-- Oil prices fell Tuesday as a perceived decline in U.S. demand took hold again after worries subsided about disruption of production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell $5.09 to $125.95 a barrel at 11:35 a.m. ET. Trading of the August contract was set to conclude with the close of the market in New York.
Economy: Analysts said remarks by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and a huge loss posted by banking company Wachovia Corp. contributed to the perception that demand for oil will drop in a weakened economy.
"Reduced economic activity translates into reduced energy demand," said John Kilduff, energy analyst with MF Global.
Paulson, speaking in New York, called for Congress to pass a bill to shore up mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they were the key to repairing the battered financial markets.
Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) reported a net loss of $9 billion on losses related to home mortgages and the bank's declining market value.
As financial activity declines, consumers have less money to spend and businesses cut back on transportation, shipping and manufacturing activities, Kilduff said.
Others viewed Paulson's statement, along a speech from Philadelphia Fed governor Charles Plosser supporting a potential rate hike, as a sign that the United States is on the right track to fixing its financial problems, which also would cause investors to pull money out of oil.
"People aren't going to need to buy oil as a hedge against the dollar or systemic risk in the economy," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst with Alaron Trading in Chicago.
Gasoline: High fuel prices, spurred on by oil's rise, have also done much to reduce demand, causing oil prices to shed more than $16 a barrel last week.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline fell 1.4 cents Tuesday to $4.055 a gallon Tuesday, according to a daily survey from motorist group AAA.
It was the fifth straight decline in the daily average, which has tumbled nearly 6 cents a gallon from the record high of $4.114 set last Wednesday.
Dolly: Oil producers Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil said Monday that while they were evacuating oil workers from the western part of the Gulf of Mexico, they expected Tropical Storm Dolly to have only a small effect on production.
The National Hurricane Center issued hurricane and tropical storm warnings Tuesday. It said Dolly - with heavy rains and winds up to 60 miles per hour, could touch the Gulf Coast Wednesday somewhere between Texas and northern Mexico.
"By tomorrow [Wednesday], assuming there has been no lasting damage, the attention will focus on the weekly [supply] report," said Peter Beutel, oil analyst at Cameron Hanover.
The Energy Department's weekly supply report was scheduled for release at 10:35 a.m. ET Wednesday.
The threat of Dolly to Gulf production had previously eclipsed concern about decreasing U.S. demand.
Iran: Beutel also said Iran remained a factor in the market, although not nearly as much of one as it has been in recent weeks.
Last weekend, at a meeting in Geneva, Iran rejected calls from the United States and five other world powers to freeze its nuclear program. The United States and its allies gave Iran two weeks to respond or face further United Nations sanctions.
Iran, the second-largest oil-producing member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has been in the process of developing nuclear technology, and said it could respond to military threats by blockading the nearby Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 40% of the world's tanker traffic.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Gore's surprise visit highlights Netroots conference
Name-dropping Al Gore and his call for a switch to clean, renewable energy within 10 years was enough to pull whoops of approval from the 2,000 or 3,000 marauding liberals gathered for Netroots Nation at the Austin Convention Center on Saturday morning.
So when the former vice president and Nobel Prize co-winner made a surprise — and cleverly scripted — appearance during U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's talk, it looked like the conference might turn into a faint-in.
Talk that Pelosi (who is arguably so left-leaning that her parenthetical should be D-Beijing) would have a Very Special Guest had been buzzing about the conference of liberal bloggers, pols and media types since it began Thursday (it concludes today). But it wasn't clear to attendees that something was afoot until a schedule change handed out Saturday morning indicated the speaker's talk would last 45 minutes longer than previously indicated.
Not that Gore's appearance was necessary to whip up the troops.
From the beginning, it was clear these people were convinced the electoral map would be repainted with a brush sopping with blue paint come November.
The believers will tell you it's morning, that they smell the napalm. And it smells like, oh, yes, victory.
It didn't seem to matter that the conservative and much smaller Defending the American Dream Summit — featuring syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr — was going on in Austin at the same time. That was miles from downtown, so there was little chance for a rumble.
With the current administration's low approval rating, a charismatic presumptive Democratic nominee and a Republican opponent some in the GOP have been reluctant to even air-kiss, the energy was palpable and, like the political blogosphere, terribly self-confirming.
They went to panels about how the presidential election would be won house by house, block by block. They staged mock media interviews and critiqued themselves, and showed films ("Crawford") and Internet videos ("Harry Potter and Dark Lord Waldemart"). They attended panels on the war, health care, online social networks, volunteer organizing and expanding the networking power of something called an "Internet."
There was even one panel Friday featuring Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (wearing, as if to galvanize stereotype, what appeared to be Birkenstocks) that was essentially about how the media weren't liberal enough.
As they say, only in Austin.
Filmmaker Paul Stekler, who teaches film production and politics at the University of Texas, said:"As you have greater democratization (through the use of technology to distribute one's message), you also have a greater degree of what's called confirmation bias. We live in a very different and weird world in terms of dissemination of information right now."
Indeed, you couldn't find anybody who disagreed that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were "two ignoramuses," a label hurled by Parag Mehta, the Democratic National Committee's director of training.
Big names? Got 'em. There was Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the Daily Kos political blog, who hatched the idea a few years ago to get his like-minded pals together and who, in a Friday lunchtime keynote with Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, seemed amazed at what the notion had unleashed.
"We're going to keep growing; we're going to keep pushing for an unapologetic Democratic Party," Moulitsas said.
Then there was John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel who has made a second career of railing against what he considers right-wing excesses the way recovering alcoholics preach against strong drink.
"I have deep fear of my former tribe, and what they might do particularly in the law," Dean said, before going on to refer to former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani as "Richard Nixon on crystal meth."
It's plinking bass in a barrel to paint liberals as overly intellectual types incapable of having fun unless reading Noam Chomsky counts, and it sure does for them. And there were a handful of colorful characters, including some men from Cedar Creek who looked like bikers and represented the Warrior Wolf Society, which they described as "a group of pagan warriors with wolf totem spirit," and a guy in a Bush mask and clothing with prison stripes.
But for the most part, these were serious-minded people, and decorum prevailed.
When a few people had the temerity to shout at Pelosi and Gore, they got shushed as mercilessly as they would have at a Nanci Griffith concert.
The no fun thing? Maybe it's because, as Democrats, they're not used to having it.
The incredible imploding presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry were used as textbook examples of what not to do. As political ad man John Rowley put it, he's been in the business for 15 years and only the last two have been good in terms of the political tide. Still, he said, "We've got to get ready for the day when we're not swimming downstream."
In other words, what a pendulum does is swing. But technology is power, and the left has been quicker to adopt it. As Gore put it Saturday morning:
"You are at the cutting edge of a new era of history. You will look back many years from now and tell your grandchildren about coming here to Austin, Texas, and about the first two meetings of Netroots Nation, and you will tell them that this was the beginning of an effort that was the start to reclaim the integrity of American democracy."
That is exactly what Joe Trippi had in mind. It was the one-time Howard Dean campaign aide who saw, perhaps a little too early and a little too enthusiastically, the transformative power of the Web. As he walked from one place to another Friday afternoon, he got stopped every 20 feet or so by people who knew him or at least knew of his ideas. And this is what they had wrought; this is what he had predicted.
"It's amazing," Trippi said. "I knew it was going to happen, but I'm still blown away that it happened."
So when the former vice president and Nobel Prize co-winner made a surprise — and cleverly scripted — appearance during U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's talk, it looked like the conference might turn into a faint-in.
Talk that Pelosi (who is arguably so left-leaning that her parenthetical should be D-Beijing) would have a Very Special Guest had been buzzing about the conference of liberal bloggers, pols and media types since it began Thursday (it concludes today). But it wasn't clear to attendees that something was afoot until a schedule change handed out Saturday morning indicated the speaker's talk would last 45 minutes longer than previously indicated.
Not that Gore's appearance was necessary to whip up the troops.
From the beginning, it was clear these people were convinced the electoral map would be repainted with a brush sopping with blue paint come November.
The believers will tell you it's morning, that they smell the napalm. And it smells like, oh, yes, victory.
It didn't seem to matter that the conservative and much smaller Defending the American Dream Summit — featuring syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr — was going on in Austin at the same time. That was miles from downtown, so there was little chance for a rumble.
With the current administration's low approval rating, a charismatic presumptive Democratic nominee and a Republican opponent some in the GOP have been reluctant to even air-kiss, the energy was palpable and, like the political blogosphere, terribly self-confirming.
They went to panels about how the presidential election would be won house by house, block by block. They staged mock media interviews and critiqued themselves, and showed films ("Crawford") and Internet videos ("Harry Potter and Dark Lord Waldemart"). They attended panels on the war, health care, online social networks, volunteer organizing and expanding the networking power of something called an "Internet."
There was even one panel Friday featuring Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (wearing, as if to galvanize stereotype, what appeared to be Birkenstocks) that was essentially about how the media weren't liberal enough.
As they say, only in Austin.
Filmmaker Paul Stekler, who teaches film production and politics at the University of Texas, said:"As you have greater democratization (through the use of technology to distribute one's message), you also have a greater degree of what's called confirmation bias. We live in a very different and weird world in terms of dissemination of information right now."
Indeed, you couldn't find anybody who disagreed that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were "two ignoramuses," a label hurled by Parag Mehta, the Democratic National Committee's director of training.
Big names? Got 'em. There was Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the Daily Kos political blog, who hatched the idea a few years ago to get his like-minded pals together and who, in a Friday lunchtime keynote with Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, seemed amazed at what the notion had unleashed.
"We're going to keep growing; we're going to keep pushing for an unapologetic Democratic Party," Moulitsas said.
Then there was John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel who has made a second career of railing against what he considers right-wing excesses the way recovering alcoholics preach against strong drink.
"I have deep fear of my former tribe, and what they might do particularly in the law," Dean said, before going on to refer to former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani as "Richard Nixon on crystal meth."
It's plinking bass in a barrel to paint liberals as overly intellectual types incapable of having fun unless reading Noam Chomsky counts, and it sure does for them. And there were a handful of colorful characters, including some men from Cedar Creek who looked like bikers and represented the Warrior Wolf Society, which they described as "a group of pagan warriors with wolf totem spirit," and a guy in a Bush mask and clothing with prison stripes.
But for the most part, these were serious-minded people, and decorum prevailed.
When a few people had the temerity to shout at Pelosi and Gore, they got shushed as mercilessly as they would have at a Nanci Griffith concert.
The no fun thing? Maybe it's because, as Democrats, they're not used to having it.
The incredible imploding presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry were used as textbook examples of what not to do. As political ad man John Rowley put it, he's been in the business for 15 years and only the last two have been good in terms of the political tide. Still, he said, "We've got to get ready for the day when we're not swimming downstream."
In other words, what a pendulum does is swing. But technology is power, and the left has been quicker to adopt it. As Gore put it Saturday morning:
"You are at the cutting edge of a new era of history. You will look back many years from now and tell your grandchildren about coming here to Austin, Texas, and about the first two meetings of Netroots Nation, and you will tell them that this was the beginning of an effort that was the start to reclaim the integrity of American democracy."
That is exactly what Joe Trippi had in mind. It was the one-time Howard Dean campaign aide who saw, perhaps a little too early and a little too enthusiastically, the transformative power of the Web. As he walked from one place to another Friday afternoon, he got stopped every 20 feet or so by people who knew him or at least knew of his ideas. And this is what they had wrought; this is what he had predicted.
"It's amazing," Trippi said. "I knew it was going to happen, but I'm still blown away that it happened."
Govt hopes resting on independents and undecided MPs
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seeking a trust vote in the Lok Sabha tomorrow with the Government on a razor's edge with hopes resting on independents and undecided MPs.
"That this House expresses its confidence in the Council of Ministers" will be the one-line motion the Prime Minister will move at the start of the session tomorrow. Voting is scheduled for Tuesday evening.
The Prime Minister will move the motion seeking confidence of the House in his Council of Ministers for the first time since the Congress-led coalition came to power four years ago.
Congress-led UPA and its new ally SP and its detractors including BJP-led NDA, UNPA, BSP and the Left parties are using every trick in the trade to muster numbers for and against the confidence motion.
The numbers game is a dicey affair as some small parties and independents could spoil the party for either side.
The strength of rival sides showed that the Government has to work hard to reach the magic figure of 271, the opposition too has to walk the extra mile to topple the Government.
Lok Sabha has an effective strength of 541 as there are two vacancies besides a member doesn't have voting rights while the Speaker could cast a vote in case of a tie.
The two-day session is the 14th session of the 14th Lok Sabha and has been convened specially for the trust vote.
Prime Minister is seeking the vote in the backdrop of Left withdrawing support to the coalition in the wake of the Government deciding to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal. PTI
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"That this House expresses its confidence in the Council of Ministers" will be the one-line motion the Prime Minister will move at the start of the session tomorrow. Voting is scheduled for Tuesday evening.
The Prime Minister will move the motion seeking confidence of the House in his Council of Ministers for the first time since the Congress-led coalition came to power four years ago.
Congress-led UPA and its new ally SP and its detractors including BJP-led NDA, UNPA, BSP and the Left parties are using every trick in the trade to muster numbers for and against the confidence motion.
The numbers game is a dicey affair as some small parties and independents could spoil the party for either side.
The strength of rival sides showed that the Government has to work hard to reach the magic figure of 271, the opposition too has to walk the extra mile to topple the Government.
Lok Sabha has an effective strength of 541 as there are two vacancies besides a member doesn't have voting rights while the Speaker could cast a vote in case of a tie.
The two-day session is the 14th session of the 14th Lok Sabha and has been convened specially for the trust vote.
Prime Minister is seeking the vote in the backdrop of Left withdrawing support to the coalition in the wake of the Government deciding to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal. PTI
HOME CLOSE
US watching trust vote with fingers crossed, lips sealed
With the fate of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government hanging in balance over the India-US civil nuclear deal, the Washington establishment is keeping its fingers crossed and lips sealed before Tuesday's trust vote.
The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country's domestic affairs, but officials sure are hoping the Manmohan Singh government would survive.
For, the government's survival alone would give the embattled President George W. Bush one last chance to score a major foreign policy success of his administration though given the US legislative calendar, it still would not be a sure thing.
Also read
à Economic reforms: The unfinished agenda
à India Inc hopes reforms will now get a push
à Bookies bet on Manmohan Singh government to win
à US raises pitch to sell India its missile defence system
Absorbed as it is in the long US presidential election campaign, the US media had paid little attention to the brewing crisis in New Delhi so far, but the impending trust vote has indeed caught its attention.
"Even in the cacophony of Indian politics, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has absolute faith in his country's controversial civilian nuclear deal with the US," noted influential Time newsmagazine in a piece titled "Nuclear Brinksmanship".
So unshakable is his commitment to the agreement that Manmohan Singh has bet his political future on it, the weekly said.
"On July 22, Singh will find out whether his gamble has paid off - or if it has cost him his four-year-old administration.
"If they are to keep their jobs, Singh and other Congress party members have to convince voters, as well as lawmakers who are sitting on the fence, that the leadership hasn't sold out and turned India into a US pawn," it said referring to the Leftist parties' criticism of the deal.
Expecting the vote to be close, Time said: "With about a dozen lawmakers undecided, the prime minister can probably swing enough votes by making a few compromises. One compromise he will almost certainly not make: backing down on his deal with the US."
The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country's domestic affairs, but officials sure are hoping the Manmohan Singh government would survive.
For, the government's survival alone would give the embattled President George W. Bush one last chance to score a major foreign policy success of his administration though given the US legislative calendar, it still would not be a sure thing.
Also read
à Economic reforms: The unfinished agenda
à India Inc hopes reforms will now get a push
à Bookies bet on Manmohan Singh government to win
à US raises pitch to sell India its missile defence system
Absorbed as it is in the long US presidential election campaign, the US media had paid little attention to the brewing crisis in New Delhi so far, but the impending trust vote has indeed caught its attention.
"Even in the cacophony of Indian politics, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has absolute faith in his country's controversial civilian nuclear deal with the US," noted influential Time newsmagazine in a piece titled "Nuclear Brinksmanship".
So unshakable is his commitment to the agreement that Manmohan Singh has bet his political future on it, the weekly said.
"On July 22, Singh will find out whether his gamble has paid off - or if it has cost him his four-year-old administration.
"If they are to keep their jobs, Singh and other Congress party members have to convince voters, as well as lawmakers who are sitting on the fence, that the leadership hasn't sold out and turned India into a US pawn," it said referring to the Leftist parties' criticism of the deal.
Expecting the vote to be close, Time said: "With about a dozen lawmakers undecided, the prime minister can probably swing enough votes by making a few compromises. One compromise he will almost certainly not make: backing down on his deal with the US."
Suspended Gujarat BJP MP hints at voting for UPA
Rebel BJP MP Somabhai Patel on Sunday indicated that he may vote in favour of the UPA during the confidence motion in Lok Sabha, claiming that he was not bound by a whip as he remains suspended from the party.
"I am free to take my own decision," the MP from Surendranagar in Gujarat told PTI on the phone. He said he would announce his decision before the session begins.
Patel, a strong critic of the style of functioning of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, said he was not bound by a whip as he has been suspended from the party.
Accusing senior party leader L K Advani of joining hands with the Communists to "fulfil his dream of becoming the Prime Minister," Patel said "Advani should have waited for six more months for the next Lok Sabha polls".
He claimed that there is no danger to UPA government and that it will win July 22 trust vote.
When it was pointed out that BJP has revoked the suspension of Vallabh Kathiriya, party MP from Rajkot, he replied "I am not Kathiriya".
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a close ally of UPA, is in touch with him, Patel said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am free to take my own decision," the MP from Surendranagar in Gujarat told PTI on the phone. He said he would announce his decision before the session begins.
Patel, a strong critic of the style of functioning of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, said he was not bound by a whip as he has been suspended from the party.
Accusing senior party leader L K Advani of joining hands with the Communists to "fulfil his dream of becoming the Prime Minister," Patel said "Advani should have waited for six more months for the next Lok Sabha polls".
He claimed that there is no danger to UPA government and that it will win July 22 trust vote.
When it was pointed out that BJP has revoked the suspension of Vallabh Kathiriya, party MP from Rajkot, he replied "I am not Kathiriya".
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a close ally of UPA, is in touch with him, Patel said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, July 19, 2008
South Africa celebrates Mandela on his 90th
Some came in exquisitely beaded traditional skins, others wore T-shirts emblazoned with his name, and Nelson Mandela welcomed all to the festive tent outside his home Saturday for the formal celebration of the anti-apartheid icon's 90th birthday.
Hundreds of guests stood and cheered and a Xhosa choir sang "Here is our hope!" at the entrance of Mandela — walking in with his successor as South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, and African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma. Mandela, wearing an intricately patterned shirt in shades of brown, stopped to personally greet a few of the 500 honored guests as he made his way to the head table.
Zuma called the gathering a celebration of "a life and legacy of a father, grandfather, comrade, warrior, soldier, nation builder and statesman." Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda caught the festive mood with a tuneful solo of "Happy Birthday" followed by a teasing verse:
"How old are you? State secret!" Then the 84-year-old Kaunda jogged over to Mandela to shake his hand.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner icon had celebrated privately with his family in his home village in the country's rural southeast on Friday, the day he turned 90. Saturday was a grand occasion at his homestead in Qunu, 600 miles south of Johannesburg where as a boy he herded cattle in the hills.
The party tent was decorated with the blue and orange colors of Mandela's Xhosa tribe and with his clan's crest — a bee flanked by tree branches, symbolizing industry, community and strength.
George Bizos was among the fellow veterans of the struggle to transform South Africa from a white supremacist pariah nation into a multiracial democracy who came to the party Saturday. He identified Mandela's optimism as his most "sterling quality.
"He always believed that there would be freedom around the corner," said Bizos, a lawyer who defended Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders during the era of white rule.
Tributes from Mbeki and others and performances by choirs and dancers were planned under the tent. As the party started, herd boys beat drums outside, while an orchestra played inside.
"Clearly, today is a very special day for all of us in South Africa and around the world," said Mac Maharaj, who served time with Mandela on Robben Island, and then served in Mandela's Cabinet.
Mandela was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended decades of racist white rule, then was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.
He completed his term in 1999 and did not run again, but has continued to take a leading role in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and AIDS in Africa. Age has slowed him in recent years, but many still remain in awe of his stamina. Just last month he was the honored guest for a huge charity concert in London's Hyde Park.
"For a man of 90, he's in very good shape," one of his doctors, Peter Friedland, said at the party Saturday.
He looked and sounded vigorous Friday when he gave a brief interview to a small group of reporters from The Associated Press and other media, his first such exchange in several years. He was expected to address the party guests later Saturday.
During Friday's interview, he expressed deep concern at the poverty that still grips wide swaths of South Africa. The economy has grown steadily in recent years, but the benefits have yet to trickle to the poorest. Most blacks were stripped of resources and given inferior education under apartheid, leaving them unprepared to enjoy development now.
Mandela's message was simple — the wealthy must do more.
"There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate, who have not been able to conquer poverty," Mandela said Friday.
Friday was also the 10th anniversary of his marriage to his third wife, Graca Machel.
Flowers were arranged in vases of tin, a traditional material for 10th anniversary gifts, at the head table Saturday. His children and grandchildren had put together an album of family photographs and testimonials as a gift, bound in aluminum, another 10th anniversary material.
Hundreds of guests stood and cheered and a Xhosa choir sang "Here is our hope!" at the entrance of Mandela — walking in with his successor as South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, and African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma. Mandela, wearing an intricately patterned shirt in shades of brown, stopped to personally greet a few of the 500 honored guests as he made his way to the head table.
Zuma called the gathering a celebration of "a life and legacy of a father, grandfather, comrade, warrior, soldier, nation builder and statesman." Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda caught the festive mood with a tuneful solo of "Happy Birthday" followed by a teasing verse:
"How old are you? State secret!" Then the 84-year-old Kaunda jogged over to Mandela to shake his hand.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner icon had celebrated privately with his family in his home village in the country's rural southeast on Friday, the day he turned 90. Saturday was a grand occasion at his homestead in Qunu, 600 miles south of Johannesburg where as a boy he herded cattle in the hills.
The party tent was decorated with the blue and orange colors of Mandela's Xhosa tribe and with his clan's crest — a bee flanked by tree branches, symbolizing industry, community and strength.
George Bizos was among the fellow veterans of the struggle to transform South Africa from a white supremacist pariah nation into a multiracial democracy who came to the party Saturday. He identified Mandela's optimism as his most "sterling quality.
"He always believed that there would be freedom around the corner," said Bizos, a lawyer who defended Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders during the era of white rule.
Tributes from Mbeki and others and performances by choirs and dancers were planned under the tent. As the party started, herd boys beat drums outside, while an orchestra played inside.
"Clearly, today is a very special day for all of us in South Africa and around the world," said Mac Maharaj, who served time with Mandela on Robben Island, and then served in Mandela's Cabinet.
Mandela was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended decades of racist white rule, then was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.
He completed his term in 1999 and did not run again, but has continued to take a leading role in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and AIDS in Africa. Age has slowed him in recent years, but many still remain in awe of his stamina. Just last month he was the honored guest for a huge charity concert in London's Hyde Park.
"For a man of 90, he's in very good shape," one of his doctors, Peter Friedland, said at the party Saturday.
He looked and sounded vigorous Friday when he gave a brief interview to a small group of reporters from The Associated Press and other media, his first such exchange in several years. He was expected to address the party guests later Saturday.
During Friday's interview, he expressed deep concern at the poverty that still grips wide swaths of South Africa. The economy has grown steadily in recent years, but the benefits have yet to trickle to the poorest. Most blacks were stripped of resources and given inferior education under apartheid, leaving them unprepared to enjoy development now.
Mandela's message was simple — the wealthy must do more.
"There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate, who have not been able to conquer poverty," Mandela said Friday.
Friday was also the 10th anniversary of his marriage to his third wife, Graca Machel.
Flowers were arranged in vases of tin, a traditional material for 10th anniversary gifts, at the head table Saturday. His children and grandchildren had put together an album of family photographs and testimonials as a gift, bound in aluminum, another 10th anniversary material.
Obama visits Afghanistan on international tour
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.
US military commanders at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, briefed Obama and other senators on the international effort against Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the US-led coalition said.
The delegation later flew to a base in eastern Afghanistan, closer to the border with Pakistan, where they met more of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Obama was due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, the Afghan government said.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the situation on the ground.
"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what ... their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."
The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.
If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.
In a radio address Saturday to coincide with the visit, his Republican rival John McCain criticised Obama for announcing his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before his fact-finding tour.
"Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy -- remarkable," McCain said.
An extremist insurgency was launched in Afghanistan after the Taliban were removed from government in late 2001 in an invasion led by the United States.
The hardliners were attacked after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders for the 9/11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in Washington and New York.
The number of international troops in Afghanistan has since risen to nearly 70,000 but the unrest has grown too, with some of the bloodiest incidents in recent months.
In one of the deadliest attacks on foreign troops since they deployed here in 2001, nine US soldiers were killed July 13 when about 200 insurgents stormed a base at a remote outpost in the northeast. Another 15 soldiers were wounded.
A week earlier, Kabul was struck by its deadliest suicide attack when a car bomb blew up outside the Indian embassy. Around 60 people were killed including two senior Indian diplomats.
The spike in violence has led Afghanistan to accuse elements in Pakistan, another US ally, of supporting the rebels, further straining an already tense relationship between the Muslim neighbours.
In new violence, a Canadian soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the southern province of Kandahar, the Canadian military said.
Four Afghan police officers were killed in a similar blast elsewhere that was claimed by the Taliban.
US military commanders at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, briefed Obama and other senators on the international effort against Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the US-led coalition said.
The delegation later flew to a base in eastern Afghanistan, closer to the border with Pakistan, where they met more of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Obama was due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, the Afghan government said.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the situation on the ground.
"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what ... their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."
The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.
If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.
In a radio address Saturday to coincide with the visit, his Republican rival John McCain criticised Obama for announcing his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before his fact-finding tour.
"Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy -- remarkable," McCain said.
An extremist insurgency was launched in Afghanistan after the Taliban were removed from government in late 2001 in an invasion led by the United States.
The hardliners were attacked after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders for the 9/11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in Washington and New York.
The number of international troops in Afghanistan has since risen to nearly 70,000 but the unrest has grown too, with some of the bloodiest incidents in recent months.
In one of the deadliest attacks on foreign troops since they deployed here in 2001, nine US soldiers were killed July 13 when about 200 insurgents stormed a base at a remote outpost in the northeast. Another 15 soldiers were wounded.
A week earlier, Kabul was struck by its deadliest suicide attack when a car bomb blew up outside the Indian embassy. Around 60 people were killed including two senior Indian diplomats.
The spike in violence has led Afghanistan to accuse elements in Pakistan, another US ally, of supporting the rebels, further straining an already tense relationship between the Muslim neighbours.
In new violence, a Canadian soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the southern province of Kandahar, the Canadian military said.
Four Afghan police officers were killed in a similar blast elsewhere that was claimed by the Taliban.
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