Evening Edition

A Council of Europe report accuses Thaci of heading a group within the ethnic-Albanian guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which fought Serbia in 1998 and 1999, that set up a network of unofficial prisons in Albania.

It alleges one of Thaci’s allies operated a ring for the “forcible extraction of human organs for the purposes of trafficking” from the prisoners, mainly Serbs.

The report, by Swiss Council of Europe deputy Dick Marty, accuses Thaci of being in charge of a group within the ethnic-Albanian guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that set up a network of unofficial prisons in Albania.

The report alleges that one of Thaci’s allies operated a ring for the “forcible extraction of human organs for the purposes of trafficking” from prisoners, mainly Serbs.

They included senior allies of President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga, now his prime minister in a power-sharing government brokered to end the unrest.

Those named include Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, sacked education minister William Ruto — a declared candidate for the 2012 presidential election — and former police chief Mohammed Hussein Ali.

President Mwai Kibaki reacted defensively after ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo Moreno-Ocampo said in The Hague that the six suspects were “the most responsible” for the violence that claimed 1,500 lives.

Kibaki made clear that the suspects should continue to be considered innocent and reiterated his government’s determination to set up a special tribunal locally to deal with the case.

The United States and United Nations led international condemnation of the attack, which Iran said originated from a Jundallah (Army of God) base in neighbouring Pakistan.

Chabahar Prefect Ali Bateni said “33 people were killed and another 83 wounded” in what was the worst attack recorded against Shiite ceremonies.

“According to the latest casualty toll, 38 people were killed and 50 wounded by the blast which struck near Farmandari Square among worshippers who were taking part in a procession,” the official, Mahmoud Mozafar, told the ILNA news agency.

“An individual walked up to some Red Crescent ambulances and blew himself up,” Mozafar added.

While the highly lethal technique used on the man known as the “Berlin Patient” would not work for most of the 33 million people with HIV worldwide, scientists say the research shows important progress toward a universal cure.

“Our results strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient,” said the study in the peer-reviewed journal Blood, a publication of the American Society of Hematology.

The Soyuz TMA-20 rocket, with a Russian, an Italian and an American aboard, took off in the night sky at 10:09 pm Moscow time (1909 GMT).

It lifted off on schedule from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, spitting out a plume of fire and smoke and disappearing into the star-lit sky, an AFP correspondent reported.

Berlusconi won with a razor-thin majority, with 314 lawmakers voting in his favour, 311 against and two abstentions in the 630-seat lower house.

“I didn’t just survive, I’m strong,” Berlusconi said, adding however that enacting much-needed structural reforms would now be “more difficult.”

The 39-year-old Australian had given a thumbs-up to the packed courtroom in London as the judge granted him conditional bail, one week after being arrested at the request of Swedish authorities.

But two hours later, lawyers for Swedish prosecutors announced that they would appeal the ruling, meaning the case will now go to Britain’s high court and a new hearing must be heard within 48 hours.

Ouattara has been recognised as winner of last month’s election by the UN and the international community, but previous leader Laurent Gbagbo has also declared himself president and has kept command of the army and ministries.

There were signs Tuesday the dangerous two-week-old stand-off was coming to a head, with Ouattara’s camp urging supporters to engage in “peaceful combat” to take charge of state television and the Abidjan seat of government.

This year is no different: the bundle of small logs in front of the fireplace in Sandra’s suburban home is not a treat meant as a decorative festive Christmas blaze, but is there to keep warm.

The red and green china on a small table in the living room stand idly stacked, as if realizing they are not being readied for a special occasion.

The news came at a bad moment for Spain, battling speculation on world markets that it may slide into a European debt quagmire which has engulfed Greece and Ireland and threatens Portugal.

A rescue for Spain would be far bigger than anything seen to date in Europe: the size of its economy is twice that of Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined.

The lawsuit seeks damages from BP, Transocean Ltd, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd unit MOEX and Transocean’s insurer QBE Underwriting/Lloyd’s Syndicate 1036, part of Lloyds of London, for their roles in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The lawsuit did not name Halliburton, which did the cementing for the Macondo Well, or Cameron International which provided equipment for the well, but the Justice Department said its investigation was continuing and more defendants and charges could be added later.

Moody’s said it was worried about Spain’s high debt funding needs, its heavily indebted banks and its regional finances, but it did not expect Madrid would have to follow Greece and Ireland in seeking an EU bailout.

The Portuguese government announced moves to cut red tape and boost growth, and said it would soon adopt quarterly fiscal targets, part of a broad effort to convince EU officials and financial markets it does not need a bailout.

The Senate passed the legislation in a 81 to 19 vote. The drama now moves to the House of Representatives, where many of Obama’s fellow Democrats strongly oppose the measure as favoring the wealthy and are still angry with him for cutting the deal with Republicans without them.

The House will start debate on the tax deal on Thursday, a senior Democratic aide said. Most of the 255 House Democrats may oppose the package, but it is expected to be approved with overwhelming support among the chamber’s 179 Republicans.

“We hope that we will be able to conclude today with a series of robust outcomes that will show constituencies in both of our countries that we can and have solved problems for the good of both of our countries,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at the start of a meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT).

“Since the last JCCT session, China and the United States have taken a constructive, cooperative attitude and worked hard on resolving matters of concern to each side,” said Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who heads a delegation of nearly 100 Chinese officials in town for the meeting.

The website of the Swedish prosecutors’ office, which was behind Assange’s arrest in London, again came under cyber attack during the night and was out of action for around 12 hours, spokeswoman Karin Rosander said.

The site was targeted last week along with organizations such as Visa and MasterCard that Internet activists believe have obstructed WikiLeaks.

In two other resolutions, the 15-nation council also wound up the controversial oil-for-food program for Iraq and set June 30, 2011, to end all immunities protecting Baghdad from claims related to the period when former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was in power.

“The adoption of these important resolutions marks the beginning of the end of the sanctions regime and restriction on Iraq’s sovereignty, independence and recovery,” Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told the council.

The U.S. review of President Barack Obama’s Afghan war strategy has identified areas of important progress, the White House said, with the decision a year ago to send 30,000 extra troops helping to arrest the Taliban’s momentum.

That may help to allow some U.S. troops to begin withdrawing from July next year, as Obama promised when he announced the extra troops last December.

The United States and other countries are worried that China, which controls 97 percent of the world trade in rare earth metals, will use those supplies as a political weapon and cut back their export when it is in a dispute with another country or to grow China’s clean energy technology sector.

“The availability of a number of these materials is at risk due to their location, vulnerability to supply disruptions and lack of suitable substitutes,” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a report, due to be unveiled on Wednesday at a rare earth metals conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan pushed through the 85 billion euros package with the support of independent MPs and told the center-right Fine Gael party that its proposals to lean on senior bondholders would fail because of opposition from the European Central Bank.

“Those who think we can unilaterally renege on senior bondholders against the wishes of the ECB are living in fantasy land,” he said.

Backed by strong retail sales that rose for the fifth straight month in November, the poll showed expectations U.S. consumers will step up demand, prompting a wave of upgraded forecasts for economic growth there.

By contrast, economists kept a somber growth outlook for the euro zone and Britain, both in fiscal retreat, while in Japan they predicted a brief and sharp contraction in the current quarter followed by modest growth thereafter.

In a statement that emphasized job market weakness and low inflation, the Fed characterized the U.S. expansion as “continuing,” a modest upgrade from its November description of the recovery as “slow.”

“The economic recovery is continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring down unemployment,” the Fed said in a statement at the conclusion of a one-day meeting.

Obama’s first two years in office have been characterized by conflict with companies over policies ranging from his controversial healthcare law to financial regulation reform.

When Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives to Republicans in the November elections, a chastened Obama promised to would work harder to reach out to the business community, an important constituent in his drive to boost the economy.

However, the agency said it did not expect Madrid to have to resort to a European Union bailout as Greece and Ireland have.

“Moody’s does not believe that Spain’s solvency is under threat and in its base case assumptions does not expect the Spanish government to have to ask for EFSF liquidity support,” Moody’s lead analyst on Spain Kathrin Muehlbronner said.

Advocates of this approach argue bank holding companies relied too heavily on their insured banking units as a source of capital strength during the 2007-2009 financial crisis, leading to government bailouts.

The rule proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and other banking regulators on Tuesday would set a uniform risk-based capital floor across the banking industry, but will not necessarily spark any capital raising in the short term.

The top electronics chain, seen as a bellwether in consumer electronics, surprised investors by reporting a drop in quarterly sales at existing stores and lower-than-expected earnings on Tuesday as demand for top-of-the-line televisions plunged. Its shares tumbled 14.8 percent.

The dismal report also pressured the shares of competitors such as RadioShack Corp and GameStop Corp, television manufacturers such as Sony Corp and television components makers such as Corning Inc, and raised concerns about holiday demand for gadgets.

The Obama administration’s lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the oil spill, including damages to natural resources. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.

“We intend to prove these violations caused or contributed to the massive oil spill,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a news conference.

Hundreds of riot police outside the Kievsky station in central Moscow hauled into police vans mostly young men and teenagers who were shouting racist slogans and raising their hands in Nazi salutes. Some were lined up against buses and searched by police. Officers confiscated an arsenal of weapons, including traumatic guns, knives and metal bars, police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said.

Police rounded up about 60 protesters in St. Petersburg, where radical groups also planned a gathering Wednesday.

The council also decided to return control of Iraq’s oil and natural gas revenue to the government next summer and to settle all remaining claims over the controversial oil-for-food program, which helped ordinary Iraqis cope with sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait two decades ago.

Although some sanctions will remain in place until Iraq and Kuwait settle outstanding issues from that war, Wednesday’s vote was a major step to restore Iraq’s international standing a year before the U.S. is to pull its last troops out of the country. It came a day after a power-sharing agreement ended a lengthy deadlock on forming a new Iraqi government.

Within moments of the 81-19 Senate vote, President Barack Obama urged the House to follow suit without making any changes – a slap at rebellious liberals working to stiffen the terms of an estate tax provision they characterize as a giveaway to millionaires and billionaires.

“I know there are different aspects of this plan to which members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, object,” Obama said. “That’s the nature of compromise. But we worked hard to negotiate an agreement that’s a win for middle-class families and a win for our economy. And we can’t afford to let it fall victim to either delay or defeat.”

The attacks are unlikely to derail the measure, which now goes to the House after the Senate passed it Wednesday, 81-19. But they underscore the difficulty of building centrist coalitions after an election in which tea party conservatives ousted many Democrats and some veteran Republicans who were seen as too willing to compromise with opponents.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and the Tea Party Patriots have denounced the tax plan, which previously was criticized mainly by liberals as a giveaway to the wealthy. The new reproach from conservatives is that the package would swell the federal debt while failing to make permanent the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 by then-President George W. Bush.

The closely watched session represents something of a reset for the president as he seeks common ground with a business community that has bristled over the administration’s approach to health care, financial regulations and executives’ bonuses.

With unemployment at 9.8 percent and weak home prices and tight credit placing a drag on growth, the president was looking to shake loose more than $1.9 trillion in untapped corporate cash to help the recovery.

But don’t count on the president to reprise the “fat cat” scolding he gave bankers a year ago. No, this is not a woodshed moment.

For Obama and the business sector, Wednesday’s meeting is a wary embrace.

The treaty “will enable American teams to return to Russia to collect data on the Russian arsenal and verify Russian compliance. These inspections greatly reduce the possibility that we will be surprised by Russian nuclear deployments or advancements,” said Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee who spoke for the treaty before Democrats took their turn.

U.S. weapons inspections ended a year ago with the expiration of the 1991 arms control treaty.

A study published online Wednesday rejects the often used concept of a “tipping point,” or point of no return, when it comes to sea ice and the big bear that has become the symbol of climate change woes. The study optimistically suggests that if the world dramatically changed its steadily increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, a total loss of critical summer sea ice for the bears could be averted.

Another research group projects that even if global warming doesn’t slow – a more likely near-future scenario – a thin, icy refuge for the bears would still remain between Greenland and Canada.

The attack, which also wounded 90 people, took place outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in the port city of Chahbahar, near the border with Pakistan, the official IRNA news agency said.

The bombers targeted a group of worshippers at a mourning ceremony a day before Ashoura, which commemorates the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints.

What’s a parent, or a Santa, to do when the obligatory Christmas photo op goes terrifyingly off the rails?

Fernando Martin remembers the moment well. Son Xandro was stunned into silence during his first visit to the Jolly One at age 21 months near home in Lancaster, Pa.

“They put up this tiny house with just Santa, an assistant and a heater,” dad recalled. “He got spooked. Santa offered him chocolates. He did not take them.”

One of Ford Motor Co.’s most popular vehicles, the Explorer also looks less truckish for 2011, with new styling that’s more like a crossover SUV than an upright, squared-off truck.

There are many new Explorer features, too, including inflatable rear seatbelts that are a first in a production vehicle. They’re a $120 option, available later in the model year.

Colleges have long extended library hours and offered extra counseling around test time. Now they’re adopting quirky stress-fighting events for students, who face a tough job market in addition to finishing up the semester. From dog visits to free midnight massages to laser tag, students are getting help navigating those last days before turning in final papers and taking finals.

“I hope these puppies make me happy and give me a nice break between studying … just cut the studying a little bit,” 19-year-old Tufts freshman Chloe Wong said Tuesday, petting an Australian shepherd brought in by her resident director.

Winemakers must harvest the grapes under precisely the right weather conditions and extract the high-sugar juice before they thaw. The slightest variation in temperature can doom an entire crop, but vintners skilled in the process can charge $4 per ounce or more.

Some winemakers now aim to make the beverage less expensive by limiting the uncertainty that can drive up the price. They harvest the grapes earlier in the fall and age them in freezers that simulate the chill takes place under ideal outdoor conditions. They say the technique leads to ice wine that’s less expensive and more consistent in flavor.