| Report: Former Czech president Vaclav Havel has died Posted: 18 Dec 2011 03:23 AM PST PRAGUE (BNO NEWS) -- Former Czech president Vaclav Havel died on Sunday, local media reported sources as saying. He was 75. (Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.) 
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| US Troops Leave Iraq Posted: 18 Dec 2011 12:04 AM PST The last convoy of U.S. soldiers left Iraq and entered Kuwait Sunday.
The last of the vehicles filled with several hundred troops crossed the border at 7:38 a.m. - 0438 UTC - leaving behind just a couple hundred soldiers at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces ends nearly nine years of war, costing the lives of some 4,500 U.S. soldiers, tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars.
The war in Iraq began in 2003 with a "shock and awe" campaign to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.
At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Iraq at more than 500 bases. By Saturday, fewer than 3,000 U.S. troops remained.
Critics have chastised the U.S. for leaving behind a destroyed country with thousands of widows and orphans, a people deeply divided along sectarian lines, and without rebuilding much of the devastated infrastructure.
Prime Minister Nouri a-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government struggles with a power-sharing arrangement among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties.
U.S. President Barack Obama says the future of Iraq is "in the hands of its own people." Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. 
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| American Lori Berenson Prevented From Leaving Peru Posted: 17 Dec 2011 06:35 PM PST American Lori Berenson, who spent 15 years in prison in Peru for aiding Marxist insurgents, says she has been prevented from leaving the country despite being granted permission in court to spend the holidays in New York with her family.
Berenson said the authorities falsely accused her of arriving late for the Saturday flight. Her lawyer, Anibal Apari, said the government abused its authority.
Berenson, who is 42, was paroled last year after serving 15 years for aiding the Tupac Amaru leftist rebel group.
When she was arrested in 1995, the former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student was accused of helping the rebels plan an armed takeover of Congress, an attack that never happened.
A military court initially convicted Berenson and sentenced her to life in prison. The sentence was overturned in 2000 and Berenson was retried in a civilian court.
Berenson is a controversial figure in Peru. She has publicly apologized for collaborating with the rebel group, and said she was not a militant or a leader and did not participate in any violent acts.
In May 2009, Berenson gave birth to her son. Apari is the father. Apari spent 12-and-a-half years in prison for involvement with the rebels. Apari married Berenson in 2003 and had been allowed to see her in prison. The two are now separated. Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. 
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| Supporters Hail US Soldier Tied to WikiLeaks as Hero Posted: 17 Dec 2011 05:13 PM PST While a case against a young U.S. soldier blamed for leaking thousands of classified and sensitive official documents resumed in a military court Saturday, supporters gathered outside to hail him as a hero. The day was also Private First Class Bradley Manning's 24th birthday. Hundreds of protesters said they wanted to give Manning all the support they could, and marched along the base's gated compound where the hearing is taking place. Some drivers honked in support, while others rolled down their window yelling "traitor." But army veteran Ellen Barfield said Manning was a hero to many.
"People who have inside information that the public should know about and they disclose it, I consider heroes," she said. "We do not know if that is what Bradley Manning did but that is what he is accused of and a lot of us, all of us here, consider him a hero."
Cartoonist Seth Tobocman who was drawing new protest signs said Manning had continued to impress him since the hearings, expected to last about a week, began Friday.
"I can tell from seeing him in court that he is a strong guy and he should just stay strong and keep focused the way he is doing," Tobocman said. <!--IMAGE-RIGHT--> The hearings are to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring Manning to a military trial.
Manning, who was an intelligence analyst stationed in Baghdad, is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive items, including Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, which were then released on the WikiLeaks website. Charges range from the theft of records to allegedly aiding the enemy.
The U.S. government has also said the released information threatened military and diplomatic sources, while also straining relations with other governments.
Lawyers for Manning say they will argue much of the information posed no risk. Manning's court appearance Friday was his first in public after 19 months in detention.
One of the protest organizers, Jeff Paterson, from the organization Courage to Resist, called for continued engagement.
"We are going to do everything to free Bradley Manning, by supporting the legal team, by changing public opinion so people realize Bradley Manning is a true whistleblower, in every sense of the definition, in democracy both American and around the world," said Paterson.
His supporters say some of the leaked information inspired the Arab Spring protests which already toppled several authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East this year and led to the Occupy movements in the United States, which target corporate greed and inefficient governance.
Many of the protesters Saturday in Fort Meade were bused in from Occupy movements from different U.S. cities. They said the fight to free Bradley Manning was part of a larger movement, which they hoped would lead to what they called "an American Spring" in a few months. 
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| US Government Funding Wins Final Congressional Approval Posted: 17 Dec 2011 11:41 AM PST The U.S. Senate has voted to fund the federal government through September of next year, the final legislative action needed to avoid a threatened partial government shutdown. The congressional upper chamber also voted to extend a cut in taxes that fund Social Security, a federal program that provides income to retirees.
For most of the year, U.S. lawmakers follow political, and often partisan, imperatives when conducting the nation's business. But in late December, a different imperative emerges: a desire to wrap up legislation so that lawmakers can get home ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays. The end result is sudden and swift compromise, producing last-minute bills that get voted on with a minimum of debate, often before lawmakers even have a chance to fully read the legislation.
The Senate's top Democrat, Majority Leader Harry Reid, spoke Saturday moments before the chamber approved close to $1 trillion to fund the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year - a bill more than a thousand pages long.
"It was compromise. The omnibus [spending bill] - there are lots of things in that that I do not like. And I will bet you every senator here has things in that [bill] that they do not like. But that is the way we were able to bring this accomplishment that is important for the American people."
The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, agreed.
"In order to achieve something around here, you have got to compromise. What we have done here is craft a bill that is not designed to fail, but to pass."
The federal funding bill was approved 67 to 32, one day after it passed the House of Representatives.
The Senate also approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that boosts paychecks for 160 million Americans. Democrats had sought a full-year extension, to be paid for by a surtax on millionaires' income.
Republicans wanted no surtax, and a provision to speed White House consideration of a proposed oil pipeline from Canada. Business interests and labor unions back the project. Environmentalists oppose it. President Barack Obama sought to delay a final decision for a year.
In the end, the payroll tax cut was extended for two months, with a provision forcing the White House to either approve or reject the oil pipeline within 60 days.
Despite strong bipartisan backing for both bills, many lawmakers vented frustrations. Republican Senator John McCain accused his colleagues of putting their personal holiday schedules ahead of their duty to spend money wisely.
"We have just wasted billions and billions of taxpayers' money on projects that are unneeded, unwanted. It is outrageous. But never mind, because we are going to go home for Christmas."
From a different ideological perspective, independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont lamented spending reductions in programs that benefit the poor and vulnerable without asking sacrifice of America's wealthiest citizens.
"Once again, as we talk about deficit reduction, we are going to cut this program, we are going to cut that program. And yet the wealthy - millionaires and billionaires - are not going to be asked to pay one nickel more in taxes. I think that is wrong."
The House of Representatives is expected to take up the payroll tax cut in coming days.
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