provocation against Venezuela" and said his country would cut off all oil exports if there is a military strike.

SACRAMENTO -- A complaint filed with state ethics officials Tuesday accused Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez of using a charity to illegally funnel donations into political activities. The complaint cites more than $270,000 that Nuñez solicited in 2005 and 2006 from corporations, utilities and other interests with a stake in legislation to pay for toy giveaways, scholarships, youth summits and other events that featured Nuñez and were arranged by his staff. The donations were the subject of a Times investigation in November, which showed how a small charity -- Collective Space -- in Nuñez's downtown Los Angeles district wrote checks at...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday accused Senate Republicans of holding up passage of a new state budget to tie up the Legislature and prevent approval of legislation that would reduce the number of Californians without health insurance. "There are people out there ... (who) want to hang on to the status quo," the Republican governor told a televised health-care forum held in eight cities. "There are politicians in Sacramento who are holding up the budget so they don't have to go into health care reform. "So let your legislators know how you really feel about health care reform, how much...

MANALAPAN, Fla. (Associated Press) -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday renewed his criticism of Israel's military offensive in Lebanon, calling it a "new Holocaust." Chavez's comments in his weekly radio and TV broadcast came three days after he said he was recalling Venezuela's top diplomat to Israel to express his government's indignation over Israeli attacks in Lebanon and its actions toward Palestinians. "Israel has gone mad," Chavez said. "They are massacring children, and no one knows how many are buried," he added, accusing Israel of being guilty of a "new Holocaust" and the "terrorist" U.S. government of complicity. Israel's Foreign Ministry...

PM accuses Pakistan over Mumbai bombs Randeep Ramesh in Delhi Friday July 14, 2006 The Guardian (UK) One of the trains targeted in the attacks on Mumbai rail network. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images India's prime minister pointed the finger of blame for the blasts in Mumbai across the border to Pakistan today, saying that promises to rein in terrorism had not been kept and effectively stalling the peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Manmohan Singh, who was in Mumbai to console survivors of Tuesday's train explosions, which killed 198 people, said Pakistan's failure to clamp down on bombers had endangered...

Speaking at Saturday's opening session of the National Council of La Raza convention, former U.S. President Bill Clinton accused the Republican Party of using the immigration issue to divide Congress and the nation. "It is a way of creating a divided community and distracting people from the real challenges facing the country, whether it is in Iraq and Afghanistan, or homeland security, or how to build a clean energy future, or how to solve the healthcare crisis, or how to create new jobs for America," Clinton told one of the nation's largest Latino civil rights groups in Los Angeles Saturday...

SAN BERNARDINO -- A group of Latino activists on Monday delivered a letter to the Mexican Consulate, urging the administration of President Vicente Fox to stop using federal funds for partisan political purposes. The National Alliance for Human Rights, a Riverside-based immigrant rights network, gave the letter to Mexican Consul Carlos Giralt Cabrales, who promised to forward it to his superiors in Mexico. The two-page letter accuses the federal government and the Fox administration of spending public money to support the candidacy of Felipe Calderon, who is hoping to succeed Fox in the July 2 presidential election. From his D...

Solzhenitsyn accuses the West of plotting to surround and undermine Russia By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 29/04/2006) Alexander Solzhenitsyn has accused the United States of launching a military campaign to encircle Russia and turn it into a Nato chattel. The Nobel laureate also delivered his strongest endorsement yet of President Vladimir Putin, surprising Kremlin critics who argue that the country is growing more authoritarian. Replying in writing to questions from the weekly Moscow News, the 87-year-old former Soviet dissident said military action by the United States in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan underlined the menace to Russian sovereignty. "Though...

US accuses Venezuela over attack Motorcyclists chased the convoy for at least 10 minutes The US has accused city officials of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, of complicity in an attack on the car of US Ambassador William Brownfied. The ambassador's convoy was pelted with eggs, onions and tomatoes and chased by motorbikes for some miles by supporters of President Hugo Chavez. US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said the attack had been condoned by the city government. However, the mayor's office in Caracas denied any involvement in the incident. The BBC's Greg Morbasch in Caracas said Mr Brownfield is...

Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders By Harry de Quetteville in Baghouz (Filed: 29/10/2005) Syria has accused the United States of launching lethal military raids into its territory from Iraq, escalating the diplomatic crisis between the two countries as the Bush administration seeks to step up pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime. Concern: A Syrian soldier looks across at Iraqi border Major General Amid Suleiman, a Syrian officer, said that American cross-border attacks into Syria had killed at least two border guards, wounded several more and prompted an official complaint to the American embassy in Damascus....

Watchdog Group Accuses Sen. Florez of Extensive Election Law Violations Including Questionable Payments to Wife Thu Oct 13, 1:43 PM ET To: State Desk Contact: Ken Boehm of NLPC, 703-237-1970; Web: http://www.nlpc.org Dean Florez WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a formal complaint filed Wednesday with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a national ethics watchdog group detailed scores of violations of California's Political Reform Act by State Senator Dean Florez of Shafter. Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which filed the complaint, said, "Sen. Florez has filed campaign reports riddled with errors and...

NEW YORK (AP) - Investigators have concluded that the former chief of the Iraq oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, took kickbacks under the $64 billion humanitarian operation and refused to cooperate with their probe, his lawyer said Thursday. While the amount of money Sevan allegedly took wasn't immediately known - and may be as little as $160,000 - the findings would be a major blow because of his stature in the organization and the control he had over it. The program was one of the largest in history. The Independent Inquiry Committee had planned to release its findings about Sevan on...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts Institute of Technology literary scholar said he regrets failing to credit some passages in his biography of the poet E.E. Cummings, but denied charges of plagiarism. An article in the Harper's magazine issue scheduled to arrive at newsstands Tuesday accuses Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno of "wholesale borrowing" from the 1980 book "Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E.E. Cummings," by Richard S. Kennedy. Sawyer-Laucanno's book, "E.E. Cummings, A Biography," was published last fall. He said in Monday's Boston Globe that he regrets what he called an oversight in documenting his sources, but insisted the mistakes...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office warned two Riverside County Indian tribes that they were violating state gambling compacts by operating games that look and play like slot machines. Peter Siggins, the governor's legal affairs secretary, wrote in Nov. 4 letters to the Morongo and Pechanga bands that their video lottery terminals were "virtually indistinguishable from slot machines" and unauthorized under the gambling deals. Even if they were permitted, he argued, the number currently in use would increase the tribes' total gaming devices beyond the legal maximum. He accused the Morongo tribe of operating at least 225 of the...

NEW YORK - Staking out new ground on Iraq (news - web sites), Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said Monday he would not have overthrown Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had he been in the White House, and he accused President Bush (news - web sites) of "stubborn incompetence," dishonesty and colossal failures of judgment. Bush said Kerry was flip-flopping. Less than two years after voting to give Bush authority to invade Iraq, the Democratic candidate said the president had misused that power by rushing to war without the backing of allies, a post-war plan or proper...