Evening Edition

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) gave Ante Gotovina 24 years and co-accused Mladen Markac 18 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity but acquitted third defendant Ivan Cermak.

The court infuriated Zagreb by backing the prosecution claim of a “joint criminal enterprise” with late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, aimed at driving Croatian Serbs out of their “ancestral homelands” in the western Krajina region.

“The council of judges established today that the Croatian state leadership acted in a joint criminal enterprise against international law and UN conventions… For the government of Croatia this is unacceptable,” Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said in a first reaction to the ruling.

Ante Gotovina, the highest-ranking Croat to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was sentenced to 24 years in jail while co-accused Mladen Markac got 18 years.

Heavy gunfire and shelling could be heard in Misrata, with sustained exchanges near the centre before nightfall, an AFP photographer reported.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers reported the use of internationally banned cluster bomb munitions against the city.

In an open-top 4×4, Kadhafi, sporting shades and a hunting hat, hailed bystanders with clenched fists on Thursday.

“God, Libya, Moamer and no one else,” supporters chanted as loud explosions rocked the Bab al-Aziziya neighbourhood home to Kadhafi’s residence and a base for most foreign journalists in the capital.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama vowed they would “not rest until the UN…resolutions have been implemented”, in a joint article published in several international newspapers.

“It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government,” the article, which appeared in the London Times, The Washington Post and French daily Le Figaro, continued.

As human rights activists spoke of repression in some places on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the government to halt the violence, while state news agency SANA said most demonstrations had gone off peacefully.

Demonstrators took to the streets of the restive city of Daraa as well as other centres in the Kurdish-populated north, a day after President Bashar al-Assad unveiled a new government.

The meeting took place almost a year since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and caused millions of gallons of oil to gush into the sea.

Diane Wilson, a shrimp farmer from the Texas Gulf Coast smeared her face and hands with a dark syrup resembling oil as she protested outside the annual general meeting (AGM) venue in east London.

Roger Vangheluwe told Belgian television that he abused one nephew for 13 years and another for nearly 12 months — but that there was “no penetration” and that he didn’t “in the slightest” think he was a paedophile.

Days after church bosses ordered Vangheluwe to undergo “spiritual and psychological treatment” in a French hide-out, identified by media as La Ferte-Imbault in the wine-rich Loire Valley, Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme laid into remarks he said “go beyond the boundary of what is acceptable.”

The mutiny broke out late Thursday in two barracks, including one in the compound of Compaore’s residence in Ouagadougou, and spread on Friday morning to three other army bases in the capital, mutineers and army officers said.

Both sides told AFP that they were holding talks on on the grievances of the soldiers, which included housing and food allowances. Light and heavy gunfire was heard in the early hours and resumed in late morning.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it would give an initial one million yen ($12,000) to each family living around the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi power station.

“We have decided to offer necessary payment as provisional compensation so that we can provide as much support as possible,” TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu told a news conference.

The 23-year-old German, the reigning world champion, has been the dominant force in the opening two races of the year, winning in Australia and Malaysia from pole position.

He again stayed ahead of the field at the Shanghai International Circuit, leading Australian teammate Mark Webber by six-tenths of a second in morning practice.

The largest U.S. bank lost more than $2.39 billion in its home loan business as revenue fell and expenses rose. The foreclosure mess that began in the fourth quarter of 2010, with borrowers accusing major banks of repossessing homes without having the right paperwork in place, was a key source of higher costs in the quarter.

BofA also named Chief Risk Officer Bruce Thompson as its new chief financial officer, becoming the sixth new CFO in seven years. The current CFO, Charles “Chuck” Noski, is stepping aside after less than a year in the post due to a serious family illness.

Analysts estimate the largest U.S. bank will report net income of $2.9 billion, or 27 cents per share, down from $3.2 billion, or 28 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2010, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Bank of America’s results come two days after rival JPMorgan Chase & Co — the second largest U.S. bank by assets — reported weaker consumer lending and more than $1 billion in added costs for servicing mortgages due, in part, to a settlement with bank regulators over problems in the industry’s foreclosure practices.

The euro zone joined the rapidly developing economies this month in raising interest rates to counter mounting price pressures.

In contrast, the Federal Reserve has shown no appetite to raise U.S. rates before unemployment has declined further and until the sluggish recovery is on a firmer footing. As a result the Fed’s super-cheap money is taking some of the blame for fueling the commodity boom that is adding to inflation pressures elsewhere.

The United States and Pakistan have an uneasy alliance as U.S. soldiers fight the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan and the fragile government in Islamabad faces internal threats from Islamist militants and anti-American sentiment.

The case of a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis sent anger boiling and threatened the CIA’s campaign of aerial drone strikes against militants hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Matthew H. Kluger, 50, will be subject to home confinement and electronic monitoring as part of the bail conditions, according to a judge’s order on Friday in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.

Kluger and stock trader Garrett D. Bauer were arrested last week, charged with participating in an insider-trading conspiracy. Prosecutors say the purported scheme spanned 17 years and said on Friday it netted at least $37 million in profits, higher than earlier estimates.

Obama and the leaders of France and Britain earlier jointly authored a newspaper article in which they pledged to continue the military campaign until Gaddafi leaves power, effectively making regime change the officially-stated aim of their air war.

“I didn’t expect that in three weeks, suddenly as a consequence of an air campaign, that Gaddafi would necessarily be gone,” Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press. “What we’ve been able to do is set up a no-fly zone, set up an arms embargo, keep Gaddafi’s regime on its heels, make it difficult for them to resupply.”

They were wrong.

The disaster that captivated the world’s attention for 153 days struck at 9:53 p.m. CDT on April 20, when a surge of methane gas known to rig hands as a “kick” sparked an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig as it was drilling the mile-deep Macondo 252 well off Louisiana’s coast. Two days later, the rig sank.

Unlike bank safe-deposit operations that require box holders to show identification, some private safe-deposit companies offer anonymous rentals of boxes and vaults and require customers to pay annual rental fees, which can run into the thousands of dollars, in cash.

“You’re entitled to some privacy in your life. This is what I offer you,” said Elliot Skaikin, owner of 24/7 Private Vaults in Las Vegas. “If I had a choice between trusting my bank and trusting my attorney, I wouldn’t trust either one of them.”

Britain and France are urging other NATO allies to provide more planes capable of hitting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s ground forces after Washington cut back its role in the operation and passed command onto NATO on March 31.

“We have got indications that nations will deliver what is needed … I’m hopeful that we will get the necessary assets in the very near future,” Rasmussen told a news conference at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin.

The push comes as France and Britain, which are leading the campaign in Libya, struggle to get coalition partners to step up participation or contribute more hardware, despite pleas from rebels that civilians are dying in the besieged city of Misrata.

The United States and European NATO allies rebuffed French and British calls on Thursday to contribute more actively to ground strikes in Libya, and military sources say neither Paris nor London plan to deploy any extra aircraft.

A doctor in Libya’s third-biggest city, the rebels’ last major enclave in the west of the country, told Al Jazeera at least eight people had been killed by the latest assault. Women and the elderly were among those wounded, he added.

Residents told the television network that government forces had launched more than a hundred rockets into the city, hitting residential areas.

China’s gross domestic product increased by 9.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, down from 9.8 percent in the final three months of 2010 but ahead of an expected 9.5 percent pace.

Consumer price inflation sped to 5.4 percent in the year to March, the fastest since July 2008 and topping market forecasts for a 5.2 percent increase.

The nonbinding plan lays out a fiscal vision cutting $6.2 trillion from yearly federal deficits over the coming decade and calls for transforming Medicare from a program in which the government directly pays medical bills into a voucher-like system that subsidizes purchases of private insurance plans

The GOP budget passed 235-193 with every Democrat voting “no.” Obama said in an Associated Press interview that it would “make Medicare into a voucher program. That’s something that we strongly object to.”

Pushed to the brink, Obama said, the two parties would find “a smart compromise.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama also took pains to promote his long-term plan to cuts trillions of dollars from federal deficits as a fairer, more compassionate alternative to a Republican plan that surged to party-line passage Friday afternoon in the House.

Misrata has become emblematic of the limits of NATO’s air campaign, with the alliance’s top military commander saying he needs more precision attack aircraft to avoid civilian casualties in urban combat. President Barack Obama acknowledged in an interview that the two-month-old civil war has reached a stalemate.

After a weeklong flurry of high-level diplomatic meetings in Europe and the Middle East, rebel leaders complained that the international community is not doing enough to keep Gadhafi’s troops at bay. In the capital of Tripoli, a government official denied Libyan troops are shelling Misrata and said they are only taking defensive actions.

So far, the spike in such necessities hasn’t stopped businesses from stepping up hiring or slowed factory production, which rose in March for the ninth straight month. Still, higher gas prices have led some economists to lower their forecasts for growth for the January-March quarter.

Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Nearly all of the gains came from pricier gas and food.

The reasons blacks stayed away are not exactly a mystery: Across Dixie, Civil War commemorations have tended to celebrate the Confederacy and the battlefield exploits of those who fought for the slaveholding South.

But the National Park Service is trying to make anniversary events over the next four years more hospitable to black people.

As the tea party turns 2, the still-gelling field of Republican presidential contenders is the first class of White House hopefuls to try to figure out how to tap the movement’s energy without alienating voters elsewhere on the political spectrum.

Look no further than this weekend’s events marking the tea party’s second anniversary to see how the candidates are employing different strategies. Some will be out front as the tea party stages tax day rallies across the country. Others, not so much.

The violence outside of Damascus was the only major unrest reported during protests in several Syrian cities Friday, with security forces generally watching from the sidelines instead of cracking down. The change suggests President Bashar Assad may be trying to minimize deaths that have served to further outrage and mobilize the protesters.

More than 200 people have been killed in the government crackdown in the past four weeks, according to Syria’s main pro-democracy group. There were no reports of live ammunition fired directly at protesters Friday.

Michele Ferrari was cleared in 2006 of criminal charges accusing him of distributing doping products to athletes, but he remains barred for life by the Italian Cycling Federation.

Italian authorities suspect Ferrari of continuing to work with 20 to 30 top level cyclists despite his ban, including Armstrong, and are actively pursuing that line of investigation, the law enforcement official said. Padua prosecutor Benedetto Roberti ordered raids Thursday across Italy involving cyclists believed to have ties to Ferrari. Italian riders who work with the doctor risk bans of three to six months.

It’s the “O” factor. Obama, Ocampo, Odinga – they all share the distinctive first letter of members of the Luo tribe in Kenya, and some in this East African nation believe that the three are brothers in a conspiracy to see six suspects convicted at Ocampo’s Hague-based court so that Odinga can become president in the land where Obama’s father was born.

Though the conspiracy is fanciful, it has traction among those who believe the ICC suspects, who are charged with orchestrating Kenya’s 2007-08 postelection violence, are being unfairly prosecuted. Analysts warn that if such stereotypes are allowed to gain momentum, the chances of tribe-on-tribe violence rises.

The Charlotte, N.C. bank on Friday said it earned $1.7 billion, or 17 cents per share, compared with $2.8 billion, or 28 cents a share in the first quarter of last year. The earnings fell short of the 28 cents a share estimated by analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue fell to $26.9 billion from $32 billion in the same period last year.

But that would be a radical change for the Federal Aviation Administration. Current regulations forbid sleeping at work, even during breaks. Controllers who are caught can be suspended or fired.

Experts say that kind of thinking is outdated.

The deal was announced in a joint statement issued following a day of talks among finance officials from the Group of 20 rich industrial nations and major emerging markets such as China and Brazil. The effort will monitor countries and prod them to take corrective actions when imbalances in such areas as foreign trade or government debt rise to excessive levels.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters that the agreement is a significant achievement that will maintain the momentum to revive the global economy and prevent future financial crises. France is the head of the G-20 this year.

France’s defense minister, meanwhile, suggested that any move to oust Gadhafi might require a new U.N. Security Council resolution. But he conceded that any such resolution would likely be blocked by Russia and China, permanent council members who hold veto power.

NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, has said there is a growing need for precision attack aircraft to avoid civilian casualties as Gadhafi’s forces camouflage themselves and hide in populated areas to avoid Western airstrikes.

France’s defense minister, meanwhile, suggested that any move to oust Gadhafi might require a new U.N. Security Council resolution. But he conceded that any such resolution would likely be blocked by Russia and China, permanent council members who hold veto power.

NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, has said there is a growing need for precision attack aircraft to avoid civilian casualties as Gadhafi’s forces camouflage themselves and hide in populated areas to avoid Western airstrikes.

Croatian war veterans denounced the outcome and said Gen. Ante Gotovina was being persecuted for legitimate actions meant to liberate Serb-occupied territory.

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, created in 1993 while the Balkan wars were at their height, has convicted mostly Serb political and military leaders for plunging the region into the most vicious bloodletting in Europe since World War II.

The two sides left the federal courthouse in Minneapolis after about four hours of talks, following nine hours of meetings on Thursday. They will meet again Tuesday.

Hall of Famer Carl Eller, who is representing retired players in the antitrust lawsuit against the league, said he thinks the two sides are “moving forward” but the process “slowed a little bit” Friday.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for setting the blaze at his home in Corsicana, south of Dallas. He didn’t testify at his trial but always insisted – even in an obscenity-filled tirade the moment before his death – that he was innocent. He suggested the fire could have been started accidentally by his 2-year-old daughter, Amber, who died along with her 1-year-old twin sisters, Karmon and Kameron.

Death penalty opponents have questioned arson investigators’ testimony that led to Willingham’s conviction and suggest he may be the first person wrongly executed in the U.S. since capital punishment resumed more than three decades ago. Several experts have since concluded the fire at his home was of undetermined cause or accidental but not arson, as two fire marshals at the scene ruled in 1991.

The report on the proposed $7 billion, 1,900-mile pipeline, comes as President Barack Obama offered his first public comments on the project, which would carry crude oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada, to refineries in Texas. At a town hall meeting on energy last week, Obama said concerns about the potentially “destructive” nature of the Canadian oil sands need to be answered before his administration decides whether to approve a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The pipeline planned by Calgary-based TransCanada would travel through six U.S. states carrying what environmental groups call “dirty oil,” because of the intensive energy needed to extract crude from formations of sand, clay and water.

Courts have overruled several attempts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to drop wolves from the endangered list, siding with environmentalists whose lawsuits contended the predator’s status remains shaky even though about 4,200 wander forests and fields of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Agency officials said their new proposal addresses concerns raised by federal judges and should survive legal challenges. They will take public comment for 60 days before making a final decision.

Lawmakers and business interests are working to loosen Minnesota’s water quality standards to make it easier to start copper mining in the northeastern part of the state, but it could come at an environmental price. The fight is being closely watched by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, who fear that weaker standards could wipe out important natural stands of wild rice that provide food and medicine.

“It is sacred. It is a gift from the Creator. It is central to Ojibwe cultural identity. The cultural significance can’t be overstated,” said Nancy Schuldt, the band’s water projects coordinator.

“Our rolls dropped from 750,000 to 580,000 in the first couple of years,” Barbour said Tuesday on Capitol Hill, referring to Medicaid enrollment trends after he took office in January 2004. That would be a 22.7 percent decline.

The problem is, Barbour’s numbers are misleading, according to statistics provided by his own administration.

“Sometimes,” the Republican governor told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, “bipartisanship is not so good.”

Walker clearly was speaking of recent Wisconsin budget history. Still, it was an extraordinary message to deliver to Capitol Hill at a time of divided government, when leaders in Congress realize they have little choice but to negotiate the path toward the nation’s economic stability. As Walker spoke to the House panel, a Congress facing tough fiscal battles ahead was preparing to send the White House a bipartisan deal for $38 billion in spending cuts over the next six months.