Nation/world roundup
Rice, Rumsfeld tout new Iraqi government
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Success in forming a new Iraqi government may let some U.S. troops leave the war zone within months, the top American military commander in Iraq said Wednesday.
Paying a surprise visit, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld embraced the country's fledgling leaders as independent and focused on the future.
"I came away most encouraged," Rumsfeld said after he and Rice spent a day meeting with Iraqi politicians and U.S. military and diplomatic advisers in the capital city.
Egypt bombings linked to earlier attacks
CAIRO, Egypt -- Two suicide attackers targeting international peacekeepers and police blew themselves up Wednesday, two days after nearly simultaneous bombings killed at least 21 people at a resort in the Sinai Peninula.
Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said all the blasts this week were linked to terror attacks against Sinai resorts last year and in 2004.
Rove testifies again in CIA leak case
WASHINGTON -- Top White House aide Karl Rove made his fifth grand jury appearance in the Valerie Plame affair Wednesday, undergoing several hours of questioning about a new issue that has come to light since the last time he testified.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald declined to comment at the conclusion of the grand jury session.
Rove appeared at ease as he left the U.S. courthouse, joking to journalists to "move to the back" as the White House aide, his lawyers and several reporters entered an elevator to leave the building.
EU lawmakers allege numerous CIA flights
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The CIA has conducted more than 1,000 clandestine flights in Europe since 2001, and some of them secretly took away terror suspects to countries where they could face torture, European Union lawmakers said Wednesday.
Legislators selected to look into allegations of questionable CIA activities in Europe said flight data showed a pattern of hidden operations by American agents, and they accused some European governments of knowing about it but remaining silent.
Senate panel demands oil co. tax records
WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee Wednesday announced an investigation into taxes paid by major oil companies and asked the Internal Revenue Service for the companies' tax returns.
The Senate Finance Committee promised "a comprehensive review of the federal taxes paid" by the oil companies on their record profits last year.
High cancer rate linked to former industrial site
BOSTON -- A disturbingly high number of cancer cases have been linked to a former textile dye-making plant and its waste ponds, where several people now battling cancer swam when they were children, state health officials say.
A seven-year study found that people who grew up in Ashland between the late 1960s and early '80s and swam in contaminated ponds were two to three times more likely to develop cancer than those who had no contact with the water.
Investigators interviewed 1,387 people who were aged 10 to 18 years old during the period 1965 to 1985 and lived in Ashland.
The study found 73 cases of cancer and eight cancer-related deaths. About two-thirds of the cancers were diagnosed before age 35, and many involved rare forms.
U.S. unprepared for major disaster, Senate report says
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is unprepared for a disaster of Hurricane Katrina's scale, according to a Senate inquiry that lawmakers said Wednesday took a critical look at failures in responding to the storm.
The final report is "fair and tough, and it charts a course to strengthen our nation's emergency preparedness at all levels," leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee wrote their colleagues.
The Associated Press on Wednesday obtained a copy of the letter written by the committee's head, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and the top Democrat, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The report's title is "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared."
From wire reports. E-mail news@thesantaclara.com.