Evening Edition

Nine policemen and four schoolchildren were among those killed by the attack in Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, not far from tribal areas that are a stronghold of the Taliban.

At least 110 people have been killed over the past week as militants step up their attacks across the country.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s 22-year-old son Sajjad Mohammadi Ashtiani was speaking by telephone to a news conference organised in Paris by the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

“Ramadan is coming to an end and, according to Islamic law, executions can resume,” the young man warned. The Islamic calendar varies a little around the world, but Ramadan is due to come to an end everywhere this week.

The government, opposition, and media were united in their deep scepticism over Sunday’s video declaration of a ceasefire in the ETA campaign, blamed for the deaths of 829 people over 42 years.

Three ETA members in berets and yellow hoods, sitting at a table against the background of ETA’s symbol of a snake curling around an axe, announced the halt to attacks in a video released Sunday.

Obama, under intense pressure over a sputtering economy ahead of November’s mid-term congressional elections, in which his Democrats fear heavy losses, was set to formally announce the new funding in a speech in Wisconsin.

The event, marking Labor Day, the traditional kick-off for US election campaigns, heralds a week in which Obama also travels to another struggling state, Ohio, and holds a press conference in a bid to ease his political woes.

Junichi Sato, 33, and Toru Suzuki, 43, were convicted of theft and trespass by the Aomori district court and were each sentenced to one-year jail terms, which were suspended for three years.

The two activists admit they stole a box of salted whale meat in 2008 but pleaded not guilty because they say they acted in the public interest to highlight alleged embezzlement in Japan’s whaling programme.

The Australian newspaper printed what it said was a photo of Mazhar Majeed, the London-based businessman who has been quizzed by police over the scandal, dining with several players at a Perth restaurant three weeks after the match.

The report comes after opening batsman Yasir Hameed claimed the Sydney Test, in which Australia recovered from almost certain defeat to record a rousing win, was fixed for illegal bookmaking syndicates.

“We are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads — that’s enough to circle the world six times… We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways — enough to stretch coast-to-coast,” Obama said.

Obama laid out the plan at a rousing labor rally where several thousand supporters cheered his every line, especially when he said the United States cannot have a strong economy without a strong middle class.

The recent bombings end a relative lull in militant violence over the past month and turn up the heat on a government overwhelmed by devastating floods that have made millions homeless and hammered the economy.

Nearly 100 people were killed last week in suicide bombings on processions of minority Shi’ite Muslims in the eastern city of Lahore and southwestern city of Quetta.

With the poll less than two weeks away, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission said it has already received 1,503 complaints, ranging from public resources being given to preferred candidates to interference by government officials.

Early signs for a smooth and fair process are not promising.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said an American service member was killed in an insurgent attack in the east on Sunday.

There has been a sharp increase in foreign military deaths, many of them American, as foreign troops launch more operations to counter a growing Taliban-led insurgency that has spread out of traditional strongholds in the south and east.

Party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa, challenging Kan in a party leadership election on September 14, has promised to put politicians, not bureaucrats, in charge of policies, but has also prompted worries about expanding Japan’s already huge debt.

Kan, in contrast, has built an image as a fiscal reformer since he took over in June as Japan’s fifth prime minister in three years, calling for debating a future increase in the 5 percent sales tax.

GOP leaders instantly assailed Obama’s proposal as an ineffective one that would simply raise already excessive federal spending. Many congressional Democrats are also likely to be reluctant to boost expenditures and increase federal deficits just weeks before elections that will determine control of Congress.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, cautioned, “If we are going to get anything done, Republican cooperation, which has been all but non-existent recently, will be necessary.”

In an unusual turn in the case, the lawyer also confirmed that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment meted out because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her. Under Iran’s clerical rule, women must cover their hair in public.

With the end of Ramadan this week, the mother of two could be executed “any moment,” said her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian.

Party delegates from all corners of North Korea were gathering in Pyongyang, state media said. Thousands practiced waving pink and red plastic flowers in a weekend rehearsal of celebrations at Kim Il Sung Square, China’s Xinhua news agency said.

The capital was festooned with posters urging North Koreans to “make this a festive event that will shine in the history of our country and people.” One North Korean professor told broadcaster Associated Press Television News the party meeting marked a “turning point” for the communist nation.

About 40 people were wounded in the attack in Lakki Marwat, which sits on the main road between Punjab province, Pakistan’s largest and most prosperous, and the North and South Waziristan tribal regions.

A Pakistani army offensive pushed many militants out of South Waziristan in October. The militants still control much of North Waziristan, where U.S. drone aircraft have been conducting a campaign of targeted killings.

Time and tides are conspiring to condemn the weathered old warrior to a fate two wars failed to inflict. Without a major refurbishment to its aging steel skin, the Olympia either will sink at its moorings on the Delaware River, be sold for scrap, or be scuttled for an artificial reef just off Cape May, N.J., about 90 miles south.

The 5,500-ton Olympia’s caretakers monitor every inch of its deteriorating lower hull and deck, already covered with hundreds of patches. Independent inspectors have concluded that the ship could decay to a point beyond saving within a few years if nothing is done.