Washed It!

In a sharp setback, the United States and South Korea failed to reach agreement on an elusive free-trade deal but will continue pressing for an accord in the weeks ahead, President Obama said Thursday.

Obama had hoped to announce a deal on the long-stalled pact while in South Korea for meetings of the Group of 20 economic powers, but instead he will return home empty-handed.

“We have asked our teams to work tirelessly in the coming days and weeks to get this completed,” Obama said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

“We don’t want months to pass before we get this done,” Obama said. “We want this to be done in a matter of weeks.”

Prospects for reaching a deal seemed unlikely before Obama’s meeting and subsequent appearance with his South Korean counterpart.

At issue is a pact to slash tariffs and other barriers to trade, one that was signed in 2007 when previous administrations were in power. It remains unratified by lawmakers in both countries, and trade between the nations has slipped. The U.S. wants the deal to address a trade imbalance and beef access to South Korea’s market before submitting it to Congress.

Earlier in the day in a speech marking America’s Veterans Day, Obama condemned North Korea for continuing on “a path of confrontation and provocation” that he says deepens its isolation from the world and worsens the poverty of its people.

Obama said the reclusive communist nation must show a “seriousness of purpose” before the U.S. will restart six-party talks aimed at curbing the country’s drive to become a nuclear power.

He saluted the bravery of U.S. troops who defended South Korea during its war with North Korea.

Speaking at an Army garrison in a country where the U.S. keeps more than 28,000 troops, Obama said North Korea knows the path to prosperity and suggested its leaders take it.

“Because the Korean War ended where it began geographically, some used the phrase ‘Die for a Tie’ to describe the sacrifice of those who fought here,” Obama said. “But as we look around at this thriving democracy and its grateful, hopeful citizens, one thing is clear: This was no tie. This was victory.

“This was a victory then, and it is a victory today,” he said.

In the Veterans Day address, Obama said that, some 60 years after the war, the Korean peninsula provides the world’s clearest contrast between a society that is open and one that is closed, between a dynamic, growing nation like South Korea and a North Korea “that would rather starve its people than change.”

“It’s a contrast that’s so stark you can see it from space, as the brilliant lights of Seoul give way to utter darkness in the North,” he said, describing the difference as a direct result of the road taken by the reclusive, communist North.

Obama said the U.S. “will never waver” in its commitment to South Korea’s security and that North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security. He urged Pyongyang to take another path, a road that he said will offer its people growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty.

The commander in chief spoke inside a packed gymnasium, addressing a uniformed audience of service members from the different branches of the U.S. military. They surrounded him from all sides and many snapped photos as he spoke.

Obama condemned North Korea, saying its circumstances were not “an accident of history” but a direct result of the country choosing “a path of confrontation and provocation.” That path, Obama said, includes its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and the deadly sinking earlier this year of a South Korean warship.

“In the wake of this aggression, Pyongyang should not be mistaken: The United States will never waver in our commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea. We will not waver,” he said. “The alliance between our two nations has never been stronger, and along the with the rest of the world, we have made it clear that North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security.”

Obama said North Korea has another path available to it.

“If they choose to fulfill their international obligations and commitments to the international community, they will have the chance to offer their people lives of growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty — a future of greater security and greater respect; a future that includes the prosperity and opportunity available to citizens on this end of the Korean peninsula,” he said.

After the speech, Obama laid a wreath at a war memorial.
U.S. fails to reach free-trade deal with South Korea

President Obama said Monday that India should rise to the status of holding a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a dramatic show of respect to the powerful nation he hopes will play a key role in support of U.S. interests around the world.

But the stature would come with a price, Obama told members of parliament, exhorting them to join with the international community in difficult fights ahead.

“Let me suggest that with increased power comes increased responsibility,” Obama said in an evening address here. The U.N. exists to preserve peace and security and advance human rights, he said, which the responsibilities of all nations “but especially those that seek to lead in the 21st century.”

The pledge is only a step in direction of new international stature for India. The nation likely won’t attain permanent council status anytime soon, and the U.S. is backing its addition only as part of a series of council reforms that could be years in the making.

Still, the promise fulfills India’s top priority on the agenda of Obama’s visit, a three-day series of meetings to build what the White House is now calling an “indispensable partnership.”

In his final scheduled day in the country, Obama met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to craft the broad outlines of that partnership, agreeing to collaborate anew in the effort to root out terrorists, reform export controls and combat hunger.
The talks touched on sensitive subjects, as Obama unveiled for Singh the findings of a new report on the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and what the U.S. knew in advance about the American collaborator David Headley.

The report, due to be released publicly as early as Monday, shows that American intelligence community had picked up general suspicions about Headley but that the information didn’t point to a specific plot in the works, administration officials said.
Obama supports U.N. Security Council seat for India

Democrats and their allies, moving to counter millions of dollars flowing to Republican campaigns from groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have accused the international business organization of using foreign money to influence American elections.

The effort to paint conservative political groups as fronts for multinational corporations and foreign billionaires gathered steam this week after an affiliate of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress charged that the chamber was using funds from foreign corporations to finance its political operations in Washington.

Foreign spending in U.S. elections is against the law. Tita Freeman, vice president of communications at the chamber, called the Center for American Progress report “unfounded and completely erroneous.” The foreign companies cited in the report “pay nominal dues” that “do not support U.S. chamber political activities,” Freeman said.

The liberal group MoveOn.org planned a rally outside the chamber’s Washington headquarters Thursday to bring attention to the charges.

The issue of campaign fundraising is casting a shadow over this year’s races after a Supreme Court ruling in January allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations, labor unions and interest groups — some of which are not required to disclose their funding sources.

Corporations and interest groups, operating outside official political party committees, have provided a potent source of cash for Republicans. Democratic-allied groups have attempted to match the spending but lag far behind.

The liberal organization Think Progress said on its website that an investigation found that dues and fees collected from the chamber’s overseas chapters and foreign business members goes into the same account used to fund its political activities.

Freeman called the allegation “an attempt to silence businesspeople, to silence those who support free enterprise, and an intentional diversion in advance of the midterm elections.”

The chamber and two new groups cofounded by Republican strategist Karl Rove — American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS — are expected to spend more than $100 million on media campaigns in the final month before election day. Allies of Democrats have attempted to counter the overwhelming budgets of right-leaning groups with their own meager but pointed ad buys.

On Wednesday, Campaign Money Watch, a Democratic-leaning group that advocates for public financing of elections, took out a $750,000 ad to oppose the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado. The move came a day after American Crossroads spent about the same on ads opposing the Democratic incumbent.

Also Wednesday, the National Education Assn. committed to spending $15 million this cycle and began airing television ads for Democratic incumbents in Arizona and Ohio.

But with less than one month to go, the big money still trended in Republicans’ favor.

On Tuesday, Crossroads GPS spent more than $1 million on advertising against Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate for President Obama’s former Senate seat in Illinois, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Meanwhile, two nonpartisan groups that advocate stricter campaign finance controls urged the Internal Revenue Service this week to investigate Crossroads GPS. The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 said the Rove group is organized in a way that “allows its donors to evade the public disclosure requirements” that otherwise would apply if the organization was registered differently.

kim.geiger@latimes.com
Liberal groups say foreign funds aid Republicans

Iran and Egypt, two countries that long have been openly hostile to each other, made a surprise agreement Sunday to resume direct flights for the first time since radical clerics ousted Iran’s monarchy in 1979.

Civil aviation and tourism authorities meeting in Cairo signed an accord to begin 28 weekly flights between the two countries but did not specify a start date, media in both countries reported.

The pronouncement baffled observers. The two countries back opposing political camps in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, lack full diplomatic ties and continually snipe at each other. But Iran’s pro-government Fars news agency described the deal and a visit by an Iranian trade delegation to Cairo as “a prelude to the resumption of ties between the two countries.”

The aviation accord comes as U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians struggle for traction. Israel has refused to halt the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and the Palestinians say negotiations cannot go on while construction continues.

The Jewish settlements are enormously unpopular in the Arab world, but there was no suggestion that Egypt was trying to gain leverage over Israelis or their American backers by making a deal at a time the West is trying to isolate Iran over its nuclear program.

“This move has been long in coming,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. “What’s remarkable isn’t the resumption of direct flights between Tehran and Cairo, the two largest cities in the Middle East, but the fact that it has taken over 30 years for it to happen.”

Iran appears to be seeking business opportunities to make up for economic troubles caused in part by international sanctions. On Sunday, Iranian aviation authorities announced a 30% increase in domestic air fares to make up for airline budget shortfalls. A day earlier Iranian officials announced a flurry of deals with Syria.

The Egyptian aviation accord coincided with the arrival of an Iranian delegation attending a World Health Organization conference in Cairo, and appeared to be part of a $1.37-billion deal recently announced between Egyptian tycoon Rami Lakah and Iran’s privately owned Kish Airlines, which now mostly flies Iranians between the Persian Gulf and Tehran.

Rapprochement between Egypt and Iran could change the diplomatic balance of the Middle East, but many hurdles remain. Tehran calls Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel, a U.S. lackey, while Cairo considers the Islamic Republic an exporter of extremist Islam and terrorism.

Egyptian officials have complained for years that Iran continues to publicly hail the assassin of Anwar Sadat, who signed Cairo’s peace deal with Israel. Egypt hosts the tomb of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi and annually honors the late monarch, which ruffles Iran.

daragahi@latimes.com

Daragahi reported from Beirut and Hassan from Cairo. Hassan is a news assistant in The Times’ Cairo Bureau.

Iran, Egypt to resume direct flights after 31-year freeze

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts who lived six months on the International Space Station touched down safely, but one day late, Saturday morning in the cloudy, central steppes of Kazakhstan.

The homecoming of American astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson and Russia’s Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko had been delayed after technical glitches hindered the undocking of the spacecraft.

NASA spokesman Rob Navias said in a Web streamed report on the landing that the Soyuz craft landed vertically at its precise planned landing spot at 11:23 a.m. local time (0523 GMT).

“That was almost a bull’s-eye landing,” Navias said.

A hover of 12 Russian recovery helicopters took flight ahead of the landing above an area southeast of the remote central Kazakh town Arkalyk to intercept the capsule.

Recovery workers arrived quickly at the landing spot and erected a plaftorm around the slightly titled capsule.

Skvortsov beamed with joy and held his fist aloft as the recovery team carefully lifted him out of the Soyuz.

After being hoisted out of the craft, the astronauts were immediately placed into reclining chairs to help them recover from the change in gravitational pull after spending 176 days in space.

Russian space officials and health workers then crowded around a smiling Skvortsov and handed him an apple, as is tradition.

Caldwell-Dyson, who looked weary but joyous, spoke with colleagues by satellite phone after being lowered into her chair and wrapped in a blanket.

By contrast with the previous day’s attempt to depart the space station, undocking from the International Space Station was executed flawlessly and exactly on schedule.

The three astronauts remaining aboard the space station — Americans Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker, and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin — pumped their fists with joy as they watched a report on the landing via a direct feed.

Russian cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, along with NASA astronaut Scott J. Kelly, will join them after blasting off from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan on Oct. 8.

Undocking on Friday had been thwarted by signaling errors in the onboard computer system and a malfunction with the opening hooks and latches on the space station side of the capsule.

After the failed undocking attempt, one of the Russian cosmonauts on board, flight engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin, inspected the space station docking mechanism holding the Soyuz in place and discovered a loose piece of gear mechanism with two teeth broken off.

The crew installed a series of electrical jumper cables to bypass what’s believed to be a failed part. Once that was completed, the cosmonauts performed a test, and the hooks and latches opened properly, NASA said.

Minor but recurring glitches with the Soyuz will create unease as reliance on the Russian craft increases over the next few years with two launches left for U.S. space shuttles before the fleet is retired.

Space shuttle Discovery is set to lift off Nov. 1 for the International Space Station. Endeavour will follow in February to wrap up 30 years of shuttle flight.

That will leave NASA without its own means to send astronauts into space for the first time in half a century.
Soyuz capsule lands in Kazakhstan

Five U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs and insurgent fire in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest casualties in a particularly bloody spell that has left 12 service members dead in two days, and 19 since Saturday.

Meanwhile, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Kabul, a gunman opened fire on a busload of Afghan Supreme Court clerks, killing three and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry reported.

Assailants on two motorcycles halted the bus Tuesday morning in the Musayi district, an area where insurgents are active, court spokesman Abdul Malik Kamawi said. One gunman then boarded the bus and opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing two people, Kamawi said. A third died later in a hospital.

“We’re trying to find out who they were. For now, we can only say they are the enemies of the Afghan people,” Kamawi said.

Suspicion immediately fell on Taliban insurgents who have waged a continuous campaign against Afghan government officials and institutions and have stepped up attacks in the run-up to Sept. 18 elections for the lower house of parliament. Candidates and their aides have been threatened, kidnapped and killed, and many voters say they plan to stay away from the polls for fear of violence.

In Tuesday’s attacks, NATO said four troops were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a battle with insurgents in the country’s south. No other details were given and the service members were not identified by name, as is standard procedure.

The deaths came a day after roadside bombs killed eight other members of the international force in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops, NATO said Tuesday. A 20-year-old Estonian soldier was also killed.

The deaths bring this month’s total to 55, including a Marine killed in fighting in the volatile southern province of Helmand on Friday whose death was not announced until Monday night. That is still fewer than the 66 killed in July, the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

Almost all of the recent coalition deaths have come in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is most deeply entrenched and where fighting has been heaviest.

Those areas are also closest to the mountainous border with Pakistan, where insurgents maintain safe havens and training bases to instruct recruits, including foreign fighters, who are later infiltrated into Afghanistan.

NATO commanders have warned casualties will mount as coalition and Afghan forces enter areas under longtime Taliban control, particularly in the hard-line Islamic movement’s spiritual heartland of Kandahar province. The NATO force swelled this month to more than 140,000 — including 100,000 Americans — with the arrival of the last of the reinforcements that President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide of the nearly nine-year war.

Also Tuesday, NATO also said its forces, working with Afghan army and police, had killed 19 insurgents and captured five in a major air assault on the village of Omar in the eastern province of Kunar.

Ground forces taking part in the assault that began Monday uncovered insurgent fighting positions, along with weapons caches and ammunition stockpiles inside the village, it said.

The coalition also said it killed two insurgents and wounded a third in an airstrike Monday on a Taliban commander in charge of logistics in Kandahar, including the coordination of homemade bomb attacks.

A number of Taliban and allied Haqqani Network commanders were also detained in operations Monday, including one recently returned from teaching bomb-making techniques in Pakistan, NATO said.

In Zabul province bordering Kandahar, insurgents on Monday night ambushed a convoy carrying food and other supplies, killing two private security guards and wounding five others, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.
12 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2 days

Engineers began loading the fuel roads into a Russian-built nuclear power reactor on Iran’s southern Persian Gulf coast Saturday morning, a relatively important milestone in the construction and operation of the long-delayed plant, Iran’s state television reported.

The plant has become the center of an international controversy. Iranians, Russians and Americans have invested the reactor with a symbolic significance beyond its ability to produce electricity and advance Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The Bush administration’s former U.N. envoy, John Bolton, made waves and set off war jitters this week after he said in a television appearance that Israel had days to bomb the plant before the fuel cells were loaded or risk creating a radioactive cloud that would harm too many civilians. Iran countered with its own threat. “In that case we will lose a power plant, but Israel’s existence will be in danger,” Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahdi said.